Executive Strategic Advisory · Certified Scrum Trainer® (CST)
Experience Matters: Strategic Advisory for Leaders Whose Agile Teams Look Busy but Don't Deliver
You have the roles, the rituals, and the Sprints. What you don't have is the result. I work with you and your executive team to find out why, and fix it. A human with 35+ years of experience and a current CPO seat. Not a slide deck, and not an army of consultants.
Tell me what's going on. If I can help, I'll tell you how. If I can't, I'll point you to someone who can.
Most clients start with a 20-minute call. Prefer email? Email me your situation. Two or three sentences is enough. I reply personally and tell you honestly whether I can help. I take on a small number of advisory clients at a time.
Sound familiar?
- Every team reports green, and revenue, customer satisfaction and speed to market haven't moved.
- "Priority 1" means something different to each of your direct reports, and the teams pay for it.
- The stand-ups, retrospectives and Sprints are all happening, and it still feels like a new layer of bureaucracy.
- You hired Scrum Masters and bought training. The same problems keep surfacing.
- Your leadership meetings are about managing the work, and nobody has time for strategy.
- You're accountable for a result you can't afford to miss, and you can't say that out loud to your own team.
None of these is a team problem. They are alignment, focus, and leadership-system problems, and you cannot hire someone to "install Agile" to solve them.
What waiting costs
- Your best people leave. They get frustrated by unclear direction and the feeling of running in place.
- You fund work that stalls, misses business goals, or should never have started.
- Competitors ship first. While you debate internally, a more aligned organization is delivering value to your customers.
What we do together
My approach is built on the "First Team" principle: an organization's performance reflects the alignment, trust, and focus of its senior leadership team. So that is where we start. These are direct, hands-on partnerships with you and your executive team, not off-the-shelf workshops.
- Executive team alignment: we move from siloed departmental goals to one clear, visible set of strategic priorities for the whole organization.
- Systemic diagnosis: I act as your practitioner-partner to find the real bottlenecks. (Hint: it's almost never the development team.) We look at friction in your planning, funding, and review processes.
- A rhythm of Focus. #deliver: a simple, sustainable operating model that lets your leadership guide with clarity, inspect results, and adapt without creating chaos.
The shift is from "managing the work" to "leading the system."
Case story
100 people, nine months, nothing delivered. Then one team shipped.
A senior executive at one of the world's largest banks brought me in on a risk-reduction project. The team had failed regulatory audits, fines and federal scrutiny were on the table, and the sponsoring VP was personally on the line.
Nine months in, a project team of over 100 people had produced status reports, not a working solution. The problem combined a new way of working, a re-platforming for massive data volumes, and new business practices, all tangled together.
We reorganized around a single cross-functional team of about ten, using Scrum's roles, events and artifacts. They delivered something real by the end of the first Sprint. Within three months the full solution shipped, technology plus new procedures. The team won the company's award. Scrum then spread to over half the organization.
"Mike has taken a big challenge to coach an architecturally complex... project... His experience... and timely coaching has led [to] successful project implementation. As this was the pilot project... it raised eye brows across the company and the team won circle of excellence."
— Chief Enterprise Architect
How an engagement starts
Not with a proposal. It starts with discovery: calls or visits where we question each other before anyone proposes a solution. You find out how I think, and I find out whether I'm the right person for what you actually need.
If I'm not, I'll say so. Not my circus, not my monkey. That costs you nothing but a few minutes.
Most clients start with a 20-minute call. Prefer email? Email me your situation.
Case story
The engagement I got wrong, and what I do differently now
Early in my consulting years, a company's top leaders brought me in to "change the company." I started where I always do, at the executive level, and I pushed too much change too fast. In one meeting, and in the one-on-one conversations around it, it became clear they didn't want to change. I was asked to leave the room.
I had accepted the mandate without testing it. I wasn't the right person for what they actually needed.
The result was partial. Some of those executives later left the company and brought me into their new organizations, where what they wanted and what I offer actually matched.
Now I don't begin until we've done discovery. And I'm willing to walk away.
Not sure we're a fit? Good, let's find out together. Email me your situation.
What others say
"I can't express enough the amount of change and improvement that Michael Vizdos has sparked... Michael, lead the most difficult project to date from introduction to completion with stellar results."
— Michael Euripides, Senior Vice President/Revenue at SIMBA Chain
"Due to... the challenging schedules of our executive management, Michael had to be very responsive to change. He and his consultant exceeded our expectations, delivering much more than expected."
— Joseph Bonds, Consultant
"Management relied on him to help apply the lessons of Agile beyond software, into the domains of product and project management... Michael is serious about his work, and a real asset to any enterprise."
— Deborah Preuss, PCC, CPCC
Why me
- 35+ years of experience: on the front lines of this work since its inception, as one of the original CSTs.
- An active C-suite practitioner: I'm not a career consultant. As an active Chief Product Officer (CPO), I'm in the trenches with the same leadership and product challenges you have.
- Results over frameworks: I'm not here to sell you a framework. I'm here to help you get results. Period.
Questions
Why a person instead of AI?
Experience matters. AI can draft a strategy memo. It can't tell you which executive will quietly stall the change, or what to do about it in the room. I've watched these situations play out for 35+ years.
Is this just Scrum training?
No. Training certifies teams. This aligns the leadership team that sets their direction. If you want training too, see Scrum training.
Can I start smaller than an executive engagement?
Yes. Options at lower commitment:
- Scrum Event Tune-Up: send a recording of one of your Scrum Events for an asynchronous, neutral review. $297.
- Monthly advisory: Async Advisory, Advisory Lite or Advisory VIP, from $997 a month. Cancel any month.
- 1:1 mentoring: for you personally, rather than your organization.
Not ready to commit?
Book a 20-minute call, or email me what's stuck. I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.
Not sure this is the right fit?
- It's about you, not the organization: see 1:1 mentoring, three sessions for $497.
- Your teams need the skills: see private Scrum training.