Conduo

I work with leaders to create environments that support high performing, collaborative Lean/Agile teams. Through coaching, training and workshops, I work with teams at every level of the organization to focus on their most important goals, identify measurable outcomes and then develop the mindset and practices that lead to continuous improvement and lasting change. I have deep experience in the public sector and a wide range of experience in private sector industries, with expertise in Enterprise Business Agility, Lean/Agile leadership, organizational design and strategy, product management and performance management.

Outcome-Driven Planning gets everyone in your organization on the same page, starting with providing clarity on the problem you are trying to solve and a focus on what is most important. Then, you develop a strategy, agree on what to try first, deliver incrementally and validate whether you are on the right track. This approach energizes and motivates your project teams by providing them the clarity, alignment and focus they need to deliver results.

Outcome-Driven Planning:
* Focuses on outcomes over activities
* Applies Agile, Lean and Design-Thinking, using the Mobius Innovation Framework
* Encourages collaboration
* Incorporates short planning and delivery cycles focused on learning

Business Agility Coach

Agile Transformation Inc.

I'm a certified Enterprise Business Agility Strategist and AgilityHealth Coach and Facilitator, specializing in leadership, enterprise strategy and transformations using the Enterprise Business Agility framework. I provide coaching and training in Agile leadership, effective facilitation, product management, planning and continuous improvement and growth for individuals, teams and organizations. 

Training and Coaching for AgilityHealth: 
* AgilityHealth Facilitator Certification Training
* Coaching leaders and coaches on Continuous Improvement Processes, Measurement and Developing Growth Plans 

Training Courses:
* Advanced Scrum Master 
* Advanced Product Owner
* Agile Overview 
* Servant Leadership  
* Effective Facilitation and Collaboration 
* Developing Measurable Business Outcomes
* Writing Effective Outcomes and Features 
* Leading High-Performing Teams 
* Enterprise Business Agility Strategy

For private sector organizations from small start-ups to Fortune 500 Companies across multiple industries, as well as Government Agencies

Enterprise Agile Coach and Trainer

State of Idaho, Department of Health and Welfare

Lead the business side of software development, quality assurance and production support for the Division of Welfare portfolio, providing leadership to Agile teams using the Scaled Agile Framework to predictably deliver value.

Work with the executive business and IT leadership teams to align product management strategies and Agile team design with organizational goals and priorities. Develop the product vision and roadmap. Facilitate portfolio planning activities. Coach, mentor, and lead the product management team, including product managers, product owners, user experience design and business architects, in applying Lean/Agile product management methodology and practices.

Partner with IT managers to develop the architectural roadmap to support long-term business needs, plan for the architectural runway, strategize on technical options, and ensure that development teams have the tools and standards in place to create effective designs and quality products. Support and design plans toward DevOps culture and practices.

Support end users through leading a production support team responsible for monitoring production system performance, triaging and responding to reported issues, and gathering and reporting metrics.

Deliver quality products on schedule that meet user needs, providing vision, leadership and direction for release management and business testing teams.

Bureau Chief, Agile Program Leader

Created the product vision and roadmap for the project to replace the Department’s legacy benefits case management system. Supervised a team of product owners. Partnered with the operational and policy program managers to ensure system design would meet program requirements and support end users. Played a lead role in rolling out the new system and managing subsequent releases. Designed the workflow and reporting tools and processes.

Outcomes
¥	Transferred and customized a large and complex Welfare Eligibility System from another State, significantly reducing development costs and time lines while delivering a robust and effective application.

¥	Converted active programs and clients from the legacy to replacement system, with benefit program payments and health coverage transitioning and continuing without disruption; this required creative strategies, extensive data analysis and coordination and testing with multiple interfaces and partners.

¥	Established a data warehouse for the new eligibility system, supporting federal, management and field operational reporting requirements; designed a reporting strategy to support workload management and performance reporting with the launch of the new system, allowing for a smooth transition for operational managers.

