About

Agile Accelerate is led by Jim Elvidge, an experienced transformation consultant and agile coach.

Jim has had more than thirty years of fun in the web, new media, eCommerce, cybersecurity, financial, communications, and entertainment industries. He began his career as a digital signalling processing specialist, co-founded web radio company RadioAMP in 1999, and has led large development and professional service teams in delivering complex communications systems to customers worldwide. Today, Jim helps companies become more lean, innovative, and agile in all aspects of their business.

Jim is connected to a vast network of high level thought leaders, consultants, and hands-on practitioners. When your needs require additional coaches or consultants with specialized skills, we can facilitate a solution.

Success Stories

Showed a large cybersecurity company how to get features to market 5 times faster than before. Implemented the rollout and change management plan, and engaged all leaders for continuous improvement.
Demonstrated to a S&P 100 software company how to achieve 30% greater value delivery through moderate restructuring.
Led an effort for a S&P 100 software company to achieve 20-40% greater value delivery through better prioritization methods.
Guided a Fintech IT department to double their teams velocities through empowerment, quality story writing, and a better testing process.
Established an OKR program to help the entire organization achieve alignment on strategic and tactical priorities.
Worked with a S&P 100 software company that grew through acquisition to roll out SAFe to achieve consistency, transparency, and effective planning and dependency management across hundreds of interdependent teams.
Created and rolled out an entire metrics and continuous improvement program for a 500+ person development organization.
Initially ran and ultimately transferred ownership of Communities of Practice for Release Train Engineers and ScrumMaster, the objective being to establish internal coaching capabilities, up-level role-specific skills, and establish self-sufficiency within the organization.

Experience

MOST RECENT

AgileAccelerate – Principal (2021 to date)

Providing strategic planning, scaled Agile (SAFe) coaching and training, and continuous improvement consulting for S&P 100 software company
Provided product discovery workshops, Agile practice training and coaching, change management coaching, strategic planning, and OKR training for Financial Service Company
Provided leadership, product, and team coaching and training for Media and Entertainment division of large software company
Working with Adaptivity as a Business Agility and Transformation Consultant
Working with Business Agility Consulting Group as a Business Agility Strategist
Worked with LeadingAgile as a Transformation Coach

NortonLifeLock Inc. (fka Symantec) – Senior Director, Agile Transformation (2016 – 2021)

Driving continuous improvement and transformation across the delivery organization; US and India.
Developed and led training courses and hands-on workshops in many facets of end-to-end agility, including Scrum, Kanban, Lean Startup, CI/CD, technical practices, catalytic leadership and empowerment, prioritization, story mapping, design and analysis tools, and scaling methods. Targeted audiences included all levels of leadership, product management, ScrumMasters, Product Owners, engineers, and program managers.
Initiated a comprehensive set of metrics to measure the right things for use in continuous improvement; including team metrics, program metrics (burnups, cycle time, automation), initiative metrics (flow velocity), relative business value, and organizational trend metrics (feature power and value delivery)
Initiated a movement to highly cross functional teams to facilitate rapid delivery of complex initiatives
Initiated and facilitated communities of practices and activated teams of change agents
Provide coaching and guidance at all management and team levels
Led multiple senior leadership workshops and offsites, including strategic planning, agile architecture, and continuous improvement
Manage all ScrumMasters in North America, as well as program managers

SolutionsIQ (fka BigVisible, Inc.) – Principle Agile Coach, Leadership Consulting (2010 – 2016)

Provided leadership, business, lean, agile, and scaled agile coaching, training, and transformation for clients’ organizations.
Provided agile, scrum, kanban, and lean training for 15+ IT teams at a large financial services company. Key training areas included scrum and kanban practices, tools, testing and automation, estimation, lightweight processes, emergent design, project management integration, and scaling for large programs.
Facilitated many leadership workshops to help management teams develop organizational improvement strategies, continuous improvement culture, catalytic leadership skills, innovation culture, and to identify and solve key challenges.
Helped client scale agile to large programs and initiatives, introducing and coaching SAFe and similar practices, and developing tools and information radiators that facilitate transparency.
Coached 15-20 teams through various phases of agility, including visioning, release planning, story mapping, project kickoffs, large retrospectives, crowdsourcing of innovative solutions, and basic agile practices.
Trained several new teams in lean/agile values, principles, and practices for a large athletic clothing manufacturer.

SKILLS

Transformation, Coaching, Training: team training and coaching (development, business), team audits, organizational audits, leadership workshops and coaching, strategy mapping, business process & product development, innovation and vision workshops, general facilitation, scaled agile practices
Tools, Techniques, and Methodologies: Scrum, XP, Lean, Kanban, Lean Startup, Lean UX, SAFe, LeSS, Theory of Constraints tools (current reality trees, speedboat, 5 whys), analysis tools (e.g., strategy mapping, value stream mapping), collaboration tools, crowdsourcing tools, environment design, kaizen

25+ years experience in the internet, telecom, wireless, entertainment, and datacom industries
15+ years international product and project level management, PMO, and operations
3 executive level positions in technology organizations
History of successful state of the art entrepreneurial ventures, business planning
Proven ability to rapidly build and lead strong teams and profitable organizations, including offshore teams
Product management and product marketing
Architecture, design, implementation, and integration of complex systems, hardware and software
Significant web site development and internet background

Public Speaking

Agile2013, Nashville, TN, 2013 – “The Power of Intuition in the Age of Uncertainty” (http://agile2013.sched.org/event/eb311594b598222a066336f6d9d6a5a3)
Agile SoCal, Irvine, CA, 2013 – “The Power of Intuition in the Age of Uncertainty” (http://www.meetup.com/SocalKanban/messages/boards/thread/36836172/)
Scrum Gathering West, Las Vegas, NV, 2013 – “Designing Your Organization for Innovation”
Better Software Conference West, Las Vegas, NV, 2013 – “Designing Your Team and Organization for Innovation”
Mile High Agile 2013, Denver, CO, 2013 – “Designing Your Organization for Innovation”
2012 Southland Technology Conference (SoTeC), Long Beach, CA, 2012 – “Creating an Innovative Environment through Catalytic Leadership”
BigVisible Webinar, 2012 – “Designing Your Organization for Innovation” (http://vimeo.com/55871175)
Agile2012, Dallas TX, 2012 – “Organizational Agility: The Hidden Goal (And Missed Opportunity) of Agile Transformation” (co-presented with Michael Hamman)
SF Agile, San Francisco, CA , 2012 – “Dare to Challenge”
Agile SoCal, Irvine, CA, 2012 – “Dare to Challenge”
Southern California Quality Assurance Association, Irvine, CA, 2011 – “Agile and Automation” (http://www.scqaa-oc.com/events/15/agile-and-automation/)

Agile Accelerate

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