© 2011 Pillar Technology Group, LLC
Pillar is a different kind of consulting firm. We’re not just interested in cutting edge technology. We’re interested in using technology to solve problems and create business value.
That’s why we talk about Speed to Value. For over 14 years we have selected the brightest minds in technology and business to teach companies how to quickly see real returns on their technology investment. Our approach starts with business value delivered in short iterations, zero defect development, lean business analysis, and flexible enterprise project management to produce the most scalable agile development in the world.
Whether you begin with free webinars, training, an assessment, or a small project, small wins lead to big change if done properly. But you must realize that in any enterprise, there are many things that will need to be transformed.
Transformation needs to occur in your culture, structure, portfolio planning, resource management, finances, and other areas. Each can be done incrementally, without disrupting the normal course of business.
Pillar is a different kind of consulting firm. We’re not just interested in cutting edge technology. We’re interested in using technology to solve problems and create business value. That’s why we talk about transformations, not services. For over 14 years we have selected the brightest minds in technology and business to teach companies how to quickly see real returns on their technology investment. Our Speed-to-Value (STV) approach combines zero defect development with lean business analysis and flexible enterprise project management to produce the most scalable agile development in the world.
The stuff you might care about if you want to do business with Gary — Gary is a serial entrepreneur who enjoys the challenge of starting new companies and coming up with new ideas. He has served in various Business and IT roles throughout his career, but his most rewarding and challenging role is assembling teams of talented individuals and pointing them in a common direction. "We are laser focused on the challenge of transforming the IT world. We are ambassadors for Agile Blending and want to see as many companies as possible rescued from the practices of the past. We are providing hope through hands-on mentoring, education and project services on a national basis." Gary really loves spending time with family, mountain biking, and golf, especially if he can get a tax break by taking a customer. He also participates in short term mission trips to Africa. He and his wife have founded a non-profit organization called EOTR International to meet the needs of the poor on a global basis.
Bob has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry and is currently serving as the President of Pillar. Prior to joining Pillar, Bob served as a CIO, CTO, and IT Director. He was a consultant for CGE&Y and was a Director/Partner in one of the largest internet growth companies. Bob has also been a founding partner in the creation and sale of two Internet related start-up companies. For the past 10 years Bob has focused on strategic technology engagements that impact business process improvement, sales growth, cost displacement and new business operating models. Bob's primary skills are in the area of Business Process re-engineering, IT Engineering and Object Oriented Framework Development.
As stated above Bob adores his five children and manages his entire and very busy schedule around each and every kid's event. During football season he has to take the afternoon off because he gets so fired up about the night's game. Ultimately, what Bob lives for is seeing others accomplish things they never dreamed possible.
Matt joined Pillar in 2005 as VP of Fulfillment for the Ohio Valley Region after years of notable accomplishments. Matt developed a testing practice focused on functional test automation and application performance management. Matt founded Solstice Software, a company that wrote Automated Unit and Integration Testing Products and continues to push the envelope with test automation. He is one of the key innovators around our Speed To Value (S2V) approach. Matt's skills and experience has been instrumental in the development of Pillar's Practice Management model that maximizes the impact of productivity by enforcing those proven concepts and training.
Pillar Mobile is an incubator to find, refine and launch apps into the marketplace with the speed and agility that we are famous for. We are proud to announce the first project completed by Pillar Mobile: The new Pillar Technology website.
Pillar Mobile combines your ideas and our approach, Speed to Value, and a business and investor community.
Getting Started with Pillar is easy. We focus on customer success by providing:
In an assessment we work with you to establish a benchmark for Agility.
Value Modeling is unique to Pillar. We work with you and your business team to establish the real, incremental value of a project or portfolio. These sessions tend to revolutionize our customer and their approach to value delivery.
We also can provide a range of training for enterprise agility. It is customized to your specific needs and business goals.
