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Mariner Puts Lean Principles to Work for Awarding-Winning Performance Management Solution

Joseph Mercier, Newly Certified ScrumMaster, Leads Team

August 6, 2009 – Charlotte, NC – Mariner, an industry-leading business intelligence and performance management solutions provider, is proud to announce that, Joseph Mercier, Project Manager has been certified as a ScrumMaster, demonstrating Mariner’s commitment to agile methodologies.

Joe Mercier earned the Certified ScrumMaster designation (CSM) from the Scrum Alliance by completing a two-day class, qualifying him to receive the Alliance’s certification. During this certification process, the Scrum Alliance confirms each participant’s knowledge of Scrum principles and the role of ScrumMaster.

As ScrumMaster, Joe couples his knowledge of iterative and adaptive project management practices with his experiences developing solutions to guide projects and project teams. In his role as Project Manager for the award-winning Managing Performance Initiative for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Joe ensures the project’s success and the effectiveness of the performance management solution for the school district.

“The application of Scrum increases the team’s productivity, improves the quality of the code produced and amplifies clients’ return on investment,” comments Joe Mercier. “It is my job to integrate Scrum into our team’s practices to stay on point with the principles that ensure success.”

Scrum, one of the oldest and most widely applied agile project management practices, uses agile and iterative methodologies and a lean approach to software development. Scrum concentrates on delivering the highest business value features first, avoiding the development of features that will never be used. Scrum helps ensure a greater success level for projects than with other non-iterative and less adaptive project management methods.

Joseph S. Guy, Mariner COO and Co-founder, comments, “Expertise validated through certifications and education, like Joe’s ScrumMaster credentials, helps us build and maintain the strong foundation of knowledge that we apply to provide the highest value solutions for our customers.”

About Joseph Mercier
Mr. Joseph Mercier has more than 30 years of experience in project management of software development projects. and provides project management and technology consulting services to clients as well as strategic planning, enterprise problem solving and implementation support. He is currently engaged in developing and delivering data warehouse and business intelligence solutions for education clients.

Joseph has Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a Masters certificate in Project Management from George Washington University, and holds certifications as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM).

Mr. Mercier is a member of the Agile Alliance and Project Management Institute (PMI). He is actively involved in several national PMI Special Interest Groups and provides local support to the Metrolina PMI Chapter.

About Mariner
Mariner, Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner of the Year for 2008 in Performance Management Solutions, specializes in business intelligence, data warehousing, business scorecards and performance dashboards to help clients improve productivity and decision making in the education, utility, healthcare, manufacturing and financial industries. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with specializations in Business Intelligence and Performance Management Solutions, Mariner helps organizations translate strategy into action. Mariner-Realizing Visions with Technology. www.mariner-usa.com.

For additional information:
Contact Sally Phillips, Mariner
Director of Marketing & Partner Alliances,
Tel. 704.943.5222
Email sally.phillips@mariner-usa.com

Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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