Alexander Frumkin

About

Hi, my name is Alexander and I call myself a recovering developer and a Scrumoholic. Having started programming in Algol-60 on a punch tape (not even a punch card!) in the 9th grade, I still write the code for fun. As a developer involved in waterfall projects, I remember the pain of working long hours and weekends to meet deadlines that were imposed on the team and the shame of sacrificing the quality of the product to “deliver on time and on budget.” Later, as a director of software development, I remember customers’ frustration after seeing a “big bang” release of the product built from a 300-page specification. I was constantly asking myself if there were any “better ways of developing software” I never stopped searching for those better ways. My search brought me to a seminar for software development leaders organized by Steve McConnel in 2007. Attending this seminar drastically changed my professional life when I ran into Martin Fowler there. It was a great privilege to learn about the Agile Manifesto, Extreme Programming and Scrum from one of the founding fathers. I returned to my team empowered and enlightened. I’d just found what could be an ultimate solution to most of the problems we had previously experienced. I did not know much about Scrum, I did not have any formal training besides books by Ken Schwaber, but I was young and had the desire to help my team avoid the pain I had gone through earlier in my professional life. Working hand in hand with the customers, we were able to build a product they loved. Working together as a cross functional self-managed team, we significantly improved the quality of the product. Having regular retrospectives helped us make our processes better from sprint to sprint. My professional life was a long journey of learning Scrum the hard way, a journey of celebrating successes and failures. Every time I failed, I learned from the failure and became stronger. It was ultimately a journey of joy. I had a chance to learn Agile and Scrum by doing. I lived through many Scrum projects, small and huge. Some of them were successful. Some I am not proud of. But I gained experience. My enormous passion for Scrum is based on a belief that it helps bring humanity to the workplace. I was lucky to have discovered a “better way of developing software” – it’s time to concentrate on helping others do it. I have a long and successful coaching career helping companies and teams through transition to Agile methodology, building, mentoring, and coaching high performing organizations. My 5 years long CTC journey was full of successes and failures, meeting great people, acquiring, and mastering new skills, pushing myself to the higher limits, extending my impact on people and the community. And certification was just a North star that motivated me on this journey, kept me focused and created a sense of urgency. Having a CTC certification was a sign of belonging to a well-recognized community of top-notch Agile professionals. While I do enjoy coaching , I learned that coaching and training usually go hand in hand. It’s time to take my training to the next level. I see a CST as my new North Star that guides me on my new journey of learning and mastering, working hand in hand with the great trainers and setting my clients on a pass to make a dent in the universe.

Work Experience

2017-10-03 – Present Bank of the West (null)
2016-07-11 – Present ABC Software Consulting (Principal consultant, owner)
2015-07-07 – 2016-06-30 Magnetic (Enterprise Scum Coach)
2014-07-28 – 2015-05-18 Cognizant Technology Solution (Assoc. Director, Agile Program Management)
2014-01-01 – 2014-06-13 cPrime (Scrum Coach)
2011-06-01 – 2013-06-07 SunLink (Sr. Director Software Development, Internal Scrum Coach)
2007-04-02 – 2011-01-13 SunPower (Director, Design Software, Scrum Leader)
2004-04-12 – 2007-04-02 Autodesk (Team Lead/System Architect)
1998-07-20 – 2004-04-12 Autodesk (Senior Software Engineer)
1990-05-22 – 1998-07-20 Autodesk Russia (Software Developer)