Ken Collier Joins ThoughtWorks To Lead Agile Analytics Practice Value From Big Data And Business Intelligence

- Industry luminary in Agile Business Intelligence strengthens ThoughtWorks' mission to transform enterprise IT through disruptive processes that lead to sustainable, continuous improvements

CHICAGO, May 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ThoughtWorks, a global leader in custom software development, today announced that Ken Collier has joined the company to help further develop and grow the company's Agile Analytics practice. The practice aims to help enterprise IT organizations transform business data into valuable insights regarding customer behavior, the overall health of the business and the impact new and emerging technology platforms have on organizational performance. Collier is a foremost expert in enterprise Agile development and business intelligence processes, and brings more than 25 years of industry thought leadership as an author, professor, practitioner and consultant.

"Ken is a pioneer in the use of Agile practices for analytics and is recognized as one of the thought leaders in this space," said Craig Gorsline, managing director of ThoughtWorks Americas. "Just as we have redefined release management with Continuous Delivery, we are formalizing our collective experience around Agile, business data and analytics to grow. Ken will lead the global practice which is aimed at helping IT organizations gain a new level of visibility and value from business data."

Collier has deep experience as an Agile trainer, coach and mentor, and has worked with a range of organizations across a multitude of industry sectors. Prior to ThoughtWorks, he was a senior consultant with Cutter Consortium where he was the director of the Data Insight and Social BI practice, as well as a member of the Agile Product and Project Management practice. Collier began pioneering Agile business intelligence in 2004, and he recently published a book on the topic, Agile Analytics: A Value-Driven Approach to Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/032150481X). Collier holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science Engineering from Arizona State University and served as an associate professor of computer science engineering at Northern Arizona University. His professional experience in the private sector includes developer, chief architect, project manager and team leader.

ThoughtWorks' Agile Analytics practice provides IT organizations with new approaches, processes and technology frameworks to gain more value from analytics and business intelligence initiatives. With emerging IT challenges, including the evolution of "Big Data," ThoughtWorks will combine its Agile experience and disruptive thinking to expand upon the company's information solutions. Services will focus on business requirements, employing an incremental build strategy and constantly seeking and applying user feedback to deliver solutions that are on-target and deliver ROI sooner.

"I am excited to join ThoughtWorks and leverage its technical leadership and proven culture of innovation to offer cost-effective, performance-based and scalable Agile Analytics solutions that closely align to the needs of the business," said Collier. "The collision of Agile in the enterprise and Big Data presents a massive opportunity to gain new levels of insight and strategic value from the exploding volumes of business data."

About ThoughtWorks

ThoughtWorks, Inc. is a global IT consultancy providing Agile-based systems development, consulting and transformation services to Global 1000 companies. It has pioneered many of the most advanced and successful Agile methods and best practices used in the industry today. At its core, ThoughtWorks helps CIOs maximise investment performance across a portfolio of complex, business-critical applications, while reducing time and risk. Its products division, ThoughtWorks Studios, offers tools to manage the entire Agile development lifecycle through its Adaptive ALM solution, comprised of Mingle®, Go™ and Twist®. ThoughtWorks' 1,800 professionals serve clients from offices in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.