Agile Coach

Résumé of Niraj Bhalla Page * of *

NIRAJ BHALLA

Jackson Heights, NY 11372 · Email: ********@*****.*** · Phone: 1-630-***-**** PROFILE SUMMARY

Forward-thinking IT executive with exceptional skills in setting vision, direction, developing others & driving change

MBA with 20+ years of IT experience in multiple industry settings both at national and international levels, out of which, last 10+ years have been as an Agile leader and Coach, Change Agent and Transformation Consultant

Adept in working with globally distributed teams and helping Organizations transition from Waterfall to Agile by changing the culture and mindset from a plan driven approach to a value/outcome driven approach

Well versed with various Organization Change Management (OCM) Models such as Lewin’s, Kotter's, McKinsey 7-S Model, ADKAR, Kübler-Ross Change Curve, Deming Cycle (PDCA) and AIM

Extensive hands-on experience in implementing Disciplined Agile (DAD) and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) in various size Organizations including Fortune 100 and 500 Companies

Ability to engage with leadership at all levels to help drive agile enablement, bring in the necessary change and at the same time overcome common adoption challenges

Excellent experience in coaching/training/mentoring Leadership and teams along with the capability to conduct role based trainings as and when required

Proven ability as a servant leader with great listening and excellent communication skills (both written + verbal)

Good knowledge of Agile Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools like Rally, Jira and Jira Align

Working knowledge to help facilitate DevOps end to end tooling at team and value stream level

Great collaboration and influencing skills; ability to establish and maintain strong relationships AGILE CERTIFICATIONS

Certified SAFe Practice Consultant (SPC6.0)

Certified Scrum Professional (CSP)

ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP)

Certified Scrum Master (CSM)

Certified SAFe Agilist (SA)

ICAgile Certified Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC)

Certified Agility Health Facilitator (AHF)

Advanced Facilitator: Value Stream Mapping (VSM) EDUCATION DETAILS

Completed MBA in March 2004 from Touro University International. Passed out with a GPA of 3.94 AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Organization Change Management (OCM) Cross-functional Team-Building Transitioning Waterfall Methodology to Agile Managing diverse Application Development Implementing Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Hiring, Mentoring and Coaching Launching Agile Release Trains (ARTs) Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) Leadership and Communication Agile coaching: Enterprise and Team level Decision Making and Problem Solving Agile Project Management Client and Vendor Relationships People & Team Management Release Management

Process Improvement and Best Practices Legacy System Modernization Agile ALM tools such as Rally, Jira Implementing Agile Methodology from Ground up CAREER HISTORY & PERFORMANCE

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), UK (worked remotely along with onsite visits to JLR, UK) Apr 2023 – Oct 2023 Agile Coach (worked as an independent consultant through Cprime) Notable achievements

Partnered with JLR Agile Hub and worked at the domain and Vehicle level for JEA for the X500 area. Provided agile coaching and mentoring to Domain (portfolio) SM, Program Lead and third party vendor teams Résumé of Niraj Bhalla Page 2 of 6

Worked at the Group (program) level and with multiple Squads for the L384 Pilot project to help them improve in their agile ways of working.

Participated in SM and PO Community of Practices (CoP), Jira trainings and Clincs

Actively involved in the JLR quarterly Big Room Planning, coaching and mentoring the group SM, Program Group Lead

(PGL) and the multiple squads that were under my area of responsibility EagleView Technologies (worked remotely – for India and US offices) Mar 2022 – Jan 2023 Agile Coach / Program / Project Management / Interim RTE (worked as a consultant through IconAgility) Notable achievements

Participated with management, cross-functional teams and Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) as subject matter expert related to Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Acted as a galvanizing force for sharing Agile and SAFe knowledge across the organization

Played the role of interim RTE for multiple ARTs

Served as a broader program manager/Project Management supporting several teams and enterprise programs

Helped drive delivery and continuous improvement by utilizing feedback and metrics (quality, delivery rate, etc.) to identify areas of opportunity. Worked across stakeholders and teams to continuously improve

Provided regular and open communication across the program and stakeholders for transparency and awareness of progress and impediments

Coached and mentored internal candidate to become successful RTE for their ARTs

Managed program level coordination, such as creating timelines, milestones, and cadence of increments and releases and oversaw the development of reports and analyses that documented program activity

Coached leaders, TPMs, RTEs, teams, and Scrum Masters in Lean-Agile practices and mindsets HSBC UK (worked remotely) Jul 2021 – Dec 2021

Agile Coach – (worked as an independent consultant through Cprime/Radtac) Notable achievements

Worked as an Agile Coach for marketing teams in HSBC, UK Wealth & Personal Banking (WPB) domain

Worked with Group Head of Marketing, WPB and her direct global head reports and their teams in the agile ways of working (WoW)

Worked with the teams to help configure Monday.com boards they wanted to use as part of their agile WoW

Mentored and Coached participants in HSBC’s Business Agility Coaching program (BACP) Cohort The Emirates Group, Dubai, UAE (onsite) Oct 2019 – Dec 2020 Sr. Agile Coach – (worked as an Independent Consultant through Transguard Group) The Emirates Group comprises dnata, an aviation services company providing ground handling services, and Emirates Airline, the largest airline in the Middle East.

