About the Authors

Alan Shalloway is the founder and CEO of Net Objectives. With more than 40 years of experience, Alan is an industry thought leader in lean, kanban, product portfolio management, scrum, and agile design. He helps companies transition to lean and agile methods enterprisewide as well teaches courses in these areas. Alan has developed training and coaching methods for lean-agile that have helped Net Objectives’ clients achieve long-term, sustainable productivity gains. He is a popular speaker at prestigious conferences worldwide. He is the primary author of Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design and Lean-Agile Pocket Guide for Scrum Teams. Alan has worked in dozens of industries over his career. He is a cofounder and board member for the Lean Software and Systems Consortium. He has a master’s degree in computer science from M.I.T. as well as a master’s degree in mathematics from Emory University. You can follow Alan on Twitter @alshalloway.

Scott Bain is a 35+-year veteran in computer technology, with a background in development, engineering, and design. He has also designed, delivered, and managed training programs for certification and end-user skills, both in traditional classrooms and via distance learning. Scott teaches courses and consults on agile analysis and design patterns, advanced software design, and sustainable Test-Driven Development. Scott is a frequent speaker at developer conferences such as JavaOne and SDWest. He is the author of Emergent Design: The Evolutionary Nature of Professional Software Development, which won a Jolt Productivity Award and is now available from Addison-Wesley.

Ken Pugh is a fellow consultant with Net Objectives. He helps companies transform into lean-agility through training and coaching. His particular interests are in communication (particularly effectively communicating requirements), delivering business value, and using lean principles to deliver high quality quickly. He also trains, mentors, and testifies on technology topics ranging from object-oriented design to Linux/Unix. He has written several programming books, including the 2006 Jolt Award winner, Prefactoring: Extreme Abstraction, Extreme Separation, Extreme Readability. His latest book is Lean-Agile Acceptance Test Driven Development: Better Software Through Collaboration. He has helped clients from London to Boston to Sydney to Beijing to Hyderabad. When not computing, he enjoys snowboarding, windsurfing, biking, and hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Amir Kolsky is a senior consultant, coach, and trainer for Net Objectives. Amir has been in the computer sciences field for more than 25 years. He worked for 10 years in IBM Research and spent 9 more years doing chief architect and CTO work in assorted companies big and small. He has been involved with agile since 2000. He founded MobileSpear and subsequently XPand Software, which does agile coaching, software education, and agile projects in Israel and Europe. Amir brings his expertise to Net Objectives as a coach and trainer in lean and agile software processes, tools, and practices, Scrum, XP, design patterns, and TDD.