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Last updated on 2021-08-04.

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William Rowden

William Rowden was the consultant enterprise transformation leader for the three-year Agile initiatives at an American multinational corporation and at an American telecommunications company. In between he worked with several executive teams to roadmap their Agile journey after assessing their organizations. For scaling, he has provided both LeSS and SAFe coaching.

William uses a four-factor approach to leading Agile transformations: 1) sponsor and lead consultant pairing and profiling; 2) adapting frameworks, goals, and teaching to organizational culture and structure; 3) executive steering; and 4) a coaching team. This approach is based upon a synthesis of research on—and experience with—adult development, organizational development, and leadership.

Industry Experience

I have enabled clients around the world (China, India, Mexico, USA) to deliver client-pleasing products using the principles and practices of Agile and Lean. I have worked with advertisers, financial services companies, an integrated managed care consortium, a medical device manufacturer, a retail store, a social media service, software development companies, and telecommunication companies, collaborating to adapt workflow and technical practices to their needs. Having co-founded the Agile software company that inspired Personal Kanban has enabled me to understand all aspects of running an Agile/Lean organization.

Business Agility Practice Development Associate Director

Accenture

Seattle, WA

current - 2017

  • Initiated transformation of a 16,000-person IT division of American financial services multinational Fortune 500 as consultant transformation leader.
  • Led transformation of 1100-person Information Services division of an American multinational Fortune 500 big-box retailer with a dozen consultants and a half-dozen employees.

Agile Consultant

SolutionsIQ

Redmond, WA

2017 - 2008

  • Led transformation of 70 teams across the US in American telecommunications company with two dozen coaches.
  • Coached two 100-person Product Development Units in China on Agile workflow and technical practices for a major Asian telecommunication equipment provider.
  • Assisted executives in forming an enterprise action team at an online OEM source.

Director/Chief Technology Officer

Gray Hill Solutions, Inc. (GHS)

Seattle, WA

2008 - 2001

  • Managed 90% of GHS software development with distributed teams: Advanced Traffic Management System ($910,000); Real-time Traffic Information Web site ($590,000); Transit Route Analyzer, Traffic Data Analysis, Other ($150,000).
  • Provided architecture guidance, bug fixes, automated acceptance tests, refactoring, and documentation for Advanced Traffic Management System, which included GIS in a C#.NET 3.5 framework.
  • Managed to CMM Level 2 (Repeatable), wrote travel time calculator in SQL and VBScript, wrote SQL test suite, reviewed code and design documentation, and configured Big Brother monitoring for the Real-time Traffic Information Web site for San Francisco Bay area (http://traffic.511.org/), an accessible and easy-to-use map and text system capable of delivering a million page views per day via load-balancing two three server stacks.




Education

Graduate Researcher, Civil & Environmental Engineering

University of Washington

Seattle, WA

1997 - 1994

  • Designed with a small team a Visual Basic expert system to warn bridge inspectors of potential for hydraulic scour.
  • Developed and validated with a small team a user-friendly multi-basin reservoir model in STELLA.
  • Used make and C-shell to test value of various forecasts in a reservoir optimization model customized in C++ and FORTRAN. Simulated runoff using precipitation and snowmelt computer models in C.

B.S., Civil Engineering (minor Spanish)

Oregon State University

Corvallis, OR

1991 - 1986

Webinars

Agile Managers: Redefine Your Role

Accenture | SolutionsIQ

N/A

2015 - 2015

  • Managers? We don’t need no stinkin’ managers! Or do we…?

Report Contributions

5 learning journeys of the agile leader

Accenture Technology Blog

N/A

2021 - 2021

  • How can leaders improve the success of the transformation of their organizations— and themselves?

Podcasts (Guest)

I am a podcast guest speaker on applications of adult development research to Agile, coaching, and beyond.

Pride at Accenture

Agile Amped

N/A

2021 - 2021

  • This special episode celebrates the Pride month of June and features the hosts and producer of Agile Amped as the guests.

Agile as the catalyst for Growth

Coaching Talks Podcast 26 with Marc Siles

N/A

2020 - 2020

  • What does it take to use Agile as a catalyst for Growth?

Adult Developmental Stages and Leadership

Agile Amped

N/A

2020 - 2020

  • William Rowden walks us through the different focuses that leaders – and indeed everyone – have: self-centric, group-centric, skill-centric and beyond, drawing from the work of Robert Keegan, Chris Argyris, Bill Joiner, and more.

