Ian Carroll

Lessons not learnt

Ian Carroll — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:36:15 +0000

At a recent public sector client I spotted this end of project “lessons learned” document sat in a cupboard with a layer of dust on it. Nuff said.

Pastures New

Ian Carroll — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:14:04 +0000

I recently joined ThoughtWorks after many years as an independent coach. I made the jump from contract to permanent for a number of reasons:

On several recent client engagements I hit a number of constraints. Mainly around only being able to be in one place at one time. This is particularly difficult when attempting to introduce improvements to several disciplines, Dev, PM, BA, QA, and Ops. Being able to tap into a wider talent pool drastically improves the chances of success.
ThoughtWorks share a number of principles of my own and are by far the closest fit for me than other orgs I’ve considered. As a global consultancy, ThoughtWorks provides me with diversity in terms of the variety of clients to work with and the broad range of talented individuals to work with.
Sense of belonging – a powerful human trait. Although I’ve built many close relationships with clients over the years it’s always been on my mind that I’m not part of their organisation and as such an outsider. Anyone who has worked with me over the past few years will be familiar with my thoughts on tribes. Kind of ironic talking about tribes and not being part of one eh?

It’s been an interesting transition but worth it. If you are a contractor or fellow coach I’d urge you to think seriously about finding your tribe. ThoughtWorks are recruiting – contact me for details!

The old home page

Ian Carroll — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:22:07 +0000

This is the content of my old home page on my website when I was an independent effectiveness coach. I’ve kept it on here simply because it says a little about my approach and mindset:

Hello and welcome to my website. I introduce Agile and Lean techniques to organisations to help them to become more effective. I provide training, pragmatic hands-on coaching, and strategic direction to senior managers, product managers, project managers, developers, architects, testers, and operations teams.

A common phrase I hear within organisations is “we need more resource”. The reality is you need more capacity. Most of your existing capacity is absorbed in wasteful activity. I can show you how to open up capacity within your existing teams and in doing so, drastically improve your time to market.

Customers who have used my coaching and transformation services have reported:

Significantly reduced time to market
Greatly improved cross-functional collaboration and morale
Measurable improvement in software quality
Vast improvements in project planning predictability.

I don’t provide a one size fits all solution or an off-the-shelf methodology. I adapt agile practices to fit your organisational landscape.

A consistent outcome from recent engagements is the creation of high productivity environments that foster innovation, are conducive to learning, and provides deep job satisfaction for delivery teams.