Olivier Gourment

Organizational Agile Coach

Who is Olivier?

Since 2001, I’ve utilized Agile frameworks to deliver projects swiftly. I started as an Agile Project Manager, delivering a 3-year project in under 6 months using Agile XP for www.bell.ca, winning a best e-commerce award. I’ve since specialized in agile transformations, coaching executives and teams at organizations like Morgan Stanley, BDC, or the Canadian Blood Society.

Some Testimonials

• “Olivier introduced us to Kanban through games and coaching. After just a few days, we saw improvements. After a few weeks, the results are real on our processes, communication, and organization, on visibility, focus. None of this would have happened if Olivier had not shown us other ways of working.” – Patrick Menacho, Scrum Master
• “I worked with Olivier for nearly a year as a colleague and mentor as he helped my organization adopt Agile and DevOps practices […] towards a culture that embraces continuous improvement, cross-functional teamwork, and collaborative learning. I can confidently recommend Olivier as an expert coach who is skilled and competent in leading an organization down the path of Agile and DevOps.” – Joel Gilchrist, Architect
• "Olivier’s advice made a lot of sense. In particular, his knowledge of SAFe, DevOps, code quality, and even Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) quickly brought results to our project. Olivier definitely played a crucial role in our agile transformation.” – Laurent Gonin MSc, Software Developer
• "Olivier did foundational work at CBS as an Agile DevOps coach. His knowledge of DevOps is exceptionally sophisticated. Organizations looking to expand their horizon in the field of DevOps and consider both technological and cultural aspects will benefit from Olivier’s experience.” - Rana Chreyh Strategy & Delivery, PMO Director - Digital Business Transformation
• "Olivier introduced and implemented DevOps in our teams and was able to create the necessary conditions for learning and adopting agility concepts such as Kanban, value stream mapping, and agility at scale (PI planning). He also helped change the mindset in the context of a transformation.” – Marie-Ève Racicot, Senior Director - Software Engineering.

Olivier’s Career

Jump to Training delivered, Certifications, Community

Experience

Agile-U inc.

2019 – Current

Organizational Agile Coach

• Personal development (July 2022 - Current)
  Active research on generative AI and APIs, exploring cutting-edge technologies to enhance decision-making and integrate them into Agile practices.
  Co-authored an article on Organizational Agility. Writing a Book on Organizational Agility, Cultures, and Innovation, exploring innovative strategies for fostering culture and driving continuous improvement.
  Developing websites to sharpen technical skills and deepen understanding of user-centric solutions, streamline workflows, and foster collaboration across teams.
• Schneider Electric with UST Global (Jan. 2022 – Jun. 2022)
  As an Agile Coach with the Agile Taskforce involved in the transformation of the Digital Engineering department, I facilitated online and in-person workshops (in France) with executives - SVPs, VPs, and directors, SAFe® Product Management & Owner training that received high praise. I contributed to maturity assessment, playbooks, and coaching programs. SAFe 5.0 training & executive workshops, PI Planning, GetKanban, MS Teams, Jira, eObeya
  • Morgan Stanley with UST Global (Jan. 2019 – Dec. 2021)
    As an Agile coach within the Agile Center of Excellence (Agile CoE), I trained and coached leaders and teams in Agile roles and practices. I set up and coached fleets (Agile programs) and squads (teams) across several divisions (Finance Capital Risk & Treasury, Risk, Legal and Research), engaging business and technology leaders in relevant workshops (Agile KPIs, team charters, value stream mapping, skills matrix…). I helped design training materials on Kanban, made significant contributions to the Agile guides, set up and energized Communities of Practice (Agile Coaches, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, DevOps…), designed and executed assessments on a variety of dimensions and metrics

Smarter Portal inc.

