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Mathew Akoko

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA 317-***-**** ad0t1a@r.postjobfree.com

SAFe® AGILIST SASM, POPM DATA SCIENTIST

CAREER OBJECTIVE

• Seeking a challenging position where my education and experiences could help me enhance the growth of any company that recognizes hard work, professionalism, and high productivity.

• I also would like to work for an organization that could provide a conducive environment where I could be galvanized to display my organizational skills, teaching and coaching skills, attentiveness to detail, strong critical thinking, data-driven decision-making abilities, and motivation to work hard and accomplish set goals. PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

• Agilist with over 15+ years of industry experience as an Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Product Manager, IT Project Manager, and Release Train Engineer for several programs and organizations.

• 5+ years of strong Project/Program Management experience with diverse organizations.

• 10+ years as Agile Coach/Scrum Master for several programs and organizations.

• 4+ years of PI Planning Facilitator as a Release Train Engineer.

• 6+ years of Data Integration and Visualization with Power BI and Tableau.

• Expertise in Scaling Agile using Azure DevOps and @Scale for Agile Release Trains.

• In-depth knowledge and use of Agile methodologies such as SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, Lean Startup, and Lean.

• Strong technical command of Project Management and Agile tools such as Azure DevOps, Rally, Jira, Jira Align, Confluence, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft Office Suite.

• Expertise in Data Integration and producing data visualizations for real-time decision-making and real-time services.

• Very strong communication, Customer interaction, and Management Skills.

• Managed multiple projects transition from Waterfall to Agile using effective change management, providing basic agile training for implementing Agile manifesto aligning with the organization’s needs.

• Member of IBM Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science Group. EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Education

• Master of Science - Mathematics & Computer Science, University of Reading, England, UK

• Bachelor of Science - Mathematics, University of Yaounde, Cameroon Professional Certificates

• Certified SAFe 6.0 Practice Consultant (SPC), Scaled Agile, Inc., USA

• Certified SAFe 5.0 Advanced Scrum Master (SASM), Scaled Agile, Inc., USA

• Certified SAFe 5.1 Product Owner/ Product Manager (POPM), Scaled Agile, Inc., USA

• Certified Scrum Master (CSM) - Scrum Alliance®, USA

• Project Management Certificate – the University of California - Irvine, USA

• IBM Data Science Professional Certificate - IBM, USA

• Visual Analytics with Tableau - University of California - Davis, USA

• Tableau Desktop Training - Intellipaat, India

• Data Visualization in Power BI - IBM, USA

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CORE SKILLS

Scaled Agile Framework

PI Planning Facilitator (RTE)

Agile SAFe Principles

Kanban, Lean-Agile,

Coach Agile teams

Facilitate Scrum Events

Continuous Learning Culture

Program Increment Planning

Relentless Improvement

Problem-Solving Techniques

Motivational Techniques

XP, Lean, FDD, CI/CD, TDD,

Azure DevOps, @Scale, Jira,

Rally, Kanban boards

Waterfall methodology

Confluence, Tableau Dashboards

Software development Life cycle

Project Management

Initiating and Planning Projects

Risk Management

Costing & Budgeting

Communication skills

Customer Satisfaction

Servant Leader

Organizational Skills

Conflict Resolution

Wintel Systems, Networks

Meeting Facilitation

Data Analysis with Python, Pandas

Data Analytics with Tableau

DBMs and MySQL, SAP HANA

SQL Server for Data Analysis

Python programming

Data Visualization and Dashboarding

with Tableau and Power BI

Seaborn, Plotly, ggplot, Matplotlib

Machine Learning, Deep Learning &

Machine Learning Models using

Scikit-learn & Scipy.

Microsoft Products

IBM Cloud Services (DB2)

Teaching Experience

RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

One America Financial Partners, Indianapolis, IN

Senior Scrum Master May 2023 – Present

Responsibilities:

• Serving as a Senior Scrum Master and facilitating the work of Scrum teams engaged in the development of hybrid login re-write for the company.

• Collaborating with the various teams on the Agile Release Train to achieve the PI Objectives

• Participating in the weekly Scrum of Scrums for Managers, Product Owners, and Scrum Masters.

• Supporting and collaborating with the Product Owner with respect to refining and maintaining the Product Backlog.

• Partnering with other teams to remove impediments and appropriately track dependencies with internal or external customers.

• Fostering Agile software development processes and techniques.

• Participating as SAFe® 5 Agilist in implementing the Agile working method in the Enterprise.

• Scaling Agile using Azure DevOps and @Scale for Agile Release Train.

• Engaging the organization to remove impediments to the team's ability to perform by working closely with the team and stakeholders, including product owners/managers, leadership, and other teams.

• Utilizing Azure DevOps Boards to manage and track stories, defects, bugs, and planning agile events such as iteration planning, standups, backlog refinement, sprint review, and sprint retrospective.

• Writing queries and producing Dashboard Reports for Management.

• Integrating Retrospective into Azure Boards to facilitate Retrospective Meetings and creating Improvement Items for the Improvement backlog.

• Achieving high-performing teams such that their abilities to add value for the customers grow over time.

