About Ortwin De Witte

I help teams figure out what’s slowing them down - and fix it. I look at how work flows through your organisation and help remove what’s getting in the way.

Not by introducing the next framework or tool, but by looking at what’s actually happening: where quality breaks down, where work gets stuck, and what’s keeping teams from delivering with confidence. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, and the pattern is almost always the same: the problem isn't the people, it's the system they work in.

How I got here

I started as a COBOL programmer, moved into .Net development, and eventually landed in build and release management - the part of software delivery nobody thinks about until it breaks. From there I spent nearly a decade leading teams at the intersection of development and operations, covering everything from testing and release management to incident response and monitoring. Along the way, I started seeing the delivery process itself as the first product - because if you can’t change your software reliably, you run behind the facts. Like a lot of organisations do.

That foundation changed how I see delivery problems. I don’t just talk about CI/CD pipelines or DevOps maturity, I’ve lived the pain, helped building the pipelines, operated them, and I’ve seen what happens when they’re neglected. When I assess your delivery process, I’m drawing on years of living the same problems you’re facing - not just theory.

Today, I work as an independent consultant specialising in value and software delivery improvement. I conduct assessments, map value streams, build improvement roadmaps, and coach teams through the change. My clients have been large organisations in regulated industries (insurance, financial services, public sector, pharma) and smaller organizations.

Where AI fits in

More recently, I’ve started applying AI to the same delivery problems I’ve been solving for two decades. Not as a silver bullet, but as a force multiplier for the work I already do. I use AI agents to automate review cycles, validate quality, and accelerate the parts of delivery that used to eat time without adding insight. I build my own tooling - pipelines where AI and deterministic checks work together, because neither is enough on its own. This isn’t a pivot; it’s an evolution. The same pattern recognition I bring to value streams and delivery processes now extends into how AI can remove friction from real work. I'm not selling AI strategy decks. I’m building with it, shipping with it, and learning what actually works - so I can help organizations do the same.

What I actually do

Every engagement starts with understanding. I analyse your software delivery lifecycle - the functional, technical, and organisational dimensions - and identify where things get stuck. Then I work with your teams to design and implement improvements that last beyond my involvement. That means coaching, not just consulting. Training, not just reporting.

I’ve done this at scale: as Practice Lead for Design & Build at a major financial institution, building a community of practice of over 300 software and data engineers, for global financial infrastructure, at Belgian insurers and government agencies, and inside consultancies building their own DevOps practices. But I don’t need scale to thrive - some of the most rewarding work happens with smaller teams where change is fast and visible.

Let’s talk

If your teams are struggling with delivery speed, quality, or predictability, or if you suspect things could work better but can’t pinpoint why, I’d like to hear about it.

Reach out via LinkedIn or get in touch directly.