¥	Implemented workflow and workload management tools in alignment with new processes and organizational structures, so that the system effectively supported the business design.

Product Manager

Legislative Services Office, Idaho

Advised legislators in setting the annual state budget and creating related legislation, providing expertise on the organizational structure, functions, performance, policies, budgets and statutory requirements of assigned state agencies.    
 
Completed analysis of agency expenditure data to determine compliance with legislative intent, use of efficient management practices, and trends across state government. Reviewed agency budget requests, gathered supporting information, and created content for annual legislative budget publications. Presented agency budget requests to the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee.

Budget and Policy Analyst

I'm a Business Agility Coach and co-founder of Conduo. I work with Agile leaders in regulated industries and the public sector who want to be more strategic and outcome-driven. Your teams are busy, but are they working on the right things? Are you making progress toward your most important goals?     

There's nothing I love more than to bring a group together and facilitate a collaborative and visual process, to sort through complexity and find a clear path forward. It comes down to people having good conversations to develop common understanding and trust. Once that is in place, we can develop an effective and repeatable process for Outcome-Driven Planning.  

Here's a little about my background, and what led me to what I do today: 

I got started as a Product Owner in 2007, and I fell in love with the Agile way of working. It just made sense to identify the most important things to work on, get them done quickly and make changes to stay on track with delivering value. It was rewarding to work as a team and see things go from idea to reality. 

I took on increasing levels of responsibility, eventually leading a team of product owners and managing the portfolio. 

Working with Agile coaches (including my current business partner) inspired me to further my knowledge and skills, and in 2016 I started to work as an Agile coach and trainer. This was an exciting leap and sparked a lot of personal and professional growth. 

For several years, I worked with leaders at large organizations to develop a continuous improvement strategy using the AgilityHealth platform. This deepened my understanding of the common patterns and challenges of leading Agile across multiple teams. 

During this time, I also developed and delivered Agile leadership training on Adaptive Leadership, Enterprise Business Agility, Defining Measurable Outcomes, and Effective Facilitation and Collaboration. 

The past several years have been focused on working with my business partner Ryan Fullmer to  take our experiences and focus on where we think we can make the greatest impact. Outcome-Driven Planning is our answer to this. 

We developed Outcome-Driven Planning as a series of workshops that you can learn to run with your teams to get better results from the way you plan and deliver. 

Outcome-Driven Planning incorporates the Mobius Innovative Framework developed by Gabrielle Benefield and includes five steps:

1 - Discover Why
2 - Identify Options 
3 - Decide What to Do
4 - Deliver Incrementally
5 - Continuously Improve

Julie Springer

IntelliBridge

Program Director serving as prime on the SPEED contract for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and as sub on other USCIS and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) contracts. 

Accountable for portfolio profit and loss (P&L) targets across government IT contracts totaling over 120 staff and $32M/yr. in revenue. 
- Increased net profit from 8% to 14% YoY.
- Identify and mentor upcoming leaders to improve program management and scalability.

Oversee a large team delivering 220+ weekly deployments for myUSCIS, USCIS’s public-facing web application for immigration benefits.

Manage and improve program delivery, team health, and performance on contracts providing DevSecOps, software product development, and strategic management consulting. 
- Improved team health from 3.37 to 4.27 out of 5.0 within six months.
- Continuously mitigate attrition risk; maintain a 97% staffing rate.
- Lead a multi-vendor program through the One Team concept, breaking down silos across vendors, government, and partner programs.
- Awarded ‘Exceptional’ rating from client for ‘management’ in 2023 and 2024 Contractor Performance Assessment Report (CPAR).

Serve as a change agent, trusted advisor, and management consultant for product-led strategy and transformation; client divisional strategy.
- Provide product management training and coaching.
- Advise client on organizational structures and concepts to support product-led transformation.
- Provide general management consulting.

Align with strategy, promote data-driven decision-making, and foster an outcomes focus across the program.
- Coach and train on product vision and strategy development.
- Promote data-driven decision-making through increased focus on UX research, quantifying problems and desired outcomes, and aligning with strategy.
- Drive communications strategy to promote the value of the program and division across the agency.

