Niels Verdonk, VP Development at eBuddy

Hi Niels, thanks a lot for you time and your willingness to answer some questions regarding your experience with the work of agile42 supporting you in implementing Scrum into your company.eBuddy.com

Was there a specific reason for you to adopt Scrum?
Our business is very dynamic and change driven. We have to adopt our solutions fast to new market needs and evolutions. In short words, our business is very agile. Therefore we need a process that supports all the appearing challenges with a high level of agility. Some of our people, in previous companies, made strong experiences with agile methodologies like XP and Scrum and therefore we have chosen Scrum.

How was the situation at eBuddy before the Scrum implementation project started?
For a while we were trying Scrum using our own interpretation in just some of the projects. We realised very fast, that without a professional consulting we would not reach the optimum efficiency and that it would be very hard to introduce Scrum to all our projects.

Which goals did you want to reach by adopting Scrum?
Oh that’s easy: Clear focus for the development team, more efficiency, and higher output.

How did you see the agile42 approach?
The agile42 approach is a well thought process consisting specific training for the different roles and praxis driven coaching phases. Your coach, Andrea Tomasini made a very professional impression from the very first moment and he was up to the expectations. He gained a high respect from everyone in the organization and he proved to be agile himself too, when having to adjust Scrum to fit our two teams managing 3 products. The End-to-End approach of agile42 is just fitting to the needs of an enterprise and has proven to be successful.

Did you reach the goals?
Yes, all goals were reached. During the coaching phase we happen to realize how important the product backlogs really were. This is why we ask for another training focused on product backlog and strategic planning. Scrum really opened our eyes, in particular the need for a properly prioritized product backlog and it forced us to define our company and product strategies more in detail. We are now using the scrum framework to take our organization to the next level, and the Open Source tool Agilo is helping us in doing it faster!

Niels Verdonk, VP Development eBuddy

More Efficiency and Higher Output

eBuddy created the world's first, independent, web browser-based instant messaging service as e-Messenger in 2003. Its patent-pending technology enables millions of monthly global visitors with AOL, Google Talk, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo Messenger accounts to chat free of charge in one aggregated interface without having to download or install any application on their computer. Millions of monthly users also access eBuddy on their mobile phone, independent of carrier or device via WAP or mobile internet browser (m.ebuddy.com). eBuddy is a privately-held company backed by Prime Technology Ventures and Lowland Capital Partners. eBuddy is headquartered in Amsterdam and has a second, local office in London. The company plans to open a third, local office in San Francisco in mid-2008.

more about eBuddy