The founders of this effort are:
Dr. Alistair Cockburn
Dr. Alistair Cockburn (pronounced Co-burn) has been instrumental in creating and steering the field of agile software development since its inception. He co-authored the original Manifesto for Agile Software Development in 2001 and the subsequent Declaration of Interdependence in 2005, founded the first Agile Software Development Conference, helped create the Agile Project Leadership Network, served on the board of the Agile Alliance, and designed the Crystal family of agile methodologies. His books "Agile Software Development" and "Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game" each won Jolt Awards. He is a recognized expert in object-oriented design, project management, development processes and requirements gathering, where his "Writing Effective Use Cases" is recognized as the standard reference on the topic. As recognition for his work, he was voted one of the "The All-Time Top 150 i-Technology Heroes."
Dr. Ahmed Sidky
Along with many years of experience in software development, Ahmed Sidky has a Ph.D. in value-based process frameworks for effective agile adoption. Ahmed’s work has gained popularity and respect in the agile community as a pragmatic approach for organizations of all sizes attempting to adopt agile. Ahmed is frequently referred to as, Dr. Agile, on account of developing a free online agile readiness assessment tool named Doctor Agile (www.doctoragile.com). He is also a frequent speaker at numerous national and international agile conferences as well as the co-author of a top rated agile adoption book, “Becoming Agile in an Imperfect World."" Ahmed enjoys the reaction on people’s faces when they learn the values and principles of how to create High-performing, Lean & 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, Raytheon, Booz Allen Hamilton, Vodafone and Raya.
Dr. Ash Rofail
Ash has a broad executive background leading technology, strategy and overall management for corporations. Ash served as Chief Technology Officer for User Technology Associates, a $100 M software consultancy with over 1000 employees. Ash was responsible for setting technology strategy and technical leadership. Ash has provided strategic technical vision for several successful and innovative products as Chief Architect for Best Software (acquired by Sage), Product Architect for Solomon/Great Plains (acquired by Microsoft), and State of the Art Software (acquired by Sage). Ash is a thought leader in enterprise software as a member of Microsoft's Visual Basic advisory board since 1997; patent holder for artificial intelligence technology; author of 6 software engineering books on topics such as XML, .NET, COM/DCOM, building n-Tier Applications and Service Oriented Architectures; and Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Business. Ash holds a PhD Artificial Intelligence and MS Computer Science.
Dennis Stevens
Dennis has been helping organizations leverage technology to improve their business performance for over 25 years. He has been published in Harvard Business Review, was a significant contributor to Microsoft's Business Architecture methodology, was the Deputy Project Manager for PMI's OPM3 Second Edition, and is helping the IIBA and PMI figure out how to employ agile and lean for their constituents. Dennis has been using Lean and Agile principles in software development teams for the last 10 years. He has a degree in Organizational Psychology and Development. Dennis was awarded the Naval Commendation Medal by the Marine Corps during Desert Storm.
