David Spann

David Spann specializes in helping leaders and organizations become more agile and adaptive through the creation of higher-performing teams, executive coaching, and strategic planning. His approach allows teams, executives, and organizations to focus on desired business results while simultaneously developing a capacity for new and innovative solutions. Mr. Spann helps project managers translate their commonsense approach to scheduling, budgeting, and risk mitigation into more collaborative and adaptive processes. He also helps executives develop a business culture that supports agile practices and assures that strategies, project portfolio, and tasks are all aligned with a focused business purpose.

Mr. Spann was instrumental in launching the agile software development movement during his tenure as the MBA Director at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he was the first professor to teach agile project management anywhere in the US. He is a Certified Professional Facilitator through the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and an Assessor of the IAF Professional Facilitator exam. In addition, Mr. Spann is also the Director of US Operations for IAF, a member of both the Agile Alliance and Project Management Institute, and has been the lead facilitator for Westminster's Master Track program. He has written extensively on agile leadership behaviors and role expectations for Cutter Consortium, Software Development (now Dr. Dobb's Journal), and the BPM Institute. Mr. Spann has also cohosted the Executive Summit of the International Agile Development Conference. He has a master’s degree focused on organizational development from Michigan State University and an MBA focused on financial management from Westminster College. Mr. Spann is also a former District Ranger in the USDA Forest Service. He can be reached at experts@cutter.com.