BWBacon Group brings Agile methodology to IT recruiting

BWBacon Group Founder and CEO Dave Bacon started IT recruiting in 2001 and brought Agile processes from the software development world to recruitment in 2011. Bacon was personally certified in Agile methodology at Rally Software in September 2011.

 

"I was certified largely because I wanted to understand the standards my clients were using," he says. "It became evident to me we could benefit from some of the principles of Agile."

 

To this end, Bacon and company do a staff-wide morning stand-up so everyone is up to date and on the same page. A wall in the office has sticky notes marching left to right from 'Staged' to 'In Progress' to 'Done.' The adjacent wall is 'The Wall of Done.' 

 

In 1996, Bacon graduated from Syracuse University and dropped off a friend in Denver on his way to his hometown of San Francisco. He never made it. "I flat-out stopped," he says. "I decided to live here. The mountains were a huge draw."

 

With a degree in supply chain management, Bacon went into IT instead, bringing concepts from both worlds together much like he's more recently done with Agile. He started recruiting because it went hand-in-hand with project work. BWBacon clients include Vail Resorts and SendGrid.

"The clients we were working with needed staffing help as much as they needed solutions," says Bacon. 

In 2009, he pivoted towards "startups and emerging companies" instead of enterprise-sized clients. The company has since grown from one employee to seven and seen revenue jump from $2.5 million in 2011 to an expected $5 million in 2013.

BWBacon, which is short for 'Better With Bacon,' has been headquartered in the Art District on Santa Fe at Battery621 since 2011.

Contact Confluence Denver Innovation & Jobs News Editor Eric Peterson with tips and leads for future stories at eric@confluence-denver.com.