LeanDog
LeanDog is a Cleveland-based agile consulting firm (founded 2008) that delivers agile transformation coaching, instructor-led training courses, and distributed developer-augmentation services to 200+ organizations including Fortune 100 enterprises and SMBs.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2008
- HeadquartersCleveland, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What LeanDog does
LeanDog, Inc. is a Cleveland, Ohio-based private professional services firm founded in 2008 by Jon Stahl that specializes in agile transformation consulting, instructor-led agile training, and distributed software delivery. The company operates three interconnected service lines: Agile Transformation (a six-step coaching and consulting engagement anchored on the proprietary Obeya methodology), Agile Training (a catalog of instructor-led courses including Agile Explained, Agile Explained for Executives, and User Story Writing, priced $500-$750 per attendee), and Distributed Delivery (agile capacity as a service supplying pre-screened engineers to augment client teams). LeanDog does not develop proprietary software products; its core technology consists of methodology frameworks, training courseware, and the Agile Discussion Guide covering 65 delivery areas, with content marketing (blog, lead magnet) used as the primary demand-generation channel.
The firm serves a horizontally diversified customer base of 200+ organizations spanning Fortune 100 enterprises (e.g., M&T Bank, VNA, RetailSource, Dwellworks, Dakota Software) and small businesses/startups (e.g., Mosaic Junction). Its go-to-market is sales-led and direct, with prospective clients initiating engagement via website contact forms and scheduled conversations. LeanDog is privately held with no disclosed venture capital, private equity, or institutional funding, operates with 11-50 employees, and is led by Jon Stahl (President & CEO), Julias Shaw (CTO & Agile Coach), and Jeff Dunay (Director of Talent). The company appears to be founder-owned and profitable by default, with no subsidiaries, parent entities, or M&A activity disclosed.
LeanDog firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- LeanDog
- Legal name
- LeanDog, Inc.
- Website
- https://leandog.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2008
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- LeanDog is a Cleveland-based agile consulting firm (founded 2008) that delivers agile transformation coaching, instructor-led training courses, and distributed developer-augmentation services to 200+ organizations including Fortune 100 enterprises and SMBs.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
LeanDog industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Agile Consulting Services
- NAICS
- Other Management Consulting Services (541618), Professional and Management Development Training (61143), Human Resources Consulting Services (541612)
- SIC
- Services-Management Consulting Services (8742), Services-Educational Services (8200)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Scaled Agile & Enterprise Product Delivery (SAFe/LeSS/Nexus) (EDABAHAJ)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Incumbent Worker Training & Upskilling (EDAAAOAE), People Analytics, Assessment & Psychometrics Consulting (BPAHAGAH)
Keywords
Where LeanDog is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Cleveland
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
LeanDog business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Agile Transformation Consulting: Professional consulting services for organizational agile transformations. Includes assessment, planning, coaching, and implementation support. Revenue is generated through project-based engagements with enterprise clients.
- Training Services: Instructor-led training courses delivered to client teams. Courses are priced per attendee and include materials. Training is offered as standalone service or as part of broader transformation engagements.
- Distributed Delivery: Agile Capacity as a Service providing experienced developers to assist client teams. Developers are screened by coaches and work hands-on with client teams, offering scalable development capacity without the overhead of full-time employees.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Unit Pricing | Multi-year contract | Agile Explained - Standard Course |
| Unit Pricing | Multi-year contract | Agile Explained for Executives |
| Unit Pricing | Multi-year contract | User Story Writing |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels2 records
Marketing channels4 records
LeanDog product offering
Product offeringCore offering
LeanDog is a professional services firm that provides agile transformation consulting, instructor-led agile training, and distributed software delivery services. The company helps organizations adopt agile and DevOps practices, develop their teams through structured courseware, and scale software development capacity by providing experienced agile engineers who work hands-on with client teams.
Product overview
LeanDog offers a portfolio of three interconnected core service lines: (1) Agile Transformation – consulting and coaching engagements following a 6-step process to guide organizations through cultural and structural agile adoption; (2) Agile Training – instructor-led courses including Agile Explained, Agile Explained for Executives, and User Story Writing that develop teams in agile practices; and (3) Distributed Delivery – agile capacity as a service providing experienced developers to augment client teams. Supporting these services, LeanDog provides free resources including the Agile Discussion Guide (covering 65 delivery areas) and a DevOps blog with educational content. The company was founded in 2008 and has partnered with change agents at 200+ organizations including Fortune 100 companies.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Agile Transformation Consulting and coaching engagement that helps organizations adopt agile practices through a 6-step transformation process (assemble change agents, equip with training, run Obeya session, chart transformation plan, deploy agile practices, and adjust via continuous improvement). Targets teams and organizations seeking to deliver value faster and become more responsive to change.
- Agile Training Instructor-led training service providing custom courseware aligned to client strategy and value delivery, with a catalog of classes covering agile fundamentals through advanced techniques. Delivered to client teams to align and enable them on agile and DevOps practices.
