Ahmed Sidky
In addition to being a frequent speaker at agile conferences and the co-author of a top-rated agile adoption book, Becoming Agile in an Imperfect World, Ahmed Sidky is the executive vice president at Santeon Group responsible for software delivery and agile services.
Along with many years of experience in software development, Ahmed has a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in value-based process frameworks for effective agile adoption. He has gained popularity and respect in the agile community as a proponent of a pragmatic approach for organizations attempting to adopt agile. He serves on the steering committee of the PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP).
Ahmed is often called Dr. Agile because of his free on-line agile readiness assessment tool, Doctor Agile (www.doctoragile.com). Ahmed enjoys the reaction on people’s faces when they learn the values and principles of how to create high-performing, Lean and Agile teams and organizations. Ahmed has educated people starting from CEOs to Jr. Developers in companies around the world such as: Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, Siemens, Verizon Wireless, Raytheon, Booz Allen Hamilton, Vodafone and Raya. Ahmed can be reached at asidky@santeon.com
Dennis Stevens
Dennis Stevens has been helping organizations deliver value through software development and project management throughout his career. For over 25 years he has helped companies leverage technology to improve their business performance through improving technology development, effective project management, and applying Lean and Agile concepts.
Since 1985, Dennis has been working or consulting in software development leadership, technology transformations and enterprise project management. He has been leveraging Lean and Agile in software development teams for the last 10 years.
He became a Project Management Professional in 1998, began Lean Value Stream mapping in 1994, an OPM3 Certified Consultant in 2009, and recently completed the Certified Scrum Master course.
Dennis was awarded the Naval Commendation Medal during Desert Storm for his service as a Marine Reservist and he played a key role in Operation Fiery Vigil which involved rescue and recovery operations following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Organizational Development and Psychology.
Mike Griffiths
Mike Griffiths is an independent project manager, trainer and consultant based Calgary, Alberta. In 1994 Mike helped create the agile method DSDM and has been using agile methods including FDD, Scrum and XP for the last 17 years. Mike served on the board of directors for the Agile Alliance and the board of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN). He founded the Calgary chapter of the APLN in 2006.
In addition to agile methods Mike is active in traditional project management. He holds PRINCE2 and PMP certifications, is a contributor to the PMBOK v3 Guide and is currently helping to create the new PMBOK v5 Guide. Mike frequently presents at PMI Global Congress conferences and teaches a 2 day “Agile Project Management” course for the PMI as part of their traveling SeminarsWorld program. Mike helped start the PMI Agile Community of Practice which is now the largest PMI community with over 8,000 members.
Mike is a faculty member of the University of Calgary where he teaches as part of the “M.Sc. Software Engineering” program. He is also a frequent contributor to project management and agile publications including Cutter Consortium, Agile Journal, and GanttHead.
While engaged in many events and publications, Mike’s core passion is hands-on project management. His agile team at Husky Energy won the 2010 PMI-SAC “Project of the Year” award for their success on a challenging energy project in difficult operating conditions. Mike maintains the leadership and agile project management blog www.LeadingAnswers.com.
Sally Elatta
Sally Elatta is Founder of (Agile Transformation) http://www.AgileTransformation.com. A company dedicated to helping organizations build lean high performing teams.
Sally is dynamic consultant, trainer and coach who is passionate about transforming people, teams and organizations. Her unique mix of technical, business, leadership, and soft skills help her transform individuals at all levels. Sally has developed a unique set of results-driven training workshops that use real world best practices.
She has designed a learning roadmap for each of the following roles: Project Manager, Business Analyst, Developer/Architect, Tester, Business Product Owner, Management.
She offers coaching to companies just getting started with Agile or looking to implement a strategic leadership and high performance transformation.
