About the Authors

Mark C. Layton, known globally as Mr. Agile, is an organizational strategist and Scrum Alliance certification instructor with more than 20 years in the project/program management field. He is the Past President and Executive V.P. of the Project Management Institute (PMI) Southern Nevada Chapter and the Los Angeles chair for the Agile Leadership Network. He is the author of the international Agile Project Management For Dummies and Scrum For Dummies book series and creator of the Agile Foundations Complete Video Course. He is the founder and managing member of Platinum Edge, LLC — an enterprise transformation company that uses organizational design to help businesses with their agile transformation journey.

Before founding Platinum Edge in 2001, Mark developed his expertise as a consulting firm executive, a program management coach, and an in-the-trenches project leader. He also spent 11 years as a Cryptographic Specialist for the U.S. Air Force, where he earned both Commendation and Achievement medals for his accomplishments.

Mark holds MBAs from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the National University of Singapore; a B.Sc. (summa cum laude) in Behavioral Science from Pitzer College/University of La Verne; and an A.S. in Electronic Systems from the Air Force's Air College. He is also a Distinguished Graduate of the Air Force's Leadership School, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), a recipient of Stanford University's advanced project management certification (SCPM), and a certified Scaled Agile Framework Program Consultant (SAFe SPC).

In addition to his books and videos, Mark is a frequent speaker at major conferences on Lean, Scrum, DevSecOps, and other agile solutions.

Additional information can be found at platinumedge.com.

Steven J. Ostermiller is a trainer, coach, and mentor who helps organizations evolve to maximize business value and minimize risk through Lean and Agile principles and practices. He is the founder and executive director of Utah Agile (in partnership with Agile Alliance, Scrum Alliance, and Silicon Slopes), a nonprofit professional community committed to increasing agility for businesses, technology, and individuals. Steve developed and taught the agile project management curriculum for Ensign College and serves on its project management advisory board. He is co-author of Agile Project Management For Dummies and technical editor of Pearson Education's Agile Foundations Complete Video Course.

Steve's expertise comes from nearly 20 years of successes and failures as a project manager, product manager, operations executive, scrum master, agile coach, trainer, and consultant. He has worked with executive leadership and product development teams in a variety of industries on the Fortune lists. He is a Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), ICAgile Certified Professional in Coaching and Facilitation (ICP-ACC & ICP-ATF), Project Management Professional (PMP), and holds a B.S. in Business Management/Organizational Behavior from Brigham Young University Marriott School of Management.

Dean J. Kynaston is also an experienced scrum master, coach, and mentor with nearly 20 years of experience empowering leaders, teams, and individuals to become more agile. With Steve, he taught the agile project management curriculum at Ensign College in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dean was also a co-author of Agile Project ManagementFor Dummies and the author of multiple Platinum Edge (http://www.platinumedge.com) blog articles.

A Platinum Edge alumni himself and former Project Management Professional (PMP), Dean has worked with multiple organizations and seen much success in applying the agile values and principles. He has worked with executive leadership and individual teams in both for-and nonprofit industries, particularly in real estate, construction, automotive, health care, pharmaceuticals, and government. He holds an MBA from Boise State University. He is a Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM and CSP-PO) and holds a B.S. in Business Management with an emphasis in Finance from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. As a busy father of eight children and a new grandson, Dean also finds many opportunities to use scrum with his family team.