The best way to get started is to do a project. Whether it is a green field project, a package software implementation or a mobile deployment. Our team members sitting next to your team is the best way to learn.
At Pillar we work hard to help our clients build new cultures and we take seriously the strength of our culture. Culture is that element of the company that drives creativity, empowerment and responsibility. Our culture is driven by our values. We value:
We believe our greatest asset is our people and our clients. We focus on the success of of others and we find success.
Getting started with Pillar is easy and the only thing it will cost you is time. Pillar has over 50 online webinars you can preview. We have divided them into three tracks Executive, Management and Technical. We also have a list of upcoming webinars that you can choose from. These are live sessions where you can ask questions, here others thoughts and interact with our consultants.
11May2010
IT Executives have considered the business benefits an Agile approach might mean to their business, but the path seemed littered with risk and uncertainty. Join Bob Myers, author of "The Role of the CIO in an Agile Transformation" as he shares insights from years of executive coaching on business value and transformation initiatives.
The Gartner 2010 CIO Survey identified that "Increasing the use of information / analytics" is the #3 priority of CIO's globally. During this event you will also learn how to mine the data that Agile provides to make real impact on the valuable business initiatives in your organization.
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09Jun2011
In any company, the Executive Dashboard or Key Performance Indicators, is a driving force for the executive team. However, often this tool has dated information, suffers from real time visibility and does not always make things big and visible. The C-Suite is not happy with their current metrics and will not embrace story points and burn downs if you try to introduce properly; the reason is that they do not answer their biggest questions. As an executive you want to know:
This webinar teaches how to develop meaningful metrics in and Agile world, how to connect these metrics to the actual work being done, and how to best present the data.
If you would like a more focused training session, Pillar offers a series of public and private training classes. These are very inexpensive and are extremely valuable hands on sessions.
Pillar Technology is proud to sponsor a public offering of Coaching Agile Teams with Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd. This is a hands on course geared to help those who influence agile teams be more influential.
Dates: June 20th & 21st, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Location: Hilton, Polaris – 8700 Lyra Drive, Columbus, Oh 43240
Registration: $900
Featured Instructors:
You’ll walk away from each of the two courses with your personal coaching improvement backlog — a tangible plan you can use to thoughtfully improve your coaching when you’re back in your daily circumstances. We use your real world situations and scenarios throughout the class allowing you to craft powerful ways to address the challenges you face.
Syllabus:
Thanks for joining us at COHAA. Click below to redeem your Buy One Get One training coupon. When registering use promo code COHAA.
Coming to a city near you this summer — A single-day agile project simulation that is engaging, educational, provocative, and fun. This simulation introduces concepts like time-boxed iterations, user stories, collective estimation, commitment to a product owner for iteration scope, formal verification ritual at iteration conclusion, tracking velocity, and making results big and visible through charts. The exercise is designed to simulate not only how agile teams and practices work, but the inevitable challenges that arise as teams attempt to adopt such practices. Please see this page for more information.
Date: June 14th, 8 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Location: Tech Columbus, 1275 Kinnear Rd. Columbus, OH
Presenter: John Huston
Date: June 23rd, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Location; Denver, CO
Presenter: Matt VanVleet
Date: August 17th, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Location: Cleveland, OH
Presenter: Matt VanVleet
Date: September 14th, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Location: TechTown, Detroit, OH
Presenter: Jason Waack
Date: October 12th
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Presenter: Matt Van Vleet
Pillar’s New Day in the Life Offering — Since we’re virtual and agile we will come to your corporation for groups of 12 or more and let your organization spend a day in the life of Agile. Simply contact us at 1-888-3Pillar.
Pillar Technology is proud to sponsor a public offering of Coaching Agile Teams with Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd. This is a hands on course geared to help those who influence agile teams be more influential.