- Distributed Delivery Agile capacity as a service providing experienced developers to augment client teams. Developers are pre-screened by LeanDog coaches and are fluent in agile methodologies, test-first engineering practices, and modern technology stacks. Enables organizations to add scalable development capacity without full-time hiring overhead.
- Agile Explained Five half-day instructor-led course covering agile fundamentals using the LeanDog Agile Discussion Guide. Covers over 30 practices and principles including Kanban, release planning, story cards, backlog creation, estimation techniques, and retrospectives. Target audience includes managers, product owners, project managers, business analysts, UX designers, QA, and developers. Priced at $500 per attendee.
- Agile Explained for Executives Four-hour executive session on leading agile transformations. Covers methods and techniques to balance autonomy and control while adapting to achieve business, customer, and people delight. Designed for executives and leaders who need to live agile values and initiate effective cultural transitions. Priced at $750 per attendee.
- User Story Writing Full-day course introducing the basics of writing user stories in place of requirements, covering progressive elaboration, Gherkin syntax, story workflows, models, maps, splitting user stories, and common pitfalls. Priced at $500 per attendee.
Quantifiable outcome
- 50% reduction in patient throughput steps (from 210 to 105)
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use LeanDog
Customer profileNamed customers8 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
LeanDog technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed No
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature3 records
LeanDog partnerships and signals
Strategic signalScale indicators2 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights4 records
LeanDog competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Scaled Agile: Scaled Agile is the creator of the SAFe framework and a direct competitor to LeanDog's enterprise agile transformation and training services, including SAFe certification and partner program.
- Scrum Inc. Scrum Inc. is a direct peer: it provides Scrum training, certification, and enterprise transformation consulting founded by Jeff Sutherland, directly overlapping LeanDog's Agile Transformation, Agile Training, and SAFe/Scrum/Kanban practice.
- ICAgile: ICAgile is a leading agile/DevOps certification body whose accredited training partner ecosystem and curriculum directly compete with LeanDog's Agile Explained and Agile Explained for Executives courses.
- Aptera (now part of Insight): Aptera was a Midwest-based agile transformation, training, and software delivery consultancy whose profile (Fortune 1000 client base, instructor-led agile courses, embedded delivery) was nearly identical to LeanDog before being acquired by Insight.
- Improving: Improving is a mid-sized US consulting firm offering agile coaching, custom software development, and training. Its service mix and Fortune 1000 client focus closely mirror LeanDog's transformation, training, and distributed delivery model.
Broad incumbents
- Atlassian: Atlassian is the dominant agile tooling vendor (Jira, Confluence, Trello) and offers Atlassian University training and an Agile Coach partner ecosystem. It competes with LeanDog on the training and transformation layer and increasingly on scaled agile enablement.
- ThoughtWorks: ThoughtWorks is a much larger global consultancy offering agile transformation, custom software delivery, and DevOps services. It competes with LeanDog across all three service lines but at significantly greater scale and breadth.
- Rally Software (Broadcom): Rally, now part of Broadcom's Value Stream Management portfolio, is a legacy enterprise agile planning platform. It competes indirectly with LeanDog's transformation practice by offering tooling-led alternatives to consulting-led agile adoption.
- Pivotal (VMware Tanzu): VMware Tanzu (formerly Pivotal) provides enterprise agile consulting, platform engineering, and developer tools. It overlaps LeanDog's Distributed Delivery and DevOps transformation services at larger enterprise scale.
Emerging players
- Pluralsight (now Vista Equity portfolio): Pluralsight is an online technology and agile training platform whose Flow workspace directly overlaps LeanDog's instructor-led Agile Explained and DevOps courses, particularly with enterprise buyers seeking scalable on-demand learning.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat3 records
Key risks1 record
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
LeanDog social profiles
Digital presenceLeanDog financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
LeanDog leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
LeanDog funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
LeanDog M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about LeanDog
What does LeanDog do?
LeanDog is a professional services firm that provides agile transformation consulting, instructor-led agile training, and distributed software delivery services. The company helps organizations adopt agile and DevOps practices, develop their teams through structured courseware, and scale software development capacity by providing experienced agile engineers who work hands-on with client teams.
Is LeanDog a public or private company?
LeanDog is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was LeanDog founded?
LeanDog was founded in 2008. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is LeanDog based?
LeanDog is headquartered in Cleveland, United States, in the North America region.
How does LeanDog make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Agile Transformation Consulting is the primary driver. The others are training Services and distributed Delivery.
Who are LeanDog's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Scaled Agile, Scrum Inc., ICAgile, Aptera (now part of Insight) and Improving. Broad incumbents are Atlassian, ThoughtWorks, Rally Software (Broadcom) and Pivotal (VMware Tanzu). Pluralsight (now Vista Equity portfolio) is listed as an emerging player.
Does LeanDog have an API?
No public API is recorded for LeanDog.
What industry is LeanDog in?
LeanDog's product category is Agile Consulting Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDABAHAJ, Scaled Agile & Enterprise Product Delivery (SAFe/LeSS/Nexus), with a secondary code of EDAAAOAE, Incumbent Worker Training & Upskilling. Its NAICS code is 541618 and its SIC code is 8742.