2012 – 2018

Senior Lean-Agile Coach

• Senior Lean-Agile & DevOps Coach, Intact (Mar. 2018 – Oct. 2018)
  I helped accelerate a large agile project (300 people) through the adoption of scaled agile techniques (Program Increment PI Planning, Inspect & Adapt). I coached the management team on scaling challenges. As the lead DevOps coach, I coached a pilot DevOps team, presented DevOps to VPs and teams, facilitated self-assessment and value stream mapping workshops, and provided Kanban training. I guided teams towards improvement and flow management, delivery quality, and continuous improvement.
• Senior Lean-Agile Coach, Canadian Blood Services (May 2017 – March 2018)
  In collaboration with the PMO director in charge of the Agile transformation initiative, the CIO, and other directors, I created the transformation strategy (business partners and 200 IT professionals), helped design teams aligned with business centers (Value Streams), coached managers, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and teams.
• Trainer and Advisor Scaled Agile Framework SAFe® @ Digital Tango
  I provided SAFe® training such as Leading SAFe®, SAFe® Scrum Master, SAFe® PM/PO, Agile & Kanban in practice. Excellent evaluations.
• Agile Coach, Agile Center of Excellence @ Desjardins (6 months)
  As a member of the Agile Center of Excellence, participated in the design of the Agile transformation strategy, architecture, and governance of project management alignment, creation of the roadmap for the Agile transformation of the DPPFM.
• Senior Agile Coach; strategic advisor at BDC (6 months)
  In collaboration with Business Service Delivery (over 100 people), the PPMO, 12 Team Leads/Scrum Masters, project managers, and team members, and Scott Ambler (Disciplined Agile Delivery), I implemented key changes to improve flow, the most notable being the introduction of Lean Kanban (including training).
• Coach and Lean Startup/Agile entrepreneur, lead JS developer (details)
  Mentoring and contributing (SMEs in coaching and habit change) to startups in the health and education sectors (cross-functional teams of up to 7 people); planning and execution, presentations. Participant in the Centech Emergence program (ÉTS Incubator) 12 weeks.
• Senior Agile Coach @ TD Insurance (2.5 years)
  Scrum Master for up to 3 development teams (2 project teams - $15M, 1 product team of 7 people). Introduced Kanban and DevOps. Led teams to successfully resolve complex technical situations. Introduction of technical practices. User satisfaction rate (UAT) increased from 65% to 85%.
• Senior Technical Agile Coach @ Desjardins (6 months)
  Introduction of Scrum practices and Agile Engineering, with the Grails development framework (Java, Spring, Hibernate, Groovy…). On a $1.2M project. Successfully introduced continuous integration, automated testing/BDD, refactoring, collaborative documentation (wiki), and spikes.

Motricity (MOTR)

2009 – 2011

Director, Software Development

• Senior Agile Coach, Mobile Content Delivery Platform (2.5 years)
  I created a team of 12 developers and contractors, and delivered using Scrum, ADAMS - an existing SaaS product - adapted to the requirements of new clients (Vidéotron with an initial budget of $600K and Astral Media). Responded to several M$ tenders (2 successful).
• Team Leader Alert Platform (1 year)
  I designed a brand new SMS and email alert platform, initially for AMT, then sold to transportation and media companies for millions of dollars.
• Software Development Team Leader (R&D and services) (1.5 years)
  Reporting to the VP of Technology, I supervised 15 developers and contractors (in Montreal, Toronto, Tunis, and India). I introduced many innovations to increase team capacity, improve quality, documentation, and productivity.

Vidéotron

December 2007 – March 2009 (1 year)

Senior Agile Coach, eCommerce Architecture

• Senior Agile Coach, eCommerce Architecture (8 months)
  Introduced Agile principles to several senior directors, to reduce risks and ensure optimal productivity and quality of delivered products. Coached the project manager on Agile methods and project planning.
  Launch of the 3G network - BSS team: Design of the overall architecture for the public and self-care sections of www.videotron.com and OSS.
• Main Architect, eCommerce and Data Migration (6 months)

Trader Corp. – Yellow Pages Group

June 2007 – November 2007 (6 months)

Scrum Master/Chief Architect, Ad Editor

• Using Agile and Lean techniques, I guided a team of 15 people in 5 countries to successfully complete a complex integration/web project.

Optimum Informatique

December 2005 – May 2007 (1.5 years)

Principal Technological Architect

• Agile Project Manager, Active Directory Migration (9 months): Leading a team of 5 system administrators and testers, I successfully completed a complex migration of 600 users in 3 countries on 2 continents.
• Development Team Leader, Reinsurance Applications (9 people, 6 months): Coached a team of 9 people to successfully deploy support for reinsurance use cases on time. All technologies were new.
• Main Technological Architect (1 year): Support or lead R&D and architecture initiatives.