Notable achievements

Worked as an Agile Coach for both the front end (emirates.com) and backend (Dnata Airport Operations)

Served as a subject matter expert on Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and on agile ways of working

Acted as an advisor, mentor, change agent & trainer to both individuals, teams and other coaches

Conducted Agile Fundamentals Training, did workshops on Story Point Estimations, Feature and User Story writing, did sessions on SAFe roles and Responsibilities, SAFe scrum ceremonies (patterns and Anti patterns)

Was an integral part of the Lean Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) and actively involved in implementing the practices and principles of SAFe at the Emirates Group (dnata and Emirates)

Agile coach for Emirates Web and Mobile Program (WMAP) Pioneers ART (emirates.com)

Conducted SAFe team/Program level assessments and coached the teams to the next higher level of maturity

Helped Teams improve their PI Planning, Incident Resolution and Dependency Management

Streamlined reporting Metrics across WMAP ARTs by reporting on 6 key objectives such as:

Objective 1: Improving Time to Market (increase release frequency, reduce cycle time etc.)

Objective 2: Improving Quality of Delivery (reduce number of bugs and defects)

Objective 3: Improving Service Quality (100% application uptime, reduce incident resolution time)

Objective 4: Improving Business Satisfaction (through program predictability and delivering outcomes with high business value)

Objective 5: Improving IT Efficiency and Productivity (through test automation, CI/CD pipeline)

Objective 6: Increasing IT Staff Engagement (knowledge transfer sessions, Team building activities, Hackathons)

Agile Coach for the newly launched dnata Airport Operations AAT Résumé of Niraj Bhalla Page 3 of 6

Coached and partnered with various stakeholders such as TPM, TPO, Business Owners, RTL and IT leads to help ensure strategy and execution alignment

Coached the RTL to facilitate program level events such as Program Increment (PI) planning, scrum of scrums, Inspect and Adapt, etc.

Delivered hands-on coaching and mentoring of individual scrum teams in the AAT by facilitating / observing sprint activities (daily stand-up, backlog refinement/sprint planning/reviews/retrospectives) and helping transition the current waterfall process to agile development process using the SAFe framework

Trained the teams to become highly proficient in the use of Jira and the applicability of Jira within the SAFe Framework

Created Jira dashboards for reporting key metrics and progress (test automation, tech debt, incidents without root cause etc.)

Coached the teams to work from home in an effective and efficient manner during covid-19 pandemic

Customized Jira scrum boards for teams to identify bottlenecks and improve flow

Coached and mentored teams to use tools for story point estimation and for their scrum ceremonies including sprint retrospectives

Coached the AAT to do remote PI planning using Microsoft Teams, Jira, confluence and excel

Guided the AAT to create virtual PI program board in confluence

Coached both the ARTs to change their mindset from delivering outputs to delivering outcomes

Coached internal Agile champions to remove reliance on external Coaches American Express (AMEX), Gurgaon, India Sep 2018 – Sep 2019 Enterprise Agile Coach – global transformation (worked as an Independent Consultant through IconAgility) Notable achievements

Led the SAFe Implementation and Agile Coaching for American Express India location for Global Services Group and Global Services Group Technology (GSG/GSGT). Worked with VP product and VP Engineering on the implementation strategy

Educated and provided training sessions at all levels (VPs, Directors, Managers, Teams) to help lead towards the organization-wide adoption of Agile methodologies and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

Conducted SAFe for Teams and SAFe for PO/PM trainings for GSG/GSGT colleagues. The last couple of SAFe for Teams batches of 37 and 41 participants had a 100% pass rate

Coached and mentored Release Train Engineers (RTEs), Scrum Masters, Product Owners and scrum teams

Launched Agile Release Trains (ART) and conducted PI planning Sessions for different value streams

Conducted SAFe team and Program assessments and provided coaching back for continuous improvement

Guided and mentored teams on regular basis in the consistent practice of Agile concepts, including scrum ceremonies, processes, compliance, and tool usage

Worked with, and supported other GSG/GSGT coaches and teams in various time zones around the world (Florida, Phoenix, UK and India)

