About Us

Ken Rubin

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Ken Rubin is the author of Amazon’s #1 best selling book Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process. As an agile thought leader, Ken founded Innolution where he helps organizations thrive through the application of agile principles in an effective and economically sensible way. He has coached over 200 companies ranging from startups to Fortune 10, and is an angel investor and mentor to numerous exciting startups. As a Certified Scrum Trainer, he’s trained over 30,000 people in agile / Scrum as well as object-oriented technology. Ken has managed the development of five commercial software product suites generating over $200M in aggregate revenue.

Hi, I'm Ken Rubin, Innolution's principal trainer and coach. I look forward to the opportunity to work with you and your company. Here is a brief description of my background so can better determine if I am good fit for your organization.

Agile/Scrum Background

  • Authored the Amazon #1 best selling book Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process. Book has been translated into eight other languages.
  • First Managing Director of the Scrum Alliance a non-profit organization whose purpose is to transform the world of work by advancing the successful adoption of Scrum on a worldwide basis
  • Began working with Smalltalk in the mid-1980s. Smalltalk was the development environment that spawned the Agile/Scrum movement
  • Been using Agile techniques since the 1990's
  • First formal Agile/Scrum project started in 2000 to develop Life Sciences software
  • Been Product Owner on numerous products
  • Been ScrumMaster on number projects
  • Hands-on experience with many technical practices (e.g., pair programming, continuous integration, etc.)
  • Provide Agile/Scrum training and coaching services to numerous companies at all levels – from the Development Team to the Board Room. Click here to see some of my clients.

Software Development 

  • Co-authored (with Adele Goldberg) the book Succeeding with Objects: Decision Frameworks for Project Management. Considered one of the top books on object-oriented technology of the 1990s.
  • Author of over 30 publications on topics ranging from managing object-oriented projects, object-oriented analysis and design, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. You can see a list on my LinkedIn profile.
  • Primary developer of Object Behavior Analysis and Design (OBA/D) methodology, an industry-recognized object-oriented analysis and design method
  • Worked on the development of numerous software projects ranging from expert systems for NASA, banking systems, petroleum systems, genomics systems, software development environments, J2EE and C++ middleware and numerous websites
  • Managed development of five commercial software product suites generating over $200M in aggregate revenue
  • Director of 130 person consulting group at IBM that developed large distributed object systems
  • Offered position as World-Wide Vice President of the Object Technology Service Line to oversee all IBM services initiatives involving object technology.

Training Background 

  • Taught over 21,000 people Agile/Scrum
  • Taught over 5,000 people Smalltalk development
  • Taught over 2,000 people managing object-oriented projects
  • Taught over 2,000 people transition management
  • Delivered over 100 conference tutorials on six continents

Business Accomplishments 

  • 30 years of business experience with both large-public as well as pre-IPO software companies
  • Raised over $150m in investment capital including two initial public offerings (IPOs) – PARQ (1994), GNOM (2000)
  • Have held most executive management roles within software companies including:
    • CEO
    • COO
    • VP of Engineering
    • VP Commercial (Channel) Development
    • VP Business Development
    • VP Sales
    • VP Marketing
    • VP Product Management
    • VP Professional Services

  • Specific areas of expertise include:

    • Marketplace analysis
    • Strategic planning
    • Defining product requirements (product management)
    • Marketing software products (product marketing)
    • Business model development
    • Pricing model development
    • Alliance development
    • Contract writing
    • Setting up distribution networks
    • Setting up franchising networks

Education Background 

  • BS Information and Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology (specialization in Artificial Intelligence)
  • MS Computer Science from Stanford University (specialization in system software)