Gunther Verheyen calls himself an independent (Scrum) Caretaker and a Workplace Humanitarian on a journey of humanizing the workplace. Since starting with Scrum in 2003, he has engaged with many teams and organizations, has published two acclaimed books about Scrum and was partner of Ken Schwaber at Scrum.org. Although his professional life revolved mostly around Scrum, the aspiration that drives him in the first place is: to create a better world to live and work in.
Gunther ventured into IT and software development after graduating as Engineer in Electronics in 1992.
His Agile adventures started with eXtreme Programming and Scrum in 2003. He gained experience with it with various teams in various organizations and diverse domains. In 2010 he became the inspiring force behind some large-scale enterprise transformations. In 2011 he acquired his license as a Professional Scrum Trainer for Scrum.org.
Gunther established Ullizee-Inc in 2013 to partner exclusively with Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum. He managed the “Professional Scrum” series of Scrum.org and shepherded its global network of Professional Scrum Trainers. He co-created Agility Path, EBM (Evidence-Based Management) and the Nexus framework.
In 2016 Gunther furthered his journey as an independent consultant. He helped organizations re-imagine their Scrum and re-emerge the organization around it. Calling himself a Scrum Caretaker, he went beyond merely applying Scrum as a process by actively nurturing and upholding the values, behaviors and the humanizing, people-centric aspects of Scrum. He embodied a broader, ongoing commitment to nurturing Scrum’s spirit and effectiveness, while acting as a mentor, steward and advocate.
Gunther created his acclaimed book Scrum – A Pocket Guide in 2013, with a 2nd edition published in 2019, a 3rd edition in 2021 and a 4th edition in 2024. In 2020 he published the book 97 Things Every Scrum Practitioner Should Know; a collection of essays from field experts across the world. Several translations of his work are available.
2026 marks an important next stage of his journey of humanizing the workplace. Gunther has finally combined many of the ideas that he gathered during his professional life into a cohesive vision for systemic organizational change towards more humane and more viable organizations. Gunther is defining and describing an organizational design suited to navigate complexity in the Anthropocene.
When not traveling to humanize the workplace, Gunther lives and works in Antwerp (Belgium).
