Alan James Sebring
- Through custom workshops and individual coaching, increased the effectiveness of eCommerce product management organization.
- - Bridged traditional PMO program oversight with eCommerce Scrum teams, led special technical projects
- Led team through multiple releases of new, high-profile Web portal to support researchers' grant management.
- Agile Product Management
- Agile Project Management
- Agile Software Development
- Agile Transformation
- DevOps
- Healthcare
- Kanban
- Scrum
- University of Washington
- Scrum Alliance
- Principal Consultant/Owner2012 - PRESENTLean Effect, LLC
- Served as a consultant for senior leaders to plan and execute Lean/Agile/Scrum transitions.
- Provided Agile coaching for program/product managers, team product owners/analysts, functional leaders, delivery teams, and individual contributors.
- Managed technical projects for Agile, traditional, and hybrid project/product teams for large and small companies co-located and distributed.
- Advised on establishing portfolio management and product roadmaps aligned with Agile release plans.
- Collaborated with clients including Starbucks, TransAct, Univ of WA, Microsoft, Alaska Airlines, Premera Blue Cross, and Kaiser Permanente of WA.
- Senior Consultant2011 - 2012Net Objectives, Inc.
- Trained and coached small to Fortune 500 clients to begin or scale Scrum/Kanban/hybrid development.
- Developed Scrum/Kanban transition roadmaps aligned with business strategies in partnership with senior leaders.
- Collaborated internally with Net Objectives CEO and other consultants to improve sales and marketing.
- Worked with a variety of clients including ADP Dealer Services, CarMax, University of Iowa Foundation, and Microsoft.
- Director of Software Development (reported to CEO)2008 - 2011Tecplot, Inc.
- Introduced Agile practices resulting in more frequent releases, higher quality, reduced technical debt and improved employee morale.
- Shipped high-performance, cross-platform C++ and Java desktop, web and SDK visual analysis products to thousands of demanding scientific and engineering users around the world.
- Challenged executives and developers to focus product and technology strategies to address sagging revenue, resulting in the release of a bold new product and architecture.
- Organized and coached team members resulting in the emergence of new leaders, more productive local teams and a successful new offshore team.
- Introduced UX designer into the organization, establishing accountabilities and collaborations among roles.
- Collaborated with peer executives and their teams to establish product development process resulting in alignment from business plan to code.
- Independent Contractor/Owner2002 - 2008Sebring Software, Inc.
- Served as technical project manager/Scrum Master for a data warehouse replacement project.
- Led a mission-critical gas pipeline scheduling system upgrade as a Scrum Master/Agile Coach.
- Oversaw engineering team as Acting Engineering Manager for the lead team on complex (six global engineering teams, four business units) replacement of Microsoft's license management system.
- Headed the performance improvement effort to scale Expedia's back-end hotel payment processing as the technical program manager.
- Director of Software Engineering2000 - 2002Solucient, LLC
- Transformed disheartened legacy desktop coders into disciplined web software engineers.
- Led architecture and process improvements to rapidly develop new n-tier Web reporting and data warehouse applications for multiple business units.
- Collaborated with peer departments to advance corporate initiatives including mergers and acquisitions which grew revenue from $30M to $130M in a single year.
- Launched post-merger team to develop portal-based platform resulting in streamlined user experience and reduced development costs for multiple products.
- Led cross-functional team and architecture design resulting in lower operational costs and on-time delivery for multiple internal customers.
- Engineering Manager1998 - 2000Sierra On-Line
- Launched new team and processes to automate builds for dozens of software titles.
- Coached small team of entry-level developers to increase engineering discipline and meet demanding schedules of multiple internal customers.
- Led successful C++ rewrite of $20M consumer application (Print Artist) after two earlier teams’ failures.
- Architected automated build, code quality, and install systems.
- Improved development processes, coached developers, and coordinated with other teams.
- Scrum Master for Marketing Analytics Data Science team (Starbucks)Adapted Scrum for a team of data scientists in Marketing Analytics organization
- Established daily standups, sprint planning, review, planning and retrospective meetings.
- Connected product roadmap to epic/features to stories.
- Collaborated with peers in PMO to apply Scrum to our process improvements and improve meeting efficiency. - Agile Coach for eCommerce Rewrite (Kaiser Permanente of WA)Agile Coach to maximize effectiveness for five delivery teams, mostly new to Agile under pressure to deliver a $20M project.
- Coached Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and teams.
- Established standard sprint review for each team to showcase progress consistently for business stakeholders.
- Established common usage of Rally for all teams.
- Integrated critical path DevOps with multiple delivery teams. - Product Management Coach for eCommerce organization (Premera)Through custom workshops and individual coaching, increased the effectiveness of eCommerce product management organization.
- Created and delivered workshops on excellent product management.
- Assessed and coached leaders, product managers, and product owner/analysts to support new director.
- Topics ranged from business cases and relationship management to agile delivery. - Technical PM/Coach for 15+ Scrum Teams on Large Initiative (Alaska Airlines)- Bridged traditional PMO program oversight with eCommerce Scrum teams, led special technical projects
- Defined a "Chief Scrum Master" role and Scrum of scrum framework to tie together 15+ Scrum delivery teams, all eCommerce value streams/products.
- Led security assessment and recommendations project the board demanded after a critical incident.
- Supported teams' migration from Jira to VersionOne as the new organization and SDLC was introduced. - Technical PM/Agile Coach for New Portal (UW Office of Research)Led team through multiple releases of new, high-profile Web portal to support researchers' grant management.
- As Technical PM/Scrum Master, reintroduced Agile for all Scrum ceremonies adapted to unique requirements within the department.
- Introduced Agile release planning to align product roadmaps with quarterly releases and biweekly sprints.
- Coached additional teams and Scrum Masters to spread success across the department.
- Facilitated project chartering meetings to get a cloud-based rewrite of the legacy system on track. - Lean Audit and Recommendations for Global Security Operations Center (Microsoft)Assessed procedures and execution for world-class security operations center and delivered improvement recommendations.
- Interviewed operators and leaders, conducted time and motion studies, and reviewed operational procedures.
- Recommended new approaches to procedures, opportunistic technology, and human investments to lower costs and improve the safety of Microsoft's worldwide staff and lower asset risks.
- Presented findings and recommendations to leaders, supported strategy on how they would proceed. - Teaching Assistant for Undergraduate PM Course (University of WA)Co-developed and delivered undergraduate introduction to project management for design students.
- Collaborated with lead instructor to design course blending text-based material and real-world experience to prepare students for industry work.
- Led Agile parts of the curriculum during lectures and in-class exercises.
- Coached students through homework feedback and in-person. - Technical PM/Scrum Master for Offshore Team's Product Rewrite (TransAct)Organized and led project leveraging offshore team to rewrite company's flagship product on an updated technology platform.
- Gathered requirements from company's leadership and staff to drive Agile project for technology refactor.
- Facilitated offshore team communication for Scrum and other meetings with client stakeholders.
- Worked with CEO on the roadmap for other product upgrades. - Scrum Master for Supply Chain Management Application Rewrite (Starbucks)Established effective Scrum standups, release planning and other team-level execution practices within enterprise initiative.
- Led establishment of hybrid Scrum / Kanban "flow" board to dramatically improve daily visibility on progress.
- Coached by example how to effectively participate in Scrum ceremonies.
- Introduced Agile release planning to overcome past, unrealistic schedules that had dogged project execution.
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration1984 - 1987University of Washington - Seattle, WA
- Certified Scrum MasterJUNE 2005 - PRESENTScrum Alliance