Lead the corporate Strategic Consulting Community of Practice for IntelliBridge.

Program Director

Lead the corporate Strategic Consulting Community of Practice for IntelliBridge.

Supported government executive leadership as a trusted advisor and strategy consultant.

- Provided strategic leadership and product management consulting and coaching.
- Supported IT planning and portfolio management. 
- Planned and executed divisional and branch-level strategic objectives leveraging the Balanced Scorecard and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) focused on meaningful business outcomes.
- Defined appropriate performance management measures based on desired outcomes.
- Initiated and led product-led strategy transformation across client agency to
improve customer experience (CX) focus and rebuild trust with the public.
- Leveraged the principles of Lean and Agile - aligned with strategy.
- Improved collaboration and communication to share knowledge, align on strategy, break down silos, and improve team health.
- Managed organizational change management.

Principal Advisor & Strategic Management Consultant

Eye Street Solutions LLC

Agile and product management coach serving the Disaster Assistance Improvement Program (DAIP) Program Management Office (PMO) at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for DisasterAssistance.gov.

Led a 12-person mixed client/vendor PMO team in Agile and product management transformation. 
— Increased number of yearly software deployments from 2 to 8.
— Improved the stakeholder feedback loop from months to days.
— Created a One Team culture to break down silos and friction between the PMO, contractor development team, and government stakeholders.
— Instituted a data-driven, value-focused approach to backlog management.
— Facilitated overall Agile process (Scrum Master), coached Product Owner and development team, and provided technical consulting.

Transitioned the program from a reactive project-focus to a proactive product-led program.
— Increased online, self-service usage from 35% to 70% over phone applications
and status requests within a 2-year period.
— Balanced customer and employee experience improvements with waste, fraud,
and abuse measures to meet mission needs and reduce risk of bad actors.
— Improved the mobile experience to increase mobile usage by over 300% to accommodate disaster survivors who were displaced.

Provided strategic management consulting to PMO leadership. Recommended and supported strategic direction, product roadmaps, team structures, roles and responsibilities, product management practice, and technical project management processes.

Managed technical projects. Provided business and technical analysis leadership. Conducted analysis of alternatives (AoA), wrote white papers, and built business cases. User experience (UX) subject matter expert. User story and backlog development. Followed FEMA Software Engineering Lifecycle (SELC).

Instrumental in winning 5-year contract re-compete; technical proposal.

Product Management and Agile Coach

Astor & Sanders

Contractor deputy program manager serving the Office of Information Systems & Technology (OIST) Applications Development division within the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) at the Department of Labor (DOL).

Staffed, managed, and coached ~60 team members across six software development support teams providing both new application development and sustainment.

Collaborated with program offices to define, document, and deliver software product requirements. Staffed teams. Supervised project execution. Leadership development. Mentored and developed team leads.

Defined, instructed, and provided oversight for project management processes and introduced Agile approaches where appropriate.

Assisted team in troubleshooting and designing solutions to technical problems and to meet project requirements.

Key Contributions:
• Increased deployment frequency, allowing new case management system to be incrementally and iteratively delivered just in time to meet program needs.
• Introduced structured release schedule for software maintenance.
• Helped team improve O&M product support using Kanban to better prioritize and
manage flow of work. Enabled team to quantify required support levels.
• Led strategy to consolidate ~25 applications into core set of capabilities to
manage ETA’s program needs through reusable and configurable base system.
• Led onsite efforts to prepare for and implement CMMI Level 3 certification audits.

Deputy Program Manager

SusQtech

Project manager for ~20 SharePoint development projects for associations, non-profits, and private industry. Responsible for budget, resources, and technical solution delivered.

Guided teams of 5-10 technical resources consisting of architects, developers, user interface designers, and stakeholders to gather requirements, propose design solutions, wireframe and prototype, develop, document, and train on delivered solutions.

