KaiRise

In my role as a Partner at KaiRise, I spearheaded the development of the industry's first on-demand ICAgile accredited course, transforming the way agile training is delivered. By prioritizing flexibility and speed, I successfully increased course enrollment and client satisfaction, making agile training more accessible than ever before.

Partner

Accenture

Working across all Federal accounts and capabilities at AFS’ San Antonio location, promote awareness and adoption of Lean-Agile values, principles, processes and technical practices. Consult with clients and account teams on effective patterns for transformation and high-quality delivery. Provide thought leadership to enable accounts to grow their Lean-Agile practice. Provide sales and BD support at the account, sector and portfolio level. 

Primary focus falls into four key areas:

Delivery Support - Jumpstart new Agile projects by helping client teams understand Agile, onboard key roles, execute Sprint Zero. Work closely with project leadership to assess organizational impediments, measure flow and develop strategies for continuously improving. 

Thought Leadership - Collaborate with the AFS Agile Institute, Accenture LLP,  and the industry as a whole to promote local adoption of our corporate capabilities, and industry best practices. 

Education - Provide classroom training to project teams and clients in our ICAgile accredited courses and the Scaled Agile (SAFe) curriculum. 

Sales Enablement - Play an active role in supporting business development and proposal efforts for Agile opportunities across all accounts.

Agile Consultant

Compassion International

As a servant-leader, coach the global solutions engineering teams (currently 11 agile teams) to manage the life cycle of critical corporate-wide and customer-specific technology based products primarily using Lean and Agile SDLC practices – Scrum, KanBan, XP, ScrumBan, SAFe.  

Continuously develop a work environment promoting continual improvement and learning, free from fear of failure, while supporting mistakes that encourage continual learning.  Employ a Lean leadership style focusing on developing team members’ skills. 
Serve as an Agile Coach and transformation agent as the ministry transforms to a new way of thinking, applying Lean Agile principles to all levels of work.  Create teams that are jointly responsible for success, solving problems together in ways that develop people’s capabilities and increases their engagement and commitment, focusing on respect for people.

Develop and implement global strategy for application software design and development. Ensure staffing and development in function to provide technical and strategic expertise in the creation of global inter-related system design for existing architecture or new deployments.  Direct the development of specifications and requirements to integrate global applications.  Serve as catalyst and expert leader, driving the development and implementation of new standards in software development.

Provide strategic direction in gathering requirements and development specifications to design and integrate into applications.  Direct application software design and development services and technical leadership for existing architecture or new deployments. Create an environment that attracts and develops skilled professional staff engaged in coding, testing, implementing, and maintaining large software applications.

Sr. Director - Solutions Engineering

Direct technology delivery focused on enterprise services (Service Oriented Architecture and the Enterprise Service Bus)  enterprise information management (the Enterprise Data Warehouse) and enterprise database management (MSSQL DBMS).
Direct enterprise information management solutions, division staff and resources. 
Direct solutions delivery, process and policy assurance, budgeting and financial management, resource planning, management reporting and the attainment of cross-organizational objectives and service levels. Collaborate with IT management teams, key decision-makers and global stakeholders to identify, recommend, develop, implement and support cost-effective, strategically - aligned enterprise data management solutions for all aspects of the global organization.
As Strategic Business Partner, and Agile Coach, participate in the development and execution of strategies to drive agile adoption throughout the organization. Examples include defining an Agile maturity model, establishing best practices, teaching Agile related classes and guiding the Managing Directors, Product Managers and project leads in the establishment of Agile practices.

Director - Enterprise Technology, SBP

Douglas County

Responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Elections office in a medium-sized County, providing direct supervision, coordination, and technical guidance to staff, maintaining a high level of morale, ensuring service excellence and increasing team productivity. Supported advanced technical needs of office staff, as well as Directors and Elected Officials both inside and outside of Douglas County, including hardware/software support, project management, business analysis, and vendor relations.   Utilized sophisticated technology skills to streamline processes and reduce overhead by implementing methodologies to improve support, manage customer expectations, and build strong cross-agency relationships. Recognized leader in the State by the Colorado Department of State (CDOS) with regards to voting systems technology and statewide voter registration database management.

Senior Product Manager

Senior System Analyst

Reformed PMP turned Agile delivery expert | Helping you earn more 💵 | Agile certification pays - get yours today at your own pace. KaiRise.com

Instructor-led agile training is one of the worst ways to up-skill your workforce. There are 3 gigantic problems with old-school, instructor led training.