Led the teams to a level of self-sustained continuous improvement so that they could continue on their transformation journey independently

AIG, Charlotte, North Carolina (NC), USA (onsite) Jun 2018 – Aug 2018 Sr. Agile Coach (worked through Mitchell Martin)

Notable achievements

Helped the Organization implement SAFe for their Commercial Insurance IT division

Participated in various CoPs

Did a companywide virtual session on Agile in Distributed Environments HSBC, Pune, India Nov 2016 – Mar 2018

Sr. Agile Coach and Transformation Consultant (worked as Independent Consultant through Capgemini/Future Focus) Notable achievements

Implemented Agile from the ground up in HSBC’s Regulatory Compliance (RC) Service Line

Was responsible for designing a strategy for the teams’ adoption of Agile. This included every stage of adoption, from introduction of Agile and employee education, to fostering teams and culture to practice Agile, to sustaining agile methodologies and to continually offer strategies for improvement.

Helped create and establish Agile Team Pod structure (and Roles) and provided input on DevOps policies

Trained and coached Agile Pods, Agile Leads, Product Owners and RC Leadership and Management teams in Agile values, principles, practices and the Scrum framework Résumé of Niraj Bhalla Page 4 of 6

Helped teams adopt HSBC's Disciplined Agile Framework (DAF)

Provided guidance on daily basis to teams on Scrum Values, practices and rules

Helped product owners to write and split user stories and to teams on estimating user stories using planning poker

Trained both development and non-development teams on tools such as JIRA. Created custom dashboards in JIRA for teams to use in their Scrum ceremonies so as to make the process more efficient and effective

Value Mapped and streamlined existing processes across the service line to eliminate waste and at the same time help reduce licensing costs by switching test management tool from HP Quality Center to Zephyr (a JIRA plug-in)

Facilitated DevOps end to end tooling achievement (CI/CD) at team levels (JIRA, GitHub, Maven, SonarCube, Jenkins, Nexus, G3 / Ansible etc.)

Coached and mentored teams to embrace and build an environment where continuous improvement of the development process was a constant focus. Helped the Product Owner and development teams to maintain a balance in their Sprint Backlog during Sprint Planning to upgrade the technology stack to (java 1.8, Spring 4.3, Oracle 12C, Microservices Springboot 1.4, Angular JS 1.6, Bootstrap 3.3.7)

Created and facilitated various Communities of practices (CoP) such as Agile Coaches CoP, Agile Leads CoP, DevOps tooling CoP, Technology Stack CoP and Test Automation CoP etc.

Mentored and Groomed Internal Agile Coaches and Champions for long-term Agile sustainability at HSBC hCentive, Reston, VA and Noida (now part of Optum) Jul 2015 – Sept 2016 Senior Agile Transformation Consultant and Coach (worked through Xebia India) Notable achievements

Help define and roll out Enterprise-wide Agile transformation at hCentive for their various product lines (PHIX, HIXSHOP, WFM, HIXIND, WEM)

Established strategy and Coaching Roadmap to transform customer software development from a traditional SDLC methodology to Agile methodology using Scrum and Kanban

Conducted Agile Scrum trainings (and workshops), Lean/Kanban trainings, Release Planning trainings and workshops for in-house cross-functional teams working in different product lines.

Coached and mentored in parallel multiple agile teams made up of Scrum Masters, UI designers, Developers, QA, Product Owners etc. Guided teams in the adoption of agile software development practices (writing user stories, backlog refinement, estimating stories using planning poker, release schedules and integration planning, all scrum ceremonies etc.). Provided guidance and training around use of tools (such as JIRA).

Systematically monitored the overall Agile adoption, identified opportunities and provided targeted guidance and coaching wherever applicable

Helped the organization scale Agile beyond the team level to programs and portfolios. Introduced Release Planning at individual product line (PHIX) and then moved the Organization towards Integrated Release Planning involving different product lines (PHIX, HIXSHOP) including shared services such as WIG, SSO, WFM, TechOps etc.

Helped establish and grow the Agile Governance Office (AGO) at hCentive Nokia HERE, Chicago, USA (onsite) Aug 2014 – Jul 2015 ScrumMaster / Agile Coach (worked as independent consultant) Notable achievements

Was Coach and ScrumMaster for multiple Scrum Teams concurrently (4 teams) namely WFC (Integrations Team), POICT

(Mobile App Development Team), VOICE (ETL and Java Application Development Team) and MR (front end GUI Team). Each team was responsible for different application deliverables.