• Implementing and tracking the team’s progress, including Burn-down, velocity, and release forecasting. Siemens Healthineers, Norwood, MA

Chief Scrum Master April 2021 – April 2023

Responsibilities:

• Served as the Chief Scrum Master for the Blood Gas Franchise with 9 teams on the Agile Release Train.

• Initiated and facilitated 6 PI Planning sessions for the Blood Gas Franchise as a Release Train Engineer.

• Facilitated the Scrum of Scrums for Managers, Product Owners, and Scrum Masters.

• Owner of Company’s Scrum Handout - responsible for updating the document.

• Produced a Manual on Guidelines for Tracking and Escalating Impediments in Azure DevOps Boards.

• Provided training on ADO for newly recruited Scrum Masters and team members. 3

• Participated as SAFe® 5 Agilist in implementing the Agile working method in the Enterprise.

• Scaled Agile using Azure DevOps and @Scale for Agile Release Train.

• Facilitated contextual adoption of the Scrum Framework, including daily scrum, sprint planning, backlog refinement, sprint reviews & retrospectives, and other related team and intra-team meetings.

• Facilitated Scaled events, including cross-team planning, Scrum of Scrum, PI Planning, delivery synchronization, and systems-level inspect & adapt.

• Prepared Sprint Reports for Product Owners and Managers.

• Utilized Azure DevOps Boards to manage and track stories, defects, bugs, and planning agile events such as iteration planning, standups, backlog refinement, sprint review, and sprint retrospective.

• Utilized Azure DevOps Boards to create queries, capacity planning, charts, and dashboards.

• Produced Dashboard Reports for Management using Power BI services.

• Integrated Retrospective into Azure Boards to facilitate Retrospective Meetings.

• Collected and shared transparent team metrics with teams, recommending new metrics for the team's context, and fostering continuous improvement conversations using metrics.

• Prepared and facilitated quarterly, release, and sprint planning with the product owner and the team.

• Guided Feature and Story-level refinement to the Definition of "Ready".

• Worked with the team and Product Owner/Managers to maintain a healthy backlog and rolling short and mid-term planning for upcoming releases.

• Engaged the organization to remove impediments to the team's ability to perform by working closely with the team and stakeholders, including product owners/managers, leadership, and other teams.

• Supported the communication of delivery progress, gaps, and obstacles with a wide variety of stakeholders; coaching product owners/managers to play an active role in stakeholder engagement.

• Facilitated cross-team orchestration, tracking, and following up with internal and external dependencies.

• Acting as a buffer between external distractions and the team’s focused environment to succeed.

• Where beneficial, protected the team and minimized disruptions.

• Coordinated with other teams on environment setups & maintenance, deployments, and production releases.

• Encouraged brainstorming, creative thinking, open minds, equal voice, and perspective sharing. Encourages the team to be confident and courageous, thinking outside the box.

• Coached the team on Agile and Scrum principles with a goal of continuous improvement. Able to subtly observe team dynamics, recognize strengths and growth opportunities of individual team members and her/himself, and invite team members into coaching conversations to inspire learning and growth.

• Promoted teamwork to enable Lean flow of value and achieving sprint goals.

• Participated in scaling Agile adoption throughout adjacent areas of the organization. First Financial Bank, Cincinnati, OH,

Senior Scrum Master January 2020 – March 2021

Responsibilities:

• Served as Senior Scrum Master facilitating PI Planning for an Agile Release Train of 6 teams.

• Coordinated the Scrum of Scrums Meetings, identifying Risks and dependencies across various Scrum teams of the ART.

• Participated as Agile Coach and SAFe Scrum Master in implementing the Agile working method in the organization with six Development Teams.

• Facilitated workshops & training sessions to coach and educate senior managers and other individuals on Agile values, principles, and practices so as to enable them to be effective Agile champions.

• Guided teams in using data integration tools and techniques to combine data residing in different sources to provide users with a unified view of them.

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• Provided data visualizations for real-time decision-making and real-time services based on continuous data transformed in flight.

• Facilitated the Scrum of Scrums and ensured maximum value delivery towards meeting the goal of the overall success of the teams.

• Helped the Product Owner maintain, groom, and prioritize the product backlog.

• Performed sprint retrospectives to capture lessons learned and what can be improved in the next sprint.

• Led Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) on Azure DevOps.

• Coached multiple teams involved in developing a series of machine learning APIs that enforce customer authentication and customer protection, using Java (Spring boot), Python, and MYSQL.

• Facilitated teams and other users to maximize the use of Power BI as a Windows desktop application, or as Power BI Service on online SaaS, or Power BI Mobile for Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

• Partnered with Product Owner and team on backlog refinement to keep product backlog relevant and prioritized, ensuring acceptance criteria are agreed upon and stories are ready for sizing.

• Implemented the tracking team’s progress, including Burn-down, velocity, and release forecasting.

• Influenced continuous improvement and helped teams increase productivity and foster innovation.

• Coordinated and enabled the Technology team to continuously improve through intentional Lean and data- driven inspect and adapt cycles (retrospectives).