Dates: June 20th & 21st, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Location: Hilton, Polaris – 8700 Lyra Drive, Columbus, Oh 43240
Registration: $900
Featured Instructors:
You’ll walk away from each of the two courses with your personal coaching improvement backlog — a tangible plan you can use to thoughtfully improve your coaching when you’re back in your daily circumstances. We use your real world situations and scenarios throughout the class allowing you to craft powerful ways to address the challenges you face.
Syllabus:
09Jun2011
In any company, the Executive Dashboard or Key Performance Indicators, is a driving force for the executive team. However, often this tool has dated information, suffers from real time visibility and does not always make things big and visible. The C-Suite is not happy with their current metrics and will not embrace story points and burn downs if you try to introduce properly; the reason is that they do not answer their biggest questions. As an executive you want to know:
This webinar teaches how to develop meaningful metrics in and Agile world, how to connect these metrics to the actual work being done, and how to best present the data.
23Jun2011
How do agile projects accurately forecast their budget when they are typically just a bunch of hippies coding without requirements or documentation? Waterfall projects are obviously much better at budgeting with all of the traditional up front design and planning, right? Anyone who has been on a waterfall project can see that this is a complete fallacy. Good agile projects are typically very accurate with regards to budgeting. This session will explore some budgeting techniques for agile projects including leveraging a Sprint 0, developing Value Stories, and using technical Spikes. We'll cover these topics with interactive examples and also identify where we think the industry needs to go with budgeting on agile projects.
25May2011
In order to understand and communicate why you are building a system, it is critical to know how you define and communicate the critical levers effecting Business Value in your Enterprise. Enterprise Value Modeling is a technique that allows you a simple way to communicate a model which shows how your organization makes or saves money.
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We take the time to understand your needs and determine what will create real value for your business. We concentrate on developing solutions and delivering them early and often.
Almost 70% of IT projects fail to come in on time and on budget. Part of the problem is that traditional IT isn't agile enough to keep up with business' changing needs. By the time a solution is built, the business has evolved and the solution is no longer relevant.
Our approach represents years of experience applying agile software development practices to 100s of projects in numerous customer environments ranging from the very small to large organizations like Mercedes-Benz and GM.
SOA is about creating reusable code to make the software development process more efficient. Pillar is the leading provider of SOA consulting in the Midwest because we look at SOA as a way to simplify discussions between businesses and IT. Our solutions are easy for businesses to use and for IT people to manipulate.
Pillar over the years has worked for some great companies. Our philosophy is simple. Customer Delight: We've done work for GE, Mercedes-Benz, GM and Nationwide Insurance. We also work with mid-sized companies like Progressive Medical, Mettler Toledo, Gale Cengage, Delta Dental, GFS and others. Here is what they say about us:
"In a successful transformation, you need a Coach. We chose Pillar, and made major change in only five months. Instead of starting with one team, we decided to go all in. I think crossing the chasm to (agile) was a major factor in our success. My people now spend their days working, and not their nights. We are now looking to extend Agile to the rest of the business."
Gary BakerCIO
"For about a year, I heard about Speed to Value, but frankly I was skeptical. I thought I had heard it all before, until we did a major acquisition and I needed information rapidly. I called Pillar and said: “Let's try Speed to Value, here is my problem...” Four weeks later I was solving my business problem without compromising quality or requirements. Now I am a believer in Pillar's capability. My recommendation: Give S2V a try. You will be delighted with the results."
Ned Shryock Business Process Manager, Global Sourcing & Supply Chain, Greif Corporation
"The journey of agile transformation is truly one which demands a guide. When you are traveling to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, it's good to have someone who has been there before. The coaches at Pillar led us through the process, guided us past the major risks, and facilitated my strategic effort to establish standardized IT QA practices here in our enterprise."
Tom Churchwell Director IT Quality Assurance at Gale Cengage Learning
John is an experienced IT leader, generalist and agilist with over 20 years experience in the field. His passion for learning and coaching has led him to a variety of leadership roles, including Application Development, Enterprise Architecture, Quality, and Operations/Infrastructure. He has led the effort to deploy agile methods at the enterprise and team level. Since joining Pillar, John has turned his passion to the human development aspects of agile teams and is currently responsible for Talent, Learning and Development within the organization.
