"My specialty is sewing together different departments in a company. This naturally results from doing real work with them, increasing trust, reducing fear, and making honest progress. My company is called Humans and Technology for good reason." --Alistair Cockburn
"I bring departments in an organization closer together, by doing real work with them, by increasing trust, reducing fear, and making honest progress. Humans and Technology is the name of my company for good reason." --Dr Alistair Cockburn
Dr. Alistair Cockburn is internationally recognized for his expertise in Agile methodologies, project management, and object-oriented design.
Key Achievements
✅ Named in 2020 as one of the "42 Greatest Software Professionals of All Times."
✅ Voted in 2007 as one of the "All-Time Top 150 i-Technology Heroes."
✅ Co-author of the Agile Manifesto that revolutionized the industry.
Find the courses of most interest to you, write and ask about having that course, or a tailored version of it taught at your company. Currently teaching primarily to orlganizations. Not currently offering public classes.
A comprehensive guide to designing clear, actionable use cases. This bestselling book is widely used in universities and industries to ensure effective communication and success in software development
A comprehensive guide to designing clear, actionable use cases. This bestselling book is widely used in universities and industries to ensure effective communication and success in software development
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
A comprehensive guide to designing clear, actionable use cases. This bestselling book is widely used in universities and industries to ensure effective communication and success in software development
Dr. Alistair Cockburn is internationally recognized for his expertise in Agile methodologies, project management, and object-oriented design.
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
A comprehensive guide to designing clear, actionable use cases. This bestselling book is widely used in universities and industries to ensure effective communication and success in software development
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
An essential guide to Agile development, focusing on collaboration, iteration, and continuous improvement. This book helps teams adopt Agile practices and build effective, cooperative software development processes.
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
The ultimate text on the Hexagonal or Ports & Adapters architecture by its creator, Alistair Cockburn, and the other foremost expert on the pattern, Juan Manuel Garrido de Paz, who wrote, "My code was full of framework code that didn’t let me understand what it did regarding business logic. From that moment I began to search the internet and I discovered the architecture that decouples the business logic from the framework. I haven’t stopped reading and learning about this pattern since.”
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
The world's expert on use cases brings together the three dominant forms of requirements writing used in agile and classical projects: user stories, use cases and story maps, showing how to use them together and separately.
Complete with exercises for the reader, this book is ideal for both self-paced as well as classroom learning.
Dr. Alistair Cockburn is internationally recognized for his expertise in Agile methodologies, project management, and object-oriented design.
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
A comprehensive guide to designing clear, actionable use cases. This bestselling book is widely used in universities and industries to ensure effective communication and success in software development
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
An essential guide to Agile development, focusing on collaboration, iteration, and continuous improvement. This book helps teams adopt Agile practices and build effective, cooperative software development processes.
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
The ultimate text on the Hexagonal or Ports & Adapters architecture by its creator, Alistair Cockburn, and the other foremost expert on the pattern, Juan Manuel Garrido de Paz, who wrote, "My code was full of framework code that didn’t let me understand what it did regarding business logic. From that moment I began to search the internet and I discovered the architecture that decouples the business logic from the framework. I haven’t stopped reading and learning about this pattern since.”
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
The world's expert on use cases brings together the three dominant forms of requirements writing used in agile and classical projects: user stories, use cases and story maps, showing how to use them together and separately.
Complete with exercises for the reader, this book is ideal for both self-paced as well as classroom learning.
From pioneering Agile methodologies to influencing global software development, here's a glimpse of Dr. Cockburn's journey.
Dr. Cockburn's journey began in 1993 when he interviewed teams worldwide on "What makes a successful project?" This led him to create an early version of Agile methodologies while working at IBM Consulting.
In 1994, he helped IBM successfully implement his Agile methodology on an $15M Smalltalk project, solidifying Agile as a practical approach to software development.
Dr. Cockburn helped the Central Bank of Norway successfully deliver a complex mainframe project, which led him to design the Crystal family of methodologies.
Dr. Cockburn was one of the 17 people who co-authored the Agile Manifesto in 2001, revolutionizing the software development and project management industries.
In 2003, Dr. Cockburn published "Crystal Clear," outlining his methodology for Agile software development, focusing on communication and collaboration.
In 2015, Dr. Cockburn refined his approach to Agile into four simple imperatives: Collaborate, Deliver, Reflect, Improve - The Heart of Agile.
From pioneering Agile methodologies to influencing global software development, here's a glimpse of Dr. Cockburn's journey.
He is the author of two industry-changing books:
In 1993, after two years of interviewing teams around the world on "What makes a successful project?", he wrote for the IBM Consulting Group an early version of what we now call an agile methodology. He and IBM used that methodology successfully in 1994 on a 18-month, $15M, fixed-price, fixed scope Smalltalk project, with Alistair as lead consultant and technical coordinator.
In 1998 he helped the Central Bank of Norway successfully deliver a difficult mainframe project that merged all the bank-to-bank transactions in the country of Norway. He also designed the Crystal family of methodologies while at the Central Bank of Norway.
In 2001, he organized the historic meeting in Snowbird, Utah, in which he and 16 other people from around the world wrote the Agile Manifesto. That manifesto revolutionized the field of software development, and then product management and eventually project management and organizational development in general. The "agile" approach - once considered radical - is now recommended in all industries from startups to government defense contracts, and even to government departments themselves, and social impact projects.
He published books in 1997 (Surviving Object-Oriented Projects), 2000 (Writing Effective Use Cases), 2001 (Agile Software Development), 2003 (his PhD dissertation, "People and Methodologies in Software Development), 2004 (Patterns for Effective Use Cases), 2005 (Crystal Clear), 2006 (Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game, 2nd ed.).
In 2015, Dr. Cockburn synthesized his advice to just four words: Collaborate, Deliver, Reflect, Improve - what he calls the Heart of Agile. These four words make any initiative more effective and more enjoyable to work on. Dr. Cockburn and his associates at the Heart of Agile Academy apply all the techniques they learn to different project situations.
With his background, Dr. Cockburn is one of the few people in the world who can authoritatively relate agile development to the need for executive control, balancing fiduciary responsibility with the need to stay responsive to a changing world. He stays grounded by consulting, teaching and working with project practitioners in all active roles, particularly project managers, product owners, scrum masters, coaches and programmers. This real-problem contact keeps him in tune with the changing work situations.
This photo, the "wild hair" picture, is the most widely recognized bio picture, serving as his LinkedIn profile and photo for as many conference lectures as will permit :).
Information Radiators is one of Dr. Cockburn's most used phrases, coined during a visit to a company in Chicago in 2000. There have been contests for the best information radiators.
"A user story is a promise for a conversation", is a phrase he framed in 1998 when visiting the first Extreme Programming project in Detroit. Since expanded by Ron Jeffries to Card, Conversation, Confirmation.
The Cockburn Scale describes the various sorts of projects you might find yourself on, to highlight that different strategies and methodologies are needed at different time.
Hexagonal Architecture is a software architecture used to protect domain logic from external technologies and simplify testing.