Upright Consulting is Joel Aufrecht, an experienced Project and Program Manager. I lead software teams to build great products, in the private, non-profit, and government sectors, using trust and communication to get sustainable results. I’ve managed and supported teams to successful product launches including new web applications for Wikipedia, new features for the biggest US government hiring system, and new software and web application product releases for businesses and for a free software project.
What’s your problem?
We need to finish and launch our website, software, next feature, or project.
- Coordinated successful feature releases for Wikipedia.
- Led product launch management for multiple startups and for free software projects.
We need to plan and run a great offsite—remotely!
- Ran dozens of productive offsites for strategy, planning, problem-solving, and team-building, all with strongly positive feedback.
- Developed and led remote and in-person ice-breakers and team exercises that were well-rated even by introverts.
- Worked with teams and team members in up to six continents, solving fairness, productivity, and coordination problems.
We need to get more done in less time at our meetings.
- Ran, rebuilt, and shortened meetings of 40+ people, from team members to managers and executives.
- Trained and experienced facilitator, including
- Effective, empathetic listening and clarifying.
- Amplifying under-represented voices.
- Working through conflict constructively.
Our team needs to learn this Scrum stuff, but the developers ate the last three Scrum Coaches.
- Trained over a dozen teams in Scrum, in several different situations, all producing lasting benefits and grudging respect.
- Project-managed and coached software teams with methodologies ranging from formal Waterfall to Kanban and everything in-between: Spiral Waterfall, Rapid Application Development, Scrum, Scrum-ish, Scrumban, and Scrum-adjacent, spreadsheet-driven, and 'the spec is in somebody's email'.
We need to know when, or if, this project is going to finish.
- Accurately estimated a multi-year, hundred+ people, multi-million dollar software project.
- Helped developers refine their work breakdown, planning poker, and large-scale estimation skills.