Daryl is responsible for the connection between sales and the delivery teams. He grew up in Alberta, Canada and has worked for SHL Systemhouse, Claremont Technology Group (Covansys) and Perficient. He has worked on Agile delivery teams for more than a decade and enjoys helping clients link their IT efforts to business value. Daryl's clients have included many of the Fortune 500, as well as Silicon Valley startups.
Daryl enjoys travel, music and investing. He very interested in holistic healthcare and renewable energy. Daryl and his wife live in Westerville Ohio where they've been for the past 14 years.
Todd has been responsible for software delivery in various roles over the past 15 years, including developing, leading large teams and coaching organizations through Agile transformation. He has worked with everything from fortune 50 companies to startups, including healthcare, manufacturing, finance, insurance, distribution, and education. He has been fortunate to speak to other passionate software developers at the user group, local, regional, and national conference level. Todd is consistently looking for new approaches to quickly deliver high-quality software.
Todd has stayed close to his Buckeyes throughout the years and currently shares his Central Ohio home with his wife and two daughters.
Jay serves as VP of Business Development at Pillar. A former associate at Gartner, the premier IT analyst firm, Jay has supported some of the world's leading information technology executives. Jay has served as COO of CDW, an ISP design and contraction company. In this role, Jay led the day to day operations and strategic vision for the organization which designed Internet access networks in 14 countries around the world. Jay launched and managed Outreach Networks until their acquisition by ISS/Internet Security Systems (now part of IBM).
Jay has served as executive leader and board member of multiple for-profit and non-profit organizations. He is a pilot and works to introduce inner-city youth to opportunities through aviation careers in his spare time.
Rachel joined Pillar in 2005 as Pillar's first recruiter in the Ohio Valley region. She has over 13 years of professional experience including 6 years of resource management and 12 years of recruiting experience, across industry lines. She specializes in recruiting software craftsman, Agile Coaches and Business Analysts.
Though her career started in recruitment, Ms. Howard is passionate about cultural and organizational change, relationship building, personal development and consultant management. She is often called the company "Mom" and with two beautiful daughters and a wonderful husband at home she has lots of opportunities to take care of others!
Mark joined Pillar as a Delivery Lead in January 2010 and was promoted to the Director position in January 2011 with the goal of growing Pillar's offerings in the region. Mark has focused his career on finding the most effective ways to deliver value to the businesses he is working with. He has been a developer, business analyst, project manager and leader during his 30 year career.
Prior to joining Pillar, Mark was a Director of Finance and Sr. Development Manager at Hollywood Video. He has 10 years of experience at major consulting firms including holding a Director position at CBSI, and 10 years of experience in commercial software development. During this time, he was involved in designing Oracle’s initial process manufacturing suite, managing the integration of Platinum’s financial suite and managing construction of financial applications at Hyperion. At Chrome Systems his team successfully replaced the automotive configuration engine for the site in less than 120 days, with a full Java solution using XP. One of the most complex assignments Mark has accomplished was building and implementing the GM BuyPower automotive configuration engine.
To give back to the community, Mark enjoys mentoring people and has given thousands of hours feeding the homeless. For fun, he and his wife of 30 years, Yolette, have remodeled 15 homes.
Angela joined Pillar in July of 2010 as the Financial Controller. She has brought with her several years of experience in the IT industry having worked as the Controller and later Vice President of Finance for Touchmark Consulting. In addition, she was a consultant with Accunet where she helped companies upgraded their accounting software to more robust systems like Microsoft GP and Microsoft SL. She will be responsible for all finance operation as well as keeping Pillar current with respect to any accounting practices.
Angela is married and has three children. She enjoys time with family, getting involved in her children’s activities, traveling, art and working on remodeling her home.
