Q&A: Introduction to Nickolas Sibley, the Agile Coach & Trainer at Makpar

Nickolas Sibley, Agile Coach & Trainer

With 20 years of Agile development expertise, Nickolas Sibley is the new Agile Coach & Trainer at Makpar. He will be playing a major role in advancing the company’s Agile development capabilities and growing the overall practice.

To officially introduce Nickolas to Makpar’s ecosystem of government customers, partners, and employees, we recently sat down with him to get his take on why he joined the company and gain his perspective on overall government IT trends.

The following conversation has been edited for length.

Q: Please tell us about your background.

I have been an Agile coach for 20 years. I started doing Agile before it even existed for Chase Manhattan Bank in 1997. Ever since then, I’ve been helping Fortune 100 companies to move away from putting too many work items into IT production at too late of a date, and ultimately blowing things up.

I’ve also been doing Agile training for Fortune 100 companies, and I look forward to providing this training at Makpar, as well as for the company’s customers. I have also come up with proprietary formula that accurately tells customers the tangible value they receive from Agile development. 

The main thing that makes me different is that I am a hybrid. I understand the business and IT sides of things, and I continually work to bring both together for better outcomes and revenue generation.

Q: Tell us about your role at Makpar.

As I mentioned, I am an enterprise Agile coach, and I have been working with the Makpar Innovation lab for a code challenge for a government agency. In my role, I recently helped to bring an Agile approach to the development of our response to the code challenge.

The Makpar team is the best at what they do, and I look forward to helping them to embrace Agile development through new processes to support overall business growth. I am excited working for Makpar to help grow out the overall Agile practice, and the timing is ideal with government moving in this direction.  

Q: Let’s dive into this concept further. Why did you choose to work at Makpar?

I have a tremendous opportunity to help government fully embrace Agile development. I feel that my capabilities are needed in this arena, and I can truly make an impact for Makpar and its customers.

Q: How do you see your role at Makpar evolving?

In addition to Agile training, I aim to help Makpar to win more government business through optimizing Agile throughout the entire organization. I’ll also be involved in sharing my subject-matter expertise through the company’s current content marketing efforts.

Q: Where do you think IT modernization in government is headed?

We are on about Version 5 of Agile, and at NWOW (New Ways of Working), which is a response to SAFe. This is all about going back to Lean Agile where business centrality, intelligence, and quality are all built-in to offer long-term business value through IT.

Government is poised to embrace this approach to delivering value, and ultimately help to meet overall mission goals.

Q: Any personal information about yourself you would like share with our readers.

I am an avid small gardener and I own two properties in Georgia where I grow vegetables. And, I have achieved my personal goal of growing enough Okra to eat it twice a day from June through October. My Okra plants are actually 8 feet tall!

We would like to thank Nickolas for taking the time to speak with us, and we officially welcome him to the Makpar team!