Contributed to proprietary product development and implementations. Interfaced with users to gather feedback and informed product roadmaps. Validated assumptions.

Key Contributions:
• Often called upon to save troubled projects.
• Introduced concept known today as Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Senior Project Manager

Residential mortgage broker in Florida and Virginia matching buyers with appropriate loan products.
- Developed and maintained Realtor and other industry partnerships for referrals.
- Generated hundreds of online leads per month via personal website, shared across the office.
- Manager lender partnerships and loan product expertise.
- Trained new loan officers.

Mortgage Broker

ExitNow

Created and managed all operational processes, project pricing, contracts, execution of delivery, and responsible for P&L of projects. Managed and supervised staff and contractors. Assembled and managed project teams of internal staff and external contractors and allocated resources between multiple projects to manage timelines.

Contributed to proprietary product developed to serve the real estate market.

Key Contributions:
• Increased project profitability by 20% by re-engineering processes, agreements, contracts, and pricing structures.
• Helped launch a start-up for online continuing healthcare education. Managed redesign effort, which led to client being acquired.

Project Manager / Operations Manager

Raymond James

Represented the Information Technology (IT) department and its services to corporate departments and financial advisor branches nationwide to identify, evaluate, test, and implement new hardware and software solutions to meet business objectives. Bridged the gap between internal business units and information technology.

Key Contributions:
• Led effort to implement web-based phone directory for switchboard operators to replace outdated printed directories – reduced cost; provided more accurate data.
• Led analysis and testing of streaming audio/video solutions to be used in morning
market calls – solution recommendation presented to CEO.
• Initiated and was part of team that re-engineered workflow processes that
implemented web-based interfaces with legacy systems. Increased technology service request production by reducing errors, follow up, and fulfillment times. A 50% increase in workload was managed without additional staff or overtime.

Technical Consultant

Hi! I'm Jimmie, a Strategy Planning Professional (SPP) and Program Director with a knack for creating strategic visions and turning them into meaningful outcomes. But that's not all - I'm also the mastermind behind those Christmas rap video parodies you might have seen. You might like them - check 'em out in the Featured section.

Some label me a thought leader. I do think and communicate my thoughts a lot, especially on topics like strategy, leadership, product management, and Agile. My thoughts, whether in my book "Pursuing Timeless Agility", my "Product-Led Government" LinkedIn newsletter, my blogs, or LinkedIn posts, aim to provoke thought and inspire action. I've also been called a change agent and I think that fits. Some people like what I have to say. These things might resonate with you, too. 

Comfort zones? What are those? I'm afraid of heights, yet I've been skydiving and ridden in a hot air ballon and an open cockpit bi-plane. Turns out they weren't all that scary after all. Jumping off the Strat in Vegas...that's a different story. I got up there and didn't do it. It's really high...! Professionally, I'm always pushing myself, never staying comfortable for too long. I constantly stretch myself and I find it's rarely as scary or as hard as it first seems. Except for the Strat. That was scary.

At work, I'm all about fostering team health, focusing on what is achieved as a result of what we do, and crafting experiences that matter, both for employees and customers. I believe in the power of people and culture, and I've developed a framework over the years that's been instrumental in enhancing team success. It could be just what your teams need.

On a more personal note, I'm a dedicated family man, follower of Jesus, and an introvert at heart. Coaching my sons' baseball and football teams and supporting my daughter in every cheer competition has been my greatest joy. These moments have shaped my life's priorities, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Now they are grown up and having kids, it's time to be Pop Pop. 

My entrepreneurial spirit fuels my role as a trusted advisor, proactively seeking the best outcomes for those I collaborate with. My commitment to growth and learning never ends. Let me know if you have any book recommendations. 

I'm all about creating strategies that not only achieve business goals but also foster environments ripe for creativity and innovation. If this speaks to you, connect, follow, send me a message, subscribe to my LinkedIn newsletter 'Product-Led Government', or join my email list at jimmiebutler.com.

taplio

The Battle

Julie Springer

Jimmie Butler

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