Why partner with Peter Stevens on Scrum?

I would not have believed that a three day training could have such a huge impact!

Dear Reader,

There are a lot of Scrum Courses and Scrum Coaches out there. Scrum is Scrum, right? So why should you partner with me, Peter Stevens, to learn Scrum and get better at it?

To answer this question, I would first ask you, why are you doing Scrum? Why do you want to be Agile? For most of my customers, the voyage starts with a realization that they are unable to achieve their goals effectively. Be it about software development, creating new product or managing their company, they realize “We need to get better!”

Scrum is a great framework for improvement, but Scrum is not Scrum. Scrum represents a mindset, and the Scrum framework implements that mindset. This is where the challenge begins, because it’s not enough to just blindly follow the rules, implement a few “best practices” and wait for great things to happen. A ham-handed approach to Scrum can lead to so much resistance, that you will fail, even if you follow the process “perfectly.”

Peter Stevens is a visionary whose focus is only on making things better using Scrum/Agile. I met him at a training event in Bangalore, which he convinced me to attend, and I am a better Scrum/Agile professional as a result of that. I never heard the phrase “delight the customer” before I met him. Now I believe in it. He transformed me, in 16 hours, to be an Agile enthusiast! That speaks volumes about the man. I was not transformed to this state in my 6 years of practicing Scrum. Anyone who wants to actually learn about Agile/Scrum should get in touch with Peter.

— Brijesh Padinyarathra, Technology Consultant – Project Management and Architecture, MicroStrategy, Bangalore, India

So why partner with me, Peter Stevens? I have helped many people and organizations to become more successful. With Scrum (and other stuff)!

Here are some things to consider:

• My experience with success and failure
• My philosophy — Pragmatic, not dogmatic
• My energizing trainings
• My commitment to Switzerland

Long experience: I developed my first software product using (what I later recognized to be) Scrum back in 1993, the same year that Jeff Sutherland invented it. (If only I had written about it!) I was introduced formally to Scrum in 2005 and started my first Scrum project as ScrumMaster in 2006. This project went on to win a Best of Swiss Web award, and since then I have helped numerous people and companies transform their software development. In 2007, I started the Scrum Breakfast (which has now become the Swiss-wide Lean Agile Scrum community/working group of the swissICT) to create community around Scrum and excitement for Scrum throughout Switzerland.

Currently, next to my role as Scrum Trainer, I am Product Owner for echobravo and I am advising the management of an early stage startup on Scrum and Lean Startup.

I have also failed with Scrum. We don’t usually gloat about our failures, but if we are good, we learn from them, and my philosophy reflects those learnings, too.

My philosophy: Pragmatic, not dogmatic. Scrum implements a mindset. If you share the mindset, you’ll love Scrum and you’ll do great things with it. So many people see Scrum just as a set of practices, or worse still, just a set of rules to be followed. So they argue over the small stuff, without seeing the bigger picture. How do you get past that to focus on working together to create great new products and features? I have developed an approach to Scrum and to working with people, which encourages active collaboration and discourages senseless debate. You and your team(s) will have fun doing Scrum while you do great work!

My energizing trainings: “Your workshop changed my career!” “I have never seen my people so engaged!” “I wouldn’t have believed my people could come up with such great solutions to our problems in such a short period of time!” “I would not have believed that a three day training could have such a huge impact!” “My wife noticed after the first day that I was happier than I have been in months!” — Actual feedback from participants or their top managers from my first public workshop in 2007 to my most recent in 2014. You can draw your own conclusions, right?

My commitment to Switzerland: I live in Zurich. Next to English, I speak and train in all three official languages (D/F/I). I even understand Mundart (well, from here to the Reusstal!) and can pronounce chäseküechli!  While I travel the world to bring home experience with other cultures and help Scrum get started in new places, my focus is my local market. My commitment to Switzerland is my commitment to you, to help you solve your challenges to become successful!

Does this message resonate with you? If so, it’s time to:

Start a conversation

or check out:

• Certified ScrumMaster course (the foundation for everybody in a Scrum Project).
• Certified Scrum Product Owner course (how to lead innovation)
• Scrum Applied Workshop (how to apply Scrum in your context)
• Scrum Breakfast Club (economical continuing education and improvement)

I look forward to meeting you!

Kind regards,

Peter Stevens