Angelo's position at Pillar will add a level of professional management to the organization that we need to grow Pillar to the next level. He will also ensure our approach is compatible for CIO and CEO's of many of our mid-sized to large customers. Prior to joining Pillar, Mr. Mazzocco most recently served as Chief Information Officer for Progressive Medical, Inc. His background also includes roles as VP and CIO at the Dispatch Printing Company & Affiliates, COO and Professional Services Director at NCGroup, board memberships at GroundWork Group and Quick Solutions, advisory positions with OCLC and Navigator, and is a founding member of TechTomorrow (once called CIOOhio). Mr. Mazzocco also is a member of the adjunct faculty at Otterbein University.
05Apr2011
In order to understand and communicate why you are building a system, it is critical to know how you define and communicate the critical levers effecting Business Value in your Enterprise. Enterprise Value Modeling is a technique that allows you a simple way to communicate a model which shows how your organization makes or saves money.
Share this webinar (coming soon)
08Mar2011
Most associate Portfolio Planning with the stock market; unfortunately the IT Portfolio traditionally does not allow you the same ability to compare opportunities in a common currency and to manage risk using diversification and dollar cost averaging. This webinar covers how using Agile Principles and Practices can improve your ability to manage your IT Portfolio. Specific practices including Enterprise Value Modeling, Value Stories and Story Mapping will be introduced and discussed.
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15Dec2010
At first glance, this may look like the heavy weight mapping of the past. We can assure you its not! However, if you can't map your stories back to business value, then why do they make or save the company money? This webinar is a must have for any and all Agile BA's. Come hear how to super-charge your business analysis with Agile story mapping.
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8Dec2010
Agile teams are awesome; an Agile Enterprise is better. So how do you lead the Enterprise to Value? This webinar will discuss the "seeds" of a successful Enterprise to Value transformation process. The "what to do" and "what not to do" tips and tricks of successfully transforming your business into one that outpaces the competition on value delivery.
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1Dec2010
If your executive team still views the P&L line item for IT as expense, this is a must see webinar. Technology is establishing an un-parrelled position in everyday life. Companies must take advantage of new mobile and gesture based computing platforms to better serve their customers, clients and the organization.
This seminar will give you helpful tips on how to maximize the value delivered to the business through rapid, extremely accurate technology deployment. If you are a Product Owner, our Product Owner Panel expert will speak to the business' role in tech strategy while our IT staff radically changes its role to a value generator for the business.
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22Nov2010
Why must we, and how can we get the Storytesting practice back on track? As an agile community we must have precise, deterministic, acceptance criteria for the "Definition of Done" for User Stories: proof that we have "Built the Thing Right", but more critically, proof that we have "Built the Right Thing" in terms of value and ROI. Frequently, a key best practice in that latter category is Storyesting/ATDD. This webinar explores the reasons why Storytesting/Acceptance Test-Driven Development is a vital practice, and why it is woefully underused.
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18Nov2010
The role of C Level leadership is critical, especially when your organization is attempting to become Agile. Learn from a CFO and CIO how to overcome the challenges and reap the benefits of leading the business to Agility from the C suite.
This webinar will cover the role of the CIO, CFO and CEO in an Agile Transformation.
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21Oct2010
When we explain the iterative/incremental nature of Agile, most people coming from a waterfall lifecycle say "What? No up-front planning at all?" Some Agile coaches would glibly say yes, but the truth is more complex. Sprint Zero is an Agile term for a time-boxed amount of up-front planning. During Sprint Zero, we try to identify value stories, get a decent backlog of user stories and we do some architectural proof-of-concepts. The trick is to balance between insufficient planning and analysis paralysis. Join us for a lively discussion on this seldom-discussed Agile topic.
