Summary: In this episode, I speak with Joel Semeniuk and Stephen Forte on how they got started down the path of agile. Joel’s focus on the people in the software development led to many process improvements that paralleled many of the other early adopted of agile. Stephen found his path to better software development because he had an issue dodging paint balls and fallen trees. Additional resources: 5 Agile Project Management Techniques You Can Start Using Today TeamPulse Best Practices Analyzer Guest Bios Joel Semeniuk Joel Semeniuk is a founder of Imaginet Resources Corp., a Canadian based Microsoft Gold Partner. Currently, Joel is also serving as an Executive VP at Telerik in charge of the Agile Project Management Division. He is also a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP Microsoft ALM and has a degree in Computer Science. With over 18 years of experience, Joel specializes in helping organizations around the world realize their potential through maturing their software development and information technology practices. Joel is passionate about Application Lifecycle Management tooling, techniques, and mindsets and regularly speaks at conferences around the world on a wide range of ALM topics. Joel is also the co-author of “Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System” published by Microsoft Press as well as dozens of other articles for popular trade magazines. Stephen Forte Stephen Forte is the Chief Strategy Officer of Telerik, a leading vendor of developer and team productivity tools. Stephen is also a board member of the Scrum Alliance. Involved in several startups, he was the co-founder of Triton Works, which was acquired by UBM (London: UBM.L) in 2010 and was the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Corzen, Inc., which was acquired by Wanted Technologies (TXV: WAN) in 2007. Stephen also speaks regularly at industry conferences around the world. He has written several books on application and database development including Programming SQL Server 2008 (MS Press). Prior to Corzen, Stephen served as the CTO of Zagat Survey in New York City (acquired by Google in 2011) and also was co-founder of the New York-based software consulting firm The Aurora Development Group. He currently is a Microsoft MVP award recipient, Microsoft Regional Director, INETA speaker, and is the co-moderator and founder of the NYC .NET Developer User Group. Stephen is also a Certified Scrum Professional and PMP and holds an MBA from the City University of New York. An avid mountain climber, Stephen leads a trek in the Mt. Everest region every fall to raise money for charity. Stephen lives in Hong Kong with his wife. Zero to Agile podcast series Follow us on twitter Subscribe on iTunes Download Podcast Thanks for listening our Zero To Agile podcast episode! Philip Japikse Microsoft MVP, Agile Practices Evangelist at Telerik @skimedic