🚫 It pulls workers away from their daily jobs to take training
🚫 It takes forever to schedule, coordinate and run
🚫 It doesn’t scale

◾️What I do

I'm a partner at KaiRise, with three decades of experience helping enterprises implement agility. We've cracked the code on how to train your staff in a way that actually generates results.

◾️How We Help?

I’ve distilled what I’ve learned into the fastest most effective way to earn the ICAgile Certified Professional Certification. We created the world’s first on-demand ICAgile accredited course.

It’s used at enterprises around the world to transform the learning experience, while stretching budget dollars and…

👉Is Available 24/7
👉Is Trusted & Certified 
👉Has Bite-sized learning for seamless integration into daily tasks
👉Has zero death by powerpoint or forgetting everything you’ve just learned
👉Will certify your workforce in half the time of regular training

◾️Expected Results

✅ 40% reduction in training costs
✅ 30% increase in the volume of certifications issued
✅ 50% reduction in the time to complete training
✅ 72 Net Promoter Score (excellent)

◾️Don't just take my word for it

“Absolutely loved the content, format, and instruction style of this course. The self-pacing was great for my learning style. Would recommend it to practically anyone!”
Stella Griffith - Sr. Business Analyst at Fidelity Investments

“Great Course and Engaging Style. From the bite-sized learning modules to the reinforcement through quizzes and interactive activities, this course is a great intro to the world of Agile.”
Ian Santo Domingo - Principal & Managing Director at Vault Consulting

“I am a Certified ScrumMaster, but I truly believe this course has set me up for broader organizational success. I can't say enough great things about Agile Foundations!”
Lindsey Parker - Strategic Projects Coordinator at Fellowship of Christian Athletes

And many more at www.KaiRise.com

◾️My Background

With three decades of hands-on experience, completed 16 agile certifications, and having trained thousands, I've garnered over 10,000 followers and earned recognition as a top voice in the Agile Community by LinkedIn. My journey has taken me through diverse landscapes, from startups and nonprofits to global corporations and government agencies.

◾️Contact

Ready to change your enterprise training experience? Send me a LinkedIn DM and let's explore if we're a fit. 

💻www.KaiRise.com

Mike Lyons

NCCI Holdings

I promote agile thinking and agile capabilities through my work within NCCI's Program Management Office (PMO). Specifically, I promote the use of Scrum and Scrumban in conjunction with coaching and training teams to embrace organizational and personal agility. I coach teams on agile/Scrum and flow metrics, create agile/Scrum in-house training courses, and offer tactical and strategic services both to NCCI and other organizations.

As the PMO representative for NCCI's Finance Division, I manage a portfolio of discretionary and investment projects supporting corporate, divisional, and cross-divisional goals. In 2019-2021, I managed a successful, on-time, on-budget enterprise resource planning (ERP) upgrade of our Oracle E-Business Suite (version 12.2.9).

I also manage projects and programs sponsored by our IT Division, which included (in 2017-2018) a successful implementation of a critically important, 18-month program (coordinating three projects) to modernize our enterprise architecture with a cloud-ready infrastructure.

In 2021, I began managing strategic efforts to modernize our database environment using Oracle Exadata, gently guiding NCCI's brilliant architects who are the authors of the strategy and transition roadmap.

In 2022 until today (2024), I'm the program manager to continue modernizing our databases and applications. This is a multi-million dollar program spanning 5+ years and will launch dozens of projects to modernize our databases and applications using Oracle-engineered Exadata for database management.

Beyond all this, I continue to do all the normal things I love to do:  speaking about agility and project management topics at various conferences, providing training, sharing project management and agile knowledge, writing articles, and exploring the upcoming AI trends in the IT industry and how project management supports IT initiatives.

Senior Project & Program Manager / Scrum Master

I provided comprehensive, IT project management services from project inception to implementation & close-out.  I'm a strong advocate for organizational change to embrace organizational agility, including within NCCI's project management function.  In 2008, I introduced agile (Scrum) to NCCI, and began using agile values and principles in IT projects.  I continue exhorting organizational leaders to fully embrace agility today.  As a credentialed PMP, I facilitated PMP exam prep sessions for aspiring project managers each summer.  As a member of the South Florida Chapter of PMI, I provided tools workshops for professional project managers working in South Florida.

IT Project Manager

Began programming using COBOL, then went on to participate in numerous projects and technologies as a software developer in support of NCCI's Finance Division.  NCCI is an Oracle E-Business Suite shop.  Chief accomplishment in this period was designing and building the Universal Billing Interface, a custom billing application that processes nearly all of NCCI revenue streams from disparate systems, all of which UBI funnels into Oracle Receivables. UBI is still in use today!

