Ron Lichty, Consultant: Interim VP Engineering, Ron Lichty Consulting, Inc.

Ron Lichty has been managing software development and product organizations for 30 years at companies like Apple Computer, Fujitsu, Charles Schwab, Avenue A | Razorfish, Forensic Logic, Stanford, Check Point, and startups of all sizes, primarily focused on untangling the knots in software development and transforming chaos to clarity. His career has spanned system software, entertainment, shrinkwrap products, ecommerce, interface development, embedded devices, professional services and IT.

Principal and owner of Ron Lichty Consulting, Inc. the past seven years, he takes on fractional Interim VP Engineering roles, trains teams and executives in scrum effectiveness, mentors engineering leaders, transitions teams to agile, and coaches leaders and teams to make their software development "hum" (http://www.ronlichty.com).

Ron’s fifth book, Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams, published by Addison Wesley, has been compared by many readers to programming classics The Mythical Man-Month and Peopleware. His Live Lessons: Managing Software People and Teams video training is available via O’Reilly’s Safari Bookshelf. Ron also co-authors the periodic Study of Product Team Performance.

Ron began his tech career as a programmer. His consumer code won awards and was featured on the covers of a few magazines; he was awarded patents for code he wrote for early smartcards and devices like hotel locking systems; and he wrote a couple books to teach programming to other programmers. Then, at Apple, as he was repeatedly promoted to managing, he began puzzling out processes that would support programmers to have fun, do their best work and deliver software that would delight customers.