Real ideas.
Simple principles.
Big impact.
Dave helps people in knowledge work find better ways of working — whether that's how to run a workshop, build a product backlog, or lead a team that doesn't depend on one hero to hold it together.
The ideas aren't complicated. The hard part is doing them consistently. That's what Dave's coaching, training, and writing are all about: simple principles that actually stick.
"I was waking up at 4am to answer calls no one else would answer. I thought that was dedication. It was actually a system failure — and I was the broken part."
That realization is what turned a decade of firefighting into a career of teaching others how to stop. Dave has been a Registered Scrum Trainer for over a decade, working with teams across industries to replace heroism with systems that work without a hero.
Ways to work together.
Speaking
Keynotes and conference sessions on agile leadership, scaling without chaos, and the Hero Trap. Direct, practical, and built around ideas your audience can use the next day.
Conferences · CorporateWorkshops
Interactive workshops built on the frameworks from Dave's books — backlog bankruptcy, dependency mapping, building self-correcting teams. Delivered to your team, grounded in proven material.
Teams · OrganizationsConnect & Collaborate
Got an idea? Dave's always open to podcast guests, co-created content, and joint events with people doing interesting work in the agile and leadership space.
Podcast · Content · SpeakingThree books. One through line.
United Agility
The primer. What agile is, why uniting product and business agility matters, and how to close the gap between teams doing agile and an organization being agile.
Who Killed Agile?
The autopsy. What goes wrong in agile transformations, why they fail, and who's really responsible when the rollout makes everything worse. Co-authored with Luiz "Q" Quintela.
Sanity at Scale
The manual. How engineering leaders move from heroic firefighting to systemic excellence — and build organizations that deliver without burning out the people doing the work.
Get it on Amazon →Built for leaders who are done with theory.
Stop Scaling the Chaos
The Hero Trap, backlog bankruptcy, and the three moves that restore clarity in a scaling organization. Based on Sanity at Scale.
Who Killed Agile?
Why agile transformations fail — and what the organizations that get it right do differently. A forensic look at the most common causes of death.
The Art of the Hard No
How leaders protect their team's focus in a world of yes — the political capital ledger, the shield vs. the filter, and practical scripts for saying no without losing trust.
Book Dave for your next event.
Whether it's a conference keynote, a leadership offsite, or a corporate workshop — Dave brings real ideas your audience can act on immediately.