Systems Analyst

UF Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering

I developed a new graduate-level course on agile project management for the University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.

In Spring 2023, I started teaching that course to graduate engineering students at UF’s distinguished Engineering Leadership Institute.

So VERY excited to merge my love of agile, project management, and higher education into something wonderful like this!

Adjunct Instructional Professor

Pluralsight

Author of "Scrum Essentials Exam Prep," a three-hour course to prepare Scrum practitioners to take -- and pass -- the Professional Scrum Master Level 1 exam by Scrum.org.

Author of "Easily Estimate Projects and Products," a three-hour course which teaches learners how to use Statistical PERT to create estimates and forecasts for project and product uncertainties.

Author of "Forecasting for Agile Teams," a three-hour course which teaches learners how to use Statistical PERT to create forecasts for organizational leaders who want to know when will the next release be ready or how much will be ready by a hard delivery date?

Author

The George Washington University School of Business

I provide guest lectures to graduate students of the Master of Science in Project Management degree program in the Decision Sciences department of GWU's School of Business. This gives me an opportunity to share with MSPM graduate students some of my real-world experience using Agile/Scrum and explain how I use tools and techniques taught by GWU's professors to solve real-world problems in project and program management.

Guest Lecturer

William W. Davis, MSPM, PMP

I offer professional speaking, training and writing services on a wide variety of topics of interest to organizational leaders, project managers and fellow agilists of any industry.  My goal is to equip people who have an interest in project management and/or organizational agility with relevant knowledge and practical, easy-to-use tools & techniques they can immediately put to use.

I am currently speaking and writing about these topics:

- Build team collaboration through Collabinart (Collaboration through Interpretive Art).  I presented this topic at the 2018 PMI Global Conference in Los Angeles.
- Move from project predicting to project & product forecasting
- Use Excel to "soothsay" the project schedule and risk register
- Use Statistical PERT to create probabilistic estimates

I bring energy, enthusiasm, inspiration, a touch of humor, and over 30 years of professional project history to every speaking and training engagement.  Contact me to learn how I can contribute towards your goals, either by speaking, training or writing on project management and/or agile topics that matter to you.

Project Management Consultant

Palm Beach State College

For ten consecutive spring-fall semesters, I was a member of the adjunct faculty of Palm Beach State College in PBSC's Bachelor of Applied Science degree program (with a Project Management concentration). I taught on a variety of business and management topics, particularly in project management. I exposed students to agile/Scrum as part of their studies. I was privileged to teach the capstone course for the project management concentration each spring semester—an honor not usually bestowed to an adjunct instructor. Through this experience, I discovered that I enjoyed being in the classroom as the teacher instead of being the student!

Adjunct Faculty

William W. Davis works in the IT industry, promoting personal and organizational agility, and sharing innovative tools/techniques with fellow agilists, project managers, developers, functional managers, and organizational leaders.
 
William has four decades of experience working in IT as a software developer and technical project manager for numerous IT projects and programs.  More recently, though, William is a Scrum Master, IT program and project manager, and an organizational agilist -- creating/delivering customized agile/Scrum training, and mentoring others on their agile journey. William performs traditional project management on 3rd-party procurement projects, and he handles divisional portfolio management, too.

William began his Agile journey in 2008, when he first began promoting Scrum as an alternative approach to traditional project management. Since 2008, he has advocated for personal and organizational agility in general, and Scrum usage in particular.  More recently, he is exploring Kanban's benefits with continuous flow, limiting work-in-progress, and Kanban's information visualization within the Scrum framework.
 
William has been a PMI member since 2005 when he earned his PMP credential.  He is an honors graduate from Nova Southeastern University (M.S. in Leadership) and an honors graduate from The George Washington University in Washington, DC (M.S. in Project Management).  
 
William has earned these professional certifications:  Professional Scrum Master (PSM1 and PSM2), Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO1), Certified Scrum Professional-ScrumMaster (CSP-SM; and the Advanced Certified ScrumMaster / A-CSM and the CSM before that), and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO).
 
In 2014, William created Statistical PERT® (SPERT®), a simple-to-use, probabilistic estimation technique that uses built-in functions within Microsoft Excel.  Statistical PERT Excel templates are free to download, use, modify, and share! To learn more, visit https://www.statisticalpert.com.

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The Battle

Mike Lyons

William W. Davis

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