Macy’s Stores, Cincinnati, OH,

SAFe Scrum Master August 2018 – December 2019

Responsibilities:

• Led workshops & training sessions to coach and educate Senior Managers and other individuals on Agile Values, Principles, and Practices so as to enable them to be effective Agile Champions.

• Coached three teams, Data Analyst, Machine Learning, and Database Administration Support Teams.

• Accelerated Agile transformation and Agile sustainment for both experienced and new Agile teams.

• Supported the Product Owner with grooming and prioritizing the Product Backlog.

• Helped teams break down Epics, write and split User stories, estimate User stories, and create tasks.

• Worked with System Architect in building Data modeling (Dimensional and Relational) before ingesting the database from the data lake into AWS Cloud.

• Coached the Data Analyst team in using business analytics, data mining, data integration, data visualization, and other data to analyze Shopping Data in order to observe trends, recognize patterns, and make more data- driven decisions and predictions.

• Coordinated with multiple source system teams to get the required data in file formats and worked with the Architect to resolve any data issues or dependencies.

• Assisted the Data Analyst team in using data integration tools and techniques.

• Collaborated with database developers to implement effective automation processes by developing Access queries in the SQL platform so data can be mined for quality control and accuracy.

• Used Snowflake, SQL Database, Python, and Tableau to provide internal optimization and compression of data for easy metadata extraction and query processing.

• Collaborated with QA peers on test case reviews and continuously improved test approach and design. Miso Inc., Indianapolis, IN

Scrum Master October 2016 – July 2018

Responsibilities:

• Helped two teams migrate from traditional Waterfall to becoming fully matured Agile teams.

• Trained and mentored teams on enforcing agile operations and scrum principles, values, and practices.

• Coordinated daily scrum, sprint review, sprint demo, and planning meetings for one of the clients.

• Helped the Product Owner in grooming and prioritizing the Product Backlog.

• Facilitated building an internal energy management tool, using Python, Java, and MYSQL Server in the backend and JavaScript in the frontend.

• Guided teams working on Http Webservices which allowed users to observe and manage their power consumption, Webservices which were deployed to the AWS cloud and exposed via http over the web. 5

University of Bamenda

Agile Coach/Department Chair October 2010 – April 2016 Responsibilities:

• Served as Chair of the Computer Science Department, Agile Coach, and Subject Matter Expert (SME) on Agile and Scaled Agile development methods and processes.

• Introduced and facilitated the training of staff in the roles of Scrum Master, Agile Coach, Release Train Engineer, and Product Owner.

• Led workshops & training sessions to coach and educate Deans, Directors, Product Managers, Product Owners, and other individuals on Agile values, principles, and practices.

• Initiated and pioneered the Agile Methodology and helped teams migrate from traditional Waterfall to becoming fully matured Agile teams.

• Implemented Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Scrum, Kanban, and Jenkins for multiple projects.

• Facilitated the use of Agile/Scrum practices in the production of software development projects from

• Used Snowflake, SQL Database, Python, and Tableau to provide internal optimization and compression of data for easy metadata extraction and query processing.

• Used Software as a Service (SaaS) with Amazon Web Service (AWS) for the provision of services such as computing, storage, networking, database, analytics, management, and tools for the Internet.

• Facilitated the work of teams that implemented backend Stateless and Stateful APIs and Applications in Java, Springboot, Hibernate, and C#.Net.

• Used Cloud Service layer to enable SQL client interface for DDL and DML like operations on data.

• Negotiated and executed 48 software development projects and achieved increased revenue for the Computer Science department by 60% over the course of 3 years.

• Created Data Analytics with Tableau and Python libraries to supervise and accomplish Faculty Researchers’ and postgraduate students’ research projects.

• Supervised 52 postgraduate student research projects with extensive data analysis and visualizations.

• Managed 23 faculty staff and 420 students in the Computer Science Department. DRS Data & Research Services, Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom. IT Project Manager March 2005 – September 2010

Responsibilities:

• Served as IT Project Manager for DRS Data & Research Services for projects in 8 countries.

• Initiating, negotiating, and planning projects, as well as managing project risks and changes.

• Supervised teams for Examination Management Custom Software applications for 8 Examination Boards.

• Guided teams in the use of Agile and Waterfall approaches depending on project specifics and client goals, creating detailed project road maps, plans, schedules, and work breakdown structures.

• Focused teams on business objectives and tracked progress to ensure project milestones were completed on time and on budget.

• Effectively managed the financial resources for the projects.

• Provided leadership to team members in the development of Relational Database Management Systems for 4 National Population Censuses, 8 Examination Management Applications, and 12 custom applications.

• Managed all phases of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) for Custom Software Applications for 4 National Population Censuses, 8 Examination Boards, and 12 local client companies.

• Developed software for Examination Registration and Processing Results using Visual Studio DotNet.

• Performed heavy duty Data Analytics and visualization with Tableau for census and examination Results. SOME SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS

• Produced Booklets and Guidelines Handouts for Tracking and Escalation Impediments in Azure Boards.

• Achieved the migration of multiple teams across several companies in the US from traditional waterfall methodologies to becoming fully matured agile teams.

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