Hi, I’m John Ragozzine! I’m the Director of Agile at Alley, a fully remote web agency running Scrum at scale (but not, like Scrum@Scale, if you know what I mean). I serve as Scrum Master for one of our client services teams, as well as work closely with all of Alley’s SMs, both as a collaborator and an Agile Coach.
I (used to) host a podcast, Two Scrums Up, which focuses on sharing Agile anecdotes, successes, and missteps. New episodes come out every other Tuesday.
I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. You can find me on LinkedIn.
Me, Before Now
I grew up in Connecticut, but not the one you are picturing. Think working class Long Island mixed with the South Boston characters of Good Will Hunting. I was a smart, shy kid brought up by a stable, funny, big Italian-American family. Pretty sure I was asked, “Hey, how youse doin?” daily.
After a childhood of puns, 80s TV, and tromping around the woods behind our house with our dog, I attended Marist College—mostly due to the campus’s amazing view of the Hudson River—eventually earning a BA in English with unofficial minors in Philosophy and Theater.
After an early 2000s stint in textbook publishing as well as teaching, I started my career in technology by building WordPress websites for nonprofits in Maine. Through self-teaching, I moved up in the web development world, eventually being a UX/UI Development Manager (a title I created to accompany a promotion) at a large financial company.
Since the early 2010s, I have been working in the agency world, exclusively for fully remote organizations.