This is me, Russ Lewis
My talented daughter drew this portrait of me. She’s captured me as reflective, a thinker. I’ve also been described as a “seeker of truth”.
It’s easier to describe yourself as others see you than it is to choose your own words.
Who are you?
I’m a learner
There’s so much I have yet to learn, even about myself, whom I thought I knew. For example, it took me forty years to rediscover my emotions. As I became aware of them, I began to see how it was sometimes they, not me, that was in charge.
Image of rider on elephant: Metropolitan Museum of Art / Creative Commons
and a servant
I’m energised by serving a cause. That’s often supporting a leader as they develop themselves and their department.
What do you do?
Consult
I run Storm-Consulting, an IT management consulting practice that helps organizations improve their Business Agility. This approach to Agile involves co-creating ways of working that are 3X more effective.
Coach transformation leaders
I coach managers, supporting executives and leaders as they agilise their business areas. Digital transformation and senior Agile sponsors must be able to ‘walk the walk’ and not just talk about it. Coaching is done in strict confidence.
Help managers leading Business Agility
Many of the tools and techniques I’ve developed to help managers transition to Lean Agile ways of working are available on the RussLewis.com website, including:
- An Operating Model for Business Agility published 2032
- The Chalice Model of value delivery (unpublished article, 2018)
- Predictable and Agile Delivery (InfoQ article, 2016)
- The Manager Role for Enterprise Agility (Agile 2016 conference video)
- Role of the Manager (Research and workshops, 2015)
- Early Stage Deliverables (2012)
Research
Although I’m mostly hands-on, I became interested in the academic approach whilst researching literature for my Master’s degree. My academic contributions to Agile and Management literature include:
- Agile Coaching: impact on managers in digital transformation (Doctoral research, started 2020) see agile-leadership.institute
- MSc thesis: Improving Organisational Agility (Staffs, 2017)
Bio
Russ is a Digital Transformation expert and Enterprise Agile Coach for large companies such as banking (both payments and investment varieties), online gaming, travel, and hotel booking sectors. You won’t find these on his resume, but he’s performed IT turnarounds and transformation rescues as Interim CTO and management consultant (for some very well-known firms).
As a software engineer, he led the team that designed and built TfL’s contactless fares system. As a technical instructor and course author, he traveled the world and was regularly hired to consult for the organizations he taught.
He writes articles and sometimes talks at conferences.