Jim Noble

Senior agile professional

jim@properlyagile.uk | 07775 343059 The Old Dairy, 5 Denmark St, Oxford, OX4 1QS

Profile

A certified Scrum Master, Product Owner and qualified DSDM AgilePM Practitioner focused on building performant agile software teams, practices and environments. An energetic and creative team builder with over 20 years digital media experience and a proven track record of delivering successful working software for global companies, NGOs, Charities, Universities and creative businesses.

Skills

Agile project management; agile coaching; scrum master; product owner; workshop facilitation; technical production management; test programme management; project and user documentation; website and web application development; business development; ISO 9001 quality management; practical working knowledge of front end and back end programming, scripting and pre-processing languages; confident linux command line skills; communication design and development.

Code and coding

Javascript, Ruby, PHP, C, Haskell, HTML, CSS, SCSS, Vim, Markdown, Git

Frameworks

Drupal 6, 7 & 8; Ruby on Rails.

Detailed employment history

Agile Collective Ltd

January 2016 - present

Agile Collective is a worker owned co-operative business providing high quality, creative digital services to socially positive organisations, using open source, agile and co-operative principles.

Project lead

• Delivering projects with budgets ranging from £10,000 - £170,000.
• Responsible for all aspects of project lifecycle including business development, team resourcing, iteration planning, budget control, and transition to support service.
• Experience of managing multiple collaborating teams across different timezones.
• Experience managing multiple concurrent projects and teams.

ISO 9001 Quality manager

• Responsible for managing the transition from ISO 9001:2009 to ISO 9001:2015.
• Responsible for managing internal and external ISO 9001 audits and other mandatory ISO 9001 activities.
• Responsible for embedding ISO 9001:2015 monitoring processes into everyday business operations.

Business development lead

• Managing business development crew, schedule and activities.
• Triaging up-coming opportunities.
• Writing and submitting bids.
• Reporting to the company weekly about business development wins and losses.

Co-operative membership

• Jointly responsible for the running of the company including Operations, Finance, HR and Business strategy.

Clients International Union for the Conservation of Nature, World Sailing, Fundraising Regulator, Climate Outreach, British Association of Social Workers, UNICEF Joint Monitoring Project, Housing Association Community Trust, University of Oxford, Voluntary Service Overseas, Education Support Partnership, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Information Architecture Institute, Global Academy Global Goals.

Projects CRM integrations (CiviCRM, Salesforce), data visualisation, multi-site projects, multilingual websites (Asian and European languages), website re-designs, company rebranding.

Opsview Ltd

January 2015 - October 2015

Opsview is a fast growing UK software company producing network monitoring software for clients with host counts from 2 - 20,000+ devices. Their Drupal website is at the heart of their business allowing customers to purchase software licenses for networks of various sizes as well as software extension packs, training, consultancy and support packages. The site is closely integrated with Salesforce, Salesfusion, AnswerHub and LDAP systems. User activity on the site is monitored to generate sales leads according to user supplied account details, downloads of eBooks, webinar sign-ups etc. The release of Opsview Monitor 5.0 coincided with a complete company re-brand, and the launch of a much improved fully responsive website.

Project manager

• Company rebrand
• Drupal responsive website re-design & build
• Drupal Website translation into German
• JIRA project built from scratch and optimised for whole team usability.
• Integration of multiple business systems including Salesforce, Salesfusion and LDAP.
• Worked closely with US marketing team and UK content owners to produce a unified company message delivered in a consistent tone and style.
• Managed a team of 5 developers and content administrators.

Product owner

• Managing the needs of an extended group of senior stakeholders.
• Responsible for ongoing specification and prioritisation of a well described product backlog.
• Responsible for refactoring, improving and extending the existing e-commerce functionality in line with new product release and subscription model.

Scrum master

• Facilitated the introduction of:

  • improved agile development practices;
  • improved development, stage and production environments;
  • improved team communication, planning, testing and deployment processes;
  • regular team retrospectives.

Test engineer

• Built and maintained an automated integration test suite using Watir Webdriver, Cucumber (Gherkin) and Jenkins.
• Introduced Behaviour Driven Development practices to the team.

Oxford University Press

November 2012 - October 2014

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. During my time at OUP, I worked on the Novus and MyMaths projects.

Novus is OUPs new production control, scheduling and reporting tool. Built on top of SAP, it facilitates each stage in the production of tens of thousands of physical and digital OUP products each year.

