Arie is a pragmatic who embeds his pragmatism in structure, discipline and common sense. This eventually led to being one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto and expert in the area of Agile Project Management, team facilitation, Agile techniques and user involvement. Believing in his team, facilitating them to reach their best combined with end-user involvement have his focus when he speaks, presents, demonstrates and lectures about Agility. Today, as Wemanity’s Thought Leader, Arie focusses his energy on leading big Agile transformations for big international corporates and researching better ways of integrating Agile. Arie is also Chair of the Agile Consortium International, a lecturer at universities and keynote speaker at conferences.
According to Arie Agile is something that you are by nature. Because only then you can really make it work. It is a paradigm shift when you are used to traditional ways of working. It is a mindset to really be and work Agile. If you are not used to it you can learn this.
In 1994 Arie made his change. Coming from a very traditional environment as a developer and technical designer he switched to RAD and later DSDM. He got involved in communities started publishing, training, and coaching. Later he got on the board of the DSDM Consortium Benelux and he represented DSDM when they wrote the Agile Manifesto (www.agilemanifesto.org) in February 2001.
Now Arie is thought leader for Wemanity. Many years ago Arie identified that it is in the people that make the difference over and over again when people struggle to make Agile successful. Agile is in its essence an interaction concept. Basic participation and interaction techniques make Agile work, additional tools can make it excel but the fundament is in the interaction.