Scrum Alliance Moves Forward with Chief Product Owner

Over the past year, Scrum Alliance has undertaken a lengthy process to hire a new CEO. It’s a non-traditional role in a non-traditional organization, which has made it challenging to find someone who could advance our mission and goals while working within a truly Agile context.

Early on in this process, three members of our staff leadership team stepped up to serve as interim co-CEOs. Together, this group made tremendous progress. This team has developed new products, new marketing strategies, strengthened our infrastructure, and is pushing the boundaries in their fields. With the assistance of coaches and trainers in our community, this team began Scrum Alliance’s own Agile transformation.

As we looked for a full-time CEO, we originally defined this position as one that would embody the typical aspects of a CEO mixed with significant Agile experience and mindset. However, as we went through the hiring process we found that the traditional CEO role was, in part, conflicting with our values and how we wanted the new organizational structure to work.

Therefore, instead of hiring a traditional CEO, we have developed a leadership team modeled in Scrum, with an industry and market-focused Chief Product Owner, and an organizational and culture-focused Chief ScrumMaster. Together, with the board and the Scrum Alliance leadership team, they will guide and facilitate the organizational initiatives to continue growing the capacity and value delivery of the Scrum Alliance in service to the community.

For this exciting new role of Chief Product Owner, the Board of Directors has tabbed Howard Sublett. Howard is well-known in our community, having worked at Scrum Alliance from 2008–2010, then proceeding to coach and lead at several Agile consultancies, recently at SolutionsIQ and Accenture. He also served on the Scrum Alliance Board of Directors for the past year.

Outside of work, he also serves on a board of directors for Jackson House, a crisis counseling and crisis intervention center.

The Scrum Alliance board is continuing its search for its first Chief ScrumMaster. The Scrum Alliance organization is attempting to live the Scrum values, deeply. As such, we seek to create an organizational structure that reflects those values.

-Eric Engelmann, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Scrum Alliance

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