Adult Cognitive Development and the Agile Mindset

Agile Amped

N/A

2017 - 2017

  • The science of Adult Cognitive Development has been around for quite some time, but William Rowden maps that science to the Agile Mindset and an Agile Transformation.

Podcasts (Host)

I frequently host Accenture’s Agile Amped podcast.

Defining Agility in Terms of Risk

Agile Amped

N/A

2021 - 2021

  • In his book Agility: How to Navigate the Unknown and Seize Opportunity in a World of Disruption, Leo Tilman offers a comprehensive definition of agility.

Pride and Intersectionality in Leadership

Agile Amped

N/A

2021 - 2021

  • Kayton Bhatia is a Senior Leader in Digital Product Management at Kaiser Permanente. For Pride Month, he is sharing his story about bringing his whole self to work.

Innovation and Leadership for Humanity

Agile Amped

N/A

2021 - 2021

  • In this episode, we learn how Beky sees her work through both HeHop and Kyosei Solutions Lab as contributing to a greater whole, to furthering humanity.

Learning to Create Thriving Systems from Nature

Agile Amped

N/A

2021 - 2021

  • Colleen Kirtland is on a learning journey, and in this episode, she shares her passion for and commitment to learning as much as possible from nature. Pointing to many resources and examples of biomimicry, economics, and above all systems thinking, Kirtland invites us to think about creating systems that not just grow linearly but thrive.

FirstRoot: Growing Next Gen of Impact Investors

Agile Amped

N/A

2021 - 2021

  • What happens if you put $1 billion dollars in the hands of students to invest collaboratively?

Your Big Agile Adoption Probably Isn’t a Transformation

Agile Amped

N/A

2020 - 2020

  • Michael Spayd is the co-founder of The Collective Edge, which seeks to “transform the transformers.”

From Chasing Empty Goals to a Life of Fulfillment

Agile Amped

N/A

2020 - 2020

  • In a former life, Marc Siles was a senior executive chasing a corporate career – until he had a near burnout experience.
  • Data in collaboration with NASA and USGS

Using a Trojan Horse to Introduce Agility

Agile Amped

N/A

2020 - 2020

  • Michael Hamman helps organizations grow their inner capacity for leadership agility.

Wendy Quan Finds the Business Value of Pairing Mindful Meditation with Change Management

Agile Amped

ACMP2016

2017 - 2017

  • More and more people are practicing mindfulness meditation in their personal lives.
  • Over the last six years, Wendy Quan has found that bringing this into the workplace can really make a powerful difference to how people build their resiliency to change and have a different perspective of what’s going on in their lives.

Andrew Johnson Talks Conscious Change Leadership and Classic Leader Development Culture

Agile Amped

ACMP2016

2016 - 2016

  • Andrew Johnson sits down with Agile Amped at the Change Management 2016 conference to discuss conscious change leadership and why some leaders simply can’t bring themselves to fully engage in their own change initiatives because of deep-seated internal biases.

Patrick McCreesh & Victoria Grady Crunch the Numbers to See if Washington Can Change

Agile Amped

ACMP2016

2016 - 2016

  • Attachment Theory and Big Data don’t obviously go together, but after meeting at the 2014 Change Conference, Patrick McCreesh and Victoria Grady decided to see if they couldn’t combine the two and help answer an interesting question: Can Washington Change?

Stacy Aaron Expects Resistance and Works With It

Agile Amped

ACMP2016

2016 - 2016

  • Stacy Aaron is surprised when she encounters change agents who are themselves surprised by the resistance they face when implementing change.

Amy Haworth & Susie Patterson: Anyone Who Tells You Org Change is Easy is Lying

Agile Amped

ACMP2016

2016 - 2016

  • Amy Haworth of Citrix and Susie Patterson of Prosci sit down with Agile Amped to dispell any misinformation out there about how easy building an enterprise change capability is.

Daryl Conner Sez Pair Character with Presence to Raise Your Game

Agile Amped

ACMP2016

2016 - 2016

  • Many change professionals get the methodology down pat but fail to recognize the importance of character and presence in effecting change.

Sadaf Khan Breaks Up Big Change into Agile-Sized Chunks

Agile Amped

ACMP2016

2016 - 2016

  • Change is a difficult process that can take a long time to take hold regardless of the size of the change.