Blue Pillar: Scrum Training at the Speakeasy

Last week, I got the opportunity to spend two days in Scrum training with the development team of a great Indy company, Blue Pillar.   For those of you haven’t heard of Blue Pillar yet, you’re not alone.  I only learned of them through my partner in crime, Tana Linback.  Blue Pillar is one of those companies that tech folks dream about:  Company is started by a tech founder who starts out coding in his basement, growing into an award winning business.

The story wasn’t what got me stoked about the scrum training though. BP has adopted Scrum and Agile through a grass roots effort, and had wanted to get their team on the same page by attending scrum training.  Because most of the attendees had been practicing for a while, the framework portions went fairly quickly.  As a team, they were less interested in the activities geared toward reinforcing the concepts, and were more interested in the practical applications.  As you can imagine, I enjoyed the back and forth of the discussion interacting with the BP team.

What got me stoked were the attendees.  The attendees included the  BP scrum team, plus their product strategy/management folks (Kyle Zeronik, Eric Reichel, David Schwarz).  In fact, the leadership of BP felt so strongly, that Brad Witter, the President of BP, was an active participant for both days.  For a small company, titles don’t mean much, but BP‘s staff is comprised of about 50 people.  If a company’s success is measured by the commitment of their leadership, BP will go a long way.  The commitment of the leadership certainly resonated with the other attendees.

As always, I enjoyed the opportunity that the Blue Pillar Scrum team was kind enough to provide.  I hope the Blue Pillar Scrum team found the Scrum training helpful as they continue on their Agile journey.

Thanks for coming in today.

Chris