MyMaths is subscribed to by 7000+ schools in the UK and is used everyday by millions of students and teachers around the world. The redesigned platform has a much improved UI, is secure and was built in anticipation of significant future growth. New products can be easily created, internationalised and managed. Individual products can accommodate multiple curricula. The integrated subscription manager was adapted to work with OUPs SAP systems.

Scrum master, agile coach

• Implemented complete Scrum project framework in a traditional Plan & Document environment.
• Ran agile training workshops for internal Scrum master and Product owner.
• Facilitated team adoption of Scrum processes, XP practices and Agile principles.
• Created performant in-house Scrum team capable of working self-sufficiently in accordance with a well understood agile framework.

Test programme manager

• Introduced automated testing and continuous integration to MyMaths project.
• Reduced unsustainable reliance on manual QA testing to a workable minimum.
• Managed functional testing of a complex web application across multiple device/OS/browser combinations.
• Planned, prepared, scripted and managed timely execution of accurate functional and user acceptance test suites.
• Trained key users, test analysts and external test companies to post effective issue reports as part of a co-ordinated test strategy.
• Monitored test programme progress and reported daily to line-managers and project stakeholders.
• Managed a team of test analysts.

Technical production manager

• Wrote specifications and product documentation, liaising closely with stakeholders and developers to ensure accurate alignment of product specification and implementation.
• Managed development team to produce accurate, well specified features to tight deadlines.
• Created accurate static mockups of all screens and modal pop-ups.
• Rationalised UI components and visual design implementation across 70+ screens and modal pop-ups.
• Created and managed a canonical product feature list in line with stakeholder approved user journeys.

XJJZ Designed Communications Ltd | Director

April 2007 - January 2016

XJJZ | Designed Communications Ltd was my own digital media and print design business. Working independently or assembling / managing small teams of skilled professionals, XJJZ specialised in producing creative and cost effective online and print communications for a broad range of creative businesses, SMEs, Universities and NGOs.

Coventry University | Senior lecturer, Course director

April 2004 - January 2007

Hired to set up the Creative Imaging subject strand and run it across the Design and Visual Arts subject areas (Fine Art, Illustration & Graphic Design), I taught digital media skills to graduate and post-graduate students. I also re-designed and launched the Printmaking department. Additionally I had responsibility for the day to day running of the Fine Art and Fine Art Joint Awards courses, reporting to the Academic Boards as part of the Annual Quality Monitoring process.

Mino City Arts Project, Japan | International artist in residence

July 2003 - September 2003

Mino City in Gifu Prefecture, Japan is the home of ancient Japanese paper making practice with a history stretching back over 800 years. I was chosen to represent the UK as one of five International artists in the seventh year of this award winning Japanese Residency Program.

Inspired Broadcast Networks | Lead designer

July 2003 - September 2003

London based company Inspired Broadcast Networks was established in August 2002 to build and lead the market for pay to play entertainment and broadband services in public spaces. I was hired to design and prototype the user interface for The Worlds Biggest Juke Box, a wireless network connected touch screen computer system which was installed in thousands of pubs and leisure venues across the United Kingdom.

Tapestry.MM | Project team leader, Lead designer

September 2002 - April 2003

Tapestry.MM is a highly respected Imaging Services company in the heart of Soho, London. I was hired to assemble and manage a web development team who created a new Macromedia Flash website with a bespoke CMS. Balancing the needs of multiple key stakeholders, I developed the site architecture, visual design, UX and UI for the project. I also wrote, designed and produced the technical and user documentation.

SAS design | Digital media & print designer

February 2001 - August 2002

SAS design was an innovative digital media and print design agency based in central London specializing in Corporate Communications, Interactive Media, and Brand & Identity. My duties included concept development, illustration, digital media and print design on the Bourjois Cosmetics, The Science Museum, COI Communications, LA Fitness and Radio Taxis accounts.

During my time at the company, I co-directed, filmed & edited Dancing with Kunde, a documentary film exploring ritual performance and spirit possession within the Gorovodu/Brekete religious order in Ghana, West Africa - later re-published by the British Museum.

Professional development

Certified AgilePM Foundation and Practitioner

APMG International, July 2018

Advanced Tendering and Bid Management Masterclass

Mabis, October 2016

Certified Product Owner

Scrum Alliance, December 2015

CS169.1x Engineering Software as a Service

BerkeleyX, June 2014

Certified Scrum Master

Scrum Alliance, October 2013

Education

Print and Computing in the Context of Fine Art; An Investigation into Relationships and Strategies

Research Project, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, 1994 - 1998

MA Fine Art Printmaking

Royal College of Art, London, 1990 - 1992

BA(Hons) Fine Art

Falmouth School of Art and Design, Cornwall, 1987 - 1990