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29Jul2010
The most challenging part of test-driven development is dealing with dependencies. Typically, we end up creating mocks and stubs to isolate the behavior we would like to test. When we create all these testing classes by hand, it can get out of hand quickly – sometimes developers duplicate these classes, and other times the mocks and stubs become more complicated than the code they’re trying to test in the first place. Thankfully, we have several open source tools that can help ease the pain; frameworks like Rhino Mocks and Moq allow us to create mocks and stubs within our test method. While these tools do have a learning curve, we’ll go over techniques that can ease you into these frameworks, and soon hand-rolling a mock or stub won’t be your only option.
About the Speaker: Michael Joseph Kramer is a passionate software developer focusing on quality agile practices and writing the minimum amount of code that he can. He has over 10 years of experience creating applications on a wide variety of platforms, and has worked as both an IT professional and as a consultant. Michael is a student of test-driven development, object-oriented design, and recently he’s been trying not to spill the Ruby Kool-Aid on his shirt. Michael lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he obsesses about bourbon and Buckeye football. He holds degrees in English and Economics from Ohio State University, and currently works for Pillar Technology.
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14Jul2010
Systems are not developed to serve the users or managers. They exist to produce business value. You thus need an approach that keeps business value front and center in everyone mind.
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10Jun2010
Oftentimes, we can think of lots of reasons why we can't do Agile in a particular situation. But really, we're answering the wrong question. The right question is "Do we require agility?" In other words, "Does the business need IT to respond to their requests quickly and with flexibly?
Most of the time, agility in our relationship with the business just isn't an option. And that means that we need to figure out how to get there no matter what.
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19May2010
At the outset of an Agile project one of the first tasks at hand is to properly break down the requirements of the new application in to user stories.
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11May2010
IT Executives have considered the business benefits an Agile approach might mean to their business, but the path seemed littered with risk and uncertainty. Join Bob Myers, author of "The Role of the CIO in an Agile Transformation" as he shares insights from years of executive coaching on business value and transformation initiatives.
The Gartner 2010 CIO Survey identified that "Increasing the use of information / analytics" is the #3 priority of CIO's globally. During this event you will also learn how to mine the data that Agile provides to make real impact on the valuable business initiatives in your organization.
Share this webinar (coming soon)
29Apr2010
Many business and IT management stakeholders see the benefit of Agile, but don't know how to integrate the practices in to their organization. How do you get status, monitor progress, and evaluate risk? Join us to learn how business stakeholders and IT management engage with an Agile team.
A core tenant of Agile is to make things big and visible. This webinar will review the typical questions leadership has of a team, and compares the traditional way of answering those questions to an agile perspective.
The analyst and IT advisory firm Gartner has identified that "Increasing the use of information / analytics" is the #3 priority of CIO's globally this year. Attend this webinar to gain practical insights which will directly support both your business stakeholders and IT executives.
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14Apr2010
If you are writing automated through-the-GUI tests for a web application, you are in danger of creating tests that are more expensive to maintain than they are worth. With well-factored Selenium RC tests running in Junit or TestNG, you can keep your abstraction layers or "Lingos" -- small bounded bits of slang for discrete parts of the object model -- separate, thereby reducing the maintenance costs of your tests, and improving your sanity.
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08Apr2010
If you've heard of Test-driven Development, and you're wondering what all the fuss is about, this webinar will provide a code-centric introduction to the concepts, tools, and practices of TDD in the .NET framework.
We'll start with the basics of setting up a unit testing framework and writing the first test, then we'll move on to techniques for mocking dependencies and demonstrate patterns like Dependency Injection that will help you move past testing just the basics.
After the webinar, you should be able to sit down and start writing tests that will drive the design of your application, creating loosely-coupled and testable code.
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18Dec2009
Join author, speaker and senior agile coach Daryl Kulak to explore the critical role of the Product Owner in an agile environment. Typically a non-IT, business stakeholder, the Product Owner is fundamental to a successful agile development project. Join this webinar to learn more about this critical team role.
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