Speaker Bios
Esther Derby
Esther works with individuals, teams, and managers to improve their ability to deliver valuable software. Esther is recognized as a leader in the human-side of software development, including management, systems-thinking, organizational change, collaboration, team building, facilitation and retrospectives. She has been a programmer, system manager, manager and internal consultant. Since 1997, she has run her own consulting firm, esther derby associates, inc., in Minneapolis, MN. Her clients include small niche firms, mid-size companies and Fortune 500 companies. She has worked in financial services, insurance, health care and manufacturing, as well as in product and software-as-a-service companies.
Don McGreal
In his role as VP of Learning Solutions at Improving Enterprises, Don McGreal is a hands-on agile consultant and instructor. As a consultant and Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master II, he has fulfilled many roles while ensuring that the clients get the most from each engagement: developer, business analyst, and agile coach.
As an instructor and Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer, he has authored and taught classes for thousands of software professionals around the globe, specializing in Scrum, Acceptance Testing, Object-Oriented-Design, and Test-Driven Development. On projects and in the classroom, Don is known for his enthusiasm and dedication. He has published articles for both the Scrum Alliance and the Agile Journal and is co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, a comprehensive collection of games and exercises for accelerating the adoption of agile principles.
Steve Paro
Steve Paro is currently an Agile and Product Consultant for VersionOne Software. He comes to the Agile life cycle management tool company having most recently been an independent agile coach and trainer, working with clients nationwide to improve their understanding and application of agile principles and techniques. He has worked with dozens of scrum teams, helping organizations realize significant improvements in quality, productivity and customer satisfaction. As a trainer, Steve has trained hundreds of IT and development professionals on agile project management, requirements definition, process adoption and team best practices.
Prior to consulting, Steve had spent many years at a leading enterprise supply chain execution software company. During this time, he experienced almost all facets of the development lifecycle through his various roles as Implementation Consultant, Project Manager, Architect, Director and Vice President of Product Development. Passionate and pragmatic, Steve is extremely excited to utilize his experience to help other organizations succeed in leveraging Agile to develop their people into highly effective, motivated, and productive teams.
Damon Poole
Damon Poole is Founder of Valtivity, an Agile coaching and training company specializing in helping companies discover and implement their ideal way of working. Damon is also a Senior Coach in Eliassen’s Agile practice. His twenty years of experience spans the gamut from small collocated teams all the way up 80 team shops doing global development. Damon was President of Agile New England from 2008-2010. He writes frequently on the topic of Agile development, is the author of the web book “Do It Yourself Agile,” and a pioneer in the area of Multistage Continuous Integration and mixing Scrum and Kanban. Damon has spoken at numerous conferences including Agile and Beyond 2010 & 2011, Agile Business Conference, Q-Con, Agile 2008-2011, and Agile Development Practices. He is also a co-founder and past CEO and CTO of AccuRev.
Alan Shalloway
Alan Shalloway is the founder and CEO of Net Objectives. With over 40 years of experience, Alan is an industry thought leader in Lean, Kanban, product portfolio management, Scrum and agile design. He helps companies transition to Lean and Agile methods enterprise-wide as well teaches courses in these areas. Alan has developed training and coaching methods for Lean-Agile that have helped Net Objectives' clients achieve long-term, sustainable productivity gains. He is a popular speaker at prestigious conferences worldwide. He is the primary author of Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design, Lean-Agile Pocket Guide for Scrum Teams, Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility and Essential Skills for the Agile Developer. Alan has worked in literally dozens of industries over his career. He is a co-founder and board member for the Lean Software and Systems Consortium.
