MEET OUR TRAINERS: Jerry Doucett

Jerry Doucett was born and raised in Toronto and has spent his entire life living in the GTA.

But he’s an avid traveler and regularly makes his fellow BERTEIG colleagues jealous with photos in exotic locations.

In high school, Jerry was a member of the cross-country and track and field teams. He also competed in and coached archery, even winning Ontario Secondary School Championships.

He studied Applied Geography at Ryerson University, graduating with honours. “I fortunate enough to find a job in my field straight out of school during a recession, which was a welcome relief,” Jerry says.

His next step was to marry “the girl of my dreams.” They settled in the small town of Kleinburg just north-west of the big city, where they raised their two sons and where they will be celebrating 25 years of marriage this coming February.

Jerry then shifted careers, spending many years working as a software developer. But he soon became frustrated in his new field.

“It didn’t seem to matter where I worked—utilities, retail, marketing, finance, environmental protection—the story was the same,” he explains. “Projects were almost always late and over-budget, and there were constant changes that the process did not allow for.”

But a solution started to emerge when, in 2008, he joined MapInfo as a project manager.

“There was considerable animosity between business and IT and they hired me to help ‘fix it’,” Jerry recalls. “During interviews with the team and in observing how they worked, one team member mentioned this ‘Scrum’ thing and how it was supposed to bring business and IT together.”

After investigating further, Jerry petitioned the leadership to try a pilot of Scrum. He was given the green light, but with a catch: he had just two weeks to make it happen.

“In a panic, I reached out and hired Mishkin Berteig to come on site and do a Certified Scrum Master class for us,” he says. “Little did I know how that would change my life.”

After MapInfo, Jerry moved to RBC’s Centre of Excellence, where his knowledge and appreciation of Agile deepened.

“I was a team member of a very small but collaborative group that had a mandate of changing the way RBC ran its business,” he remembers. “It was without a doubt the most professionally challenging and yet most exciting time of my career.”

He decided he wanted to help others see the light too.

Jerry has since worked with other well-known Canadian corporations including Telus, Canadian Tire, LoyaltyOne and the Sick Kids Foundation.

That experience has shaped his approach to Agile, but it’s in the classroom where Jerry is really at home.

“A good instructor has to experience things firsthand if they are to teach them,” he says. “And when I can connect with a group of people and see the genuine smiles on their faces when they realize the potential of Agility, it makes my day.”

Outside of the classroom, Jerry spends as much time traveling with his family as he can.

He’s also a self-professed nerd, a trait he says runs in the family.

“My wife and I are proud of it,” he jokes. “My sons are both nerds too however they may not openly admit it.”

And although he may be the centre of attention in the classroom and well-known within the Agile community, for Jerry Doucett, it’s not about the limelight.

“For the most part, I am a quiet, reserved family man,” he says. “The human ties and meaningful relationships we have are more valuable to me than anything else and I cherish them immensely.”

Jerry Doucett is VP Training Services, and a senior consultant and instructor on the BERTEIG Team. Read his professional bio.