Radialpoint

September 2004 – October 2005 (1 year)

Agile Architect, Service Delivery Platform (SaaS, Scrum, and XP)

• With a team of very talented developers, and with very advanced Agile practices, we developed a highly effective SaaS platform (Security-as-a-Service). I personally set up the technical environment that allowed testing and greatly improving the platform’s performance and scalability (4 million subscribers).

BEA Systems (Oracle)

May 2001 – September 2004 (3.5 years)

Senior Principal Consultant

• Agile Coach at Bell Canada, www.bell.ca (Toronto, 8 people, 9 months)
  I coached 6 senior developers and 2 juniors. I used Agile practices (XP) (on-site client, demonstrations, weekly iterations, automated unit tests, continuous integration, refactoring) and elements of RUP. Coordination with other teams (acceptance and performance testing, user experience, client). Despite very tight deadlines and relatively immature technology, this e-commerce site of over 3000 pages was delivered on time and budget. It won the SECOR/S2i e-commerce award. […] the all-around champion is www.bell.ca, a superb and effective site in many ways
• Agile Architect, modernization of www.bell.ca (2 architects, 7 months)
• Team Leader/Architect at Bell ExpressVu (2 developers, 6 months)
• Main Architect at Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (7 months)
• Other engagements League Data Ltd (Halifax, NS), technical update, web loan application; TD Insurance, architecture audit; Toronto Public Library, HR intranet portal; Bell Mobility/Amdocs, EDS (Ottawa), Telus SA, CIBC World Markets (New York), Innovapost (Ottawa), AT&T.

CMTek (Abilis Solutions)

October 1997 – April 2001 (3.5 years)

• Practice Manager (6 people, 2 years)
• Architect at TD Meloche Monnex, call center applications (3 years)
• Project Manager at Deutsche Bank (Luxemburg)
• Architect at Crédit Communal de Belgique (Belgium)

Nat Systems

March 1993 – September 1997 (4.5 years)

• Principal Consultant, major accounts (1.5 years)
• Developer, NatStar ORB team (1.5 years)

Training, Presentations

• Speaker at Agile Tour Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Québec, Confoo, Microsoft DevCamp; Agile, SAFe, DevOps, Lean Startup Meetups (2009 - current)
• Change Management Workshop for DevOps, Forum TI Les Affaires (2018)
• Agile and Kanban, SAFe® DevOps, Leading SAFe®, SAFe® Scrum Master, Product Management/Product Owner trainings - Digital Tango, (2017 - 2018)

Certifications and Training Attended

• ICAgile ICP-ORG Adaptive Org Design (2022)
• ICAgile ICP-SYS Systems Coaching (2022)
• Semco Style Institute Expert Program (2021 – Current)
• Cynefin Basecamp & Complex Facilitation (2020)
• CoachingOurselves Facilitator (2020 – Current)
• Certified Agile Leadership - Organizational Agility (2020)
• SAFe® SPC, Scaled Agile Inc. (SA 2016, SPC4 2017, SPC5 2022 - 2023)
• Kanban Management Professional, Lean Kanban University (2016)
• Certified Disciplined Agile Practitioner, CDAC (CDAP – 2016)
• Centech Emergence Program @ ÉTS (Montreal, 2015)
• ICAgile ICP-ATF Agile Facilitation (2013)
• Agile Coach Camp (Ottawa 2012, Toronto 2013, Cornwall 2017)
• PMP Certification, PMI (2009 - 2014)
• Professional Scrum Master I (2011), CSP (2009), CSM (2008)
• Maîtrise d'Informatique Appliquée à la Gestion des Entreprises (MIAGE) (Paris-IX Dauphine, 1991); DUT computer science (IUT Paris, 1989)

Community and Volunteering

• Facilitator of the Biodiversity, Digital, Mobility Collage Workshops, Trainer of the Climate Fresk (2021 – ongoing)
• For Our Kids Montréal (2021 – 2024)
• Co-organizer of Agile Tour Montréal (2010 – 2018)
• Founder and organizer of Agile Open Montréal (2015 – Current)
• Organizer of the Systems Thinking Meetup in Montreal (2019)
• Elected member of the board of directors, Agile Montreal (2012 – 2015)
• Co-founder of the Montreal Scrum User Group (2009 – 2012)

Languages

• French, English