the thomsett company is one of the pioneers of the Agile project management
revolution. Agile project management (also known as extreme or lean) has
been evolving as an alternative to traditional project management for over
20 years.
In our first book People and Project Management, published by Yourdon Press,
NY in 1980 (a 25th Anniversary update will be available free on this web
site soon), we stated that projects were about people and relationships
between people rather than technical tools and processes. Since then, we
have consulted with over 200 major organizations world-wide and conducted
seminars on Agile project management for 20,000 people – business
and IT experts.
We have worked with clients and colleagues to define, implement, refine and
expand both the concepts underlying Agile project management as we as the
key Agile tools such as RAP (RApid Planning) sessions with its supporting
tools.
We are currently engaged with an organization-wide deployment of Agile project
management and governance with significant organisations in the U.K., Australia
and N.Z
Rob joined computing in 1968 and has been consulting and educating in
the area of project management, teams and quality since 1974. In 1981,
Rob was contracted by YOURDON Inc. in New York to present seminars in
the U.S. and U.K. based on his book People and Project Management published
by YOURDON Press. With YOURDON, he consulted and taught in the London,
most major U.S. cities, Europe and Canada. Rob presents workshops and
consulting in the areas of senior management I.T. issues, project management
and team leadership to most major Australian organisations. His workshops
are also presented in Asia and Europe. His client-driven approach to
project management, self-managing teams and Software Quality Function
Deployment has been adopted by a wide spectrum of Australian organisations.
During his career, Rob has worked with Gerry Weinberg, Larry Constantine, Meiler Page-Jones and Ed Yourdon. These people have influenced much of Rob's work. Rob is also a member of the Editorial Board of the prestigious American Programmer with Ed Yourdon, Tom DeMarco, Bill Curtis, Capers Jones and other leading U.S. information system experts. His second book Third Wave Project Management: A Handbook for managing the Complex Information Systems for the 1990s was published by Prentice Hall, New York in 1993. In 1994, he developed the Accreditation Programme for Project Management for the Australian Computer Society. His latest book, Radical Project Management, 2002 has continued to gain a world-wide interest. He has presented at many IT and business conferences and has been voted Speaker of the Conference in many of them. Rob was honoured as the Australian Computer Society Lecturer of the Year in 1989/90. In 2001, he was recognized for his outstanding effort in education of business professionals by his peers and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society. Over 2005 and 2006, in partnership with a number of project management executives and experts such as Sandy Holoway, the Program Manager of the Sydney Olympics, Rob developed a Masters in Project Management for Sydney University, which was awarded the Best University Programme globally by the PMI in the US.
He continues to engage at executive levels in his major clients implementing organizational-wide Agile models.
Due to his innovative and distinctive style, he was once described as the “most feral consultant in the world” by Larry Constantine. Ed Yourdon considers him one of the global gurus of project management.
Camille commenced working with Rob in 1980. Prior to this she had spent
many years in the Australian Public Service in various clerical and business
analyst roles. As Managing Director of the thomsett company, Camille
has set the strategic and business directions of the company and has
built a network of consultants that work with the thomsett company. She's
developed a number of the thomsett company workshops including the Team
Leader and Negotiation Skills workshops and co-developed with Rob Thomsett
the Project Management Advanced Techniques Workshop and the Business
Systems Analysis Workshop.
As an educator, Camille has provided public and in-house workshops in Project Management: Introduction, Essential Techniques, and Advanced Techniques, and Business Systems Analysis. As a consultant, Camille has developed integrated project management programmes of education and consulting. Her client base includes many leading Australian organisations such as the Department of Defence, R.A.C.V., Telstra, Queensland Health, I.B.M.G.S.A., Perpetual Trustees, Macquarie Bank, M.L.C, A.M.P. and Lend Lease. In 1995, Camille commenced her MBA studies at Canberra University where she has received High Distinction and Distinction levels in all subjects. Recently, Camille has been developing, teaching and implementing business analysis models that she has integrated with the Agile project management models developed by her company.
During our Agile journey, we have met all the major consultancies in the business and IT world. Few share the values of the thomsett company but we have forged successful partnerships with two exceptional organisations.
TI consists of four of the most exciting and experienced consultants and educators. Charlie Rex, Ann Smith, John Gabb and Jo Harper are completely across thomsett Agile models and work with major organisations such as the Commonwealth Bank and Coca Cola in implementing Agile project management.
Fronde is a system integrator, Agile development, mobile computing and project management group based in N.Z. and the U.K. In partnership with Rob, they have developed a high expertise in Agile project management which they are implementing in leading organizations such as ASB (NZ) and e.on (UK).