What’s your role at Nimble?
I’ve joined Nimble as a Senior Business Analyst in October 2022. My role is quite varied and depends on the needs of the clients I’m working with, but to sum it up as concisely as possible…I am the bridge between the business and the technical delivery teams. I work to ensure that everyone understands what needs to be done, and the value of doing it, to best realise that value.
This can involve: identifying and assessing the feasibility of business opportunities; breaking requirements down into deliverable chunks; creating easy to follow plans and roadmaps; analysing data; and a plethora of other activities. At the end of the day, my aim is to help the team to be the best it can be, by ensuring that they have all the information they need to do their jobs, and to make it as easy to understand as possible.
Tell us about your journey to Nimble
Over the years I have been part of some really exciting projects, but I have been informed by my wife that maybe they’re not quite as exciting to everyone else, so I’ll try to summarise my career history and how I came to be a Senior Business Analyst at Nimble Approach.
IT Projects, both waterfall and Agile across a variety of industries as a consultant with IBM and Mason Advisory. Onto the wonderful yet challenging world of self employed contracting, and this is where I first encountered Nimble Approach. I had three successful placements with Nimble.
But when Covid hit, all external contractors departed, and I took this opportunity to try something entirely different and I moved to the Netherlands where I worked in the Mobile Games industry.
With the birth of my daughter, it was time to return to the UK, and having followed Nimble’s continued journey I was keen to get involved again.
Why did you make the move to Nimble?
I had worked with Nimble before as a contractor. The culture at the heart of Nimble has always been focused towards getting the most out of those working for and with Nimble in a constructive and engaging way. The work hard, play hard mantra was a real thing, not just something said to draw you in, and even though I was a contractor, I felt as much a part of Nimble as Chris Roberts (the founder and CEO).
After I went my own way and moved to the Netherlands, I continued to follow Nimble’s journey. And when I moved back to the UK, I was keen to get involved.
What are you aiming to achieve at Nimble?
For a lot of my career, I have forged my own path, trying different things until something worked out for me and those I was working with. With Nimble, my aim is to continue to grow and develop, but with the support of the other Nimblers.
My aim at Nimble is to move into the Product space as a Product Owner or Product Manager, but things may change, and I know that Nimble will support me on that journey.
What do you love about working in Tech?
Working in Tech, I love being a part of journey’s to achieve new things, whether it’s ground-breaking technology, or finding ways to improve how things are now. Whilst there can be similarities between different projects, they’re rarely the exact same (no two AWS migrations are exactly alike), and the new challenges that come with each project really make the work interesting (and dare I say it, exciting).
What achievement are you most proud of?
I rarely like to be the centre of attention, I’m the guy who when it comes to my birthday, I take the day off and don’t say a thing about it, but I do have a few things that I’m happy to toot my own horn about.
I helped to deliver a mobile game that is currently (at the time of writing) in Soft Launch. When I joined the project, there wasn’t much of a plan and there was a general lack of direction, but by the time we came to doing the Soft Launch, it looked amazing and we had a game to be proud of.
Outside of work, there are a few things I’m particularly proud of, top of the list has to be my baby daughter who I absolutely adore. A very close second (if only second and not first because my wife might read this) has to be completing the Mongol Rally in 2011, where as part of a team we drove an old Skoda 10,000 miles from the UK to Mongolia. The last 300ish miles we had a leak in the radiator that we didn’t have the equipment to fix, and the last 5 miles we didn’t have any more water to put in, so we used Sprite. I’m surprised the radiator didn’t just blow up at that point, but we made it. I’m pretty proud of that.
What’s your biggest strength?
I always pride myself on being able to work with a team and to really help them to achieve their goals. I’d like to say that I’m a professional problem solver, but really, I think I’m just great at listening to their needs, putting in the leg work, and communicating the results in a way that helps them to get the job done.
What do you enjoy outside of work?
I’m a big table top gaming fan, from board games to roleplaying games. Even when I’m washing the dishes, I’m usually thinking about creating game content, whether it’s homebrew D&D for the long running campaign that I run, or an idea for something that I can publish in my spare time (what little spare time I have these days).
What was your dream job when you were at School?
Archaeologist! At school I loved history, and I loved watching Time Team on TV. I remember getting a Time Team book for Christmas one year that talked about the process of excavations and come summer I ruined my mum’s flower beds trying to excavate a whole lot of nothing.
What’s your favourite piece of technology?
Currently it has to be my Steamdeck. I don’t get a whole lot of time to play games on my PC any more, but being able to just pick up my Steamdeck and play 15 minutes of Witcher 3 on the bus, that really scratches the itch.
Can you tell us something interesting about yourself?
It depends on what you find interesting! I speak a little Dutch (ik spreek een beetje Nederlands). I studied in Canada for a year. Before doing the Mongol Rally, I had only passed my driving test 2 months prior and hadn’t really done any driving between then and setting off. I have 6 tattoos. I have a double jointed thumb on my left hand, and for years that’s how I remembered left and right.