Ensured teams were practicing the core agile principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability and visibility. Encouraged and facilitated the execution of effective engineering best practices among the teams such as test automation, code coverage, continuous integration, unit testing, code re-factoring, regression testing and creating test plans. Improved sprint delivery rate from 60% to 100%.

Organized, scheduled and facilitated Sprint planning, daily stand-up meetings, product backlog refinement, sprint reviews, sprint retrospectives, PI pre-planning, PI retrospectives, demos and other Scrum-related meetings

Coached and mentored Product Owners on Product Backlog development and assisted with Backlog Refinement.

Actively participated in 7 Agile Release Trains (ART) at Nokia HERE. Assisted in Agile Release Planning Sessions for multiple teams; worked with Program Managers in creating vision and roadmap artifacts; worked with co-located and globally distributed teams (Germany, India, USA) to ensure interdependencies between teams were highlighted and accounted for; captured team capacity hours for the release being planned and for each sprint therein; facilitated team breakout sessions; helped update Release/Program Plan with Epics, Features and Dependencies. Prepared and presented Release plans (draft and final) to the stakeholders for review and feedback during Release Train planning meetings. Résumé of Niraj Bhalla Page 5 of 6

Acted as Servant Leader to the teams. Facilitated getting the work done without coercion, assigning, or dictating the work. Guided and coached the Scrum Teams on how to get the most out of self-organization. Helped resolve impediments that prevented teams from completing their sprint commitments.

Built a trusting environment where problems could be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis of healing, problem solving and continuous improvement.

Participated and contributed to Scrum Communities of Practice (COP) within the Organization. Additionally, coached and mentored other ScrumMasters to help resolve issues they were facing with their teams

Introduced Brown Bag sessions for my teams to interact with each and discuss topics of common interest such as learn what other teams were working on, best practices that could be used across teams (coding, testing, CI, SVN versions, JIRA, EC etc.), automated testing and what tools they use, workshops and voluntary presentation by team members on topic of their choice etc.

DeVry Education Group, Chicago, USA Mar 2007 – 2014 Agile Transformation Coach / Project Manager / Senior Manager / Director Notable achievements

Created Business Case and proposal for Implementing Agile at DeVry Education Group emphasizing moving from traditional plan driven approach to a value driven approach

Helped identify organizational impediments to successful Agile transformation and worked with the leadership team to create effective strategies to overcome these impediments

Led the Agile Methodology Implementation at DeVry from the ground up. Designed and executed multiple step approach that included developing and defining Agile Methodology Framework suitable for DeVry, raising awareness about Agile at DeVry, building self-organizing Agile Teams initially through formal Agile Training and then subsequently by doing Agile Projects using Scrum framework

Responsible for training and rolling out new agile teams

Shortlisted and finalized an Agile Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool such as VersionOne to manage backlogs, support planning, and enable reporting to support the Agile approach

Responsibilities and achievements as an Agile Coach / Scrum Master

Coached cross-functional teams in adopting and executing the Agile methodology (Scrum)

Facilitated Sprint planning, Team Capacity Planning, Backlog refinement, daily stand-up meetings, reviews, retrospectives, sprint and release planning, demos, and other activities as needed

Identified, prioritized and removed impediments, prevented distractions

Ensured that risks and dependencies were appropriately identified, assigned and resolved

Assisted the Product Owner in writing highly effective user stories

Worked with the Product Owner to develop, manage and groom the Product Backlog

Assisted the team with making appropriate commitments through story selection, point estimation and task definition. Taught the team to create clear and concise Sprint Backlog items

Assisted with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information

Participated proactively in developing and maintaining team standards, tools, and best practices

Maintained process documentation and worked with release management for deployments

As a Senior Manager / Director of Application Development, effectively concurrently managed onsite and remotely multiple diverse development teams involved in divergent technologies and strategies in areas of salesforce.com (SFDC), Document Imaging (ImageNow), dot Net and Oracle 11i environments.

Worked with Project Management Office (PMO) to develop and implement efficient processes and procedures for implementing a standard Systems Development Life Cycle for Agile and Waterfall Methodologies.

Reduced development costs, increased Productivity and allotted more time to Projects by reducing Project QA defect rates by using Agile for doing Projects

Led the effort in vendor selection process from gap analysis to contract negotiations and finalized vendors and SOWs

Implemented Release Management strategy in conjunction with business expectations

Developed and implemented department long range plan / strategy / road maps.

Met 99.5% or better system availability for the year by ensuring quality support and response to application issues and changes. Achieved 90% YTD SLA/SLM for all service queue groups month over month and observed SLO objectives of Showstopper/24hrs, High Priority/14days, Medium Priority/30 days, Low/60 days.

Worked with IT Compliance to publish Change Management Control Documents in areas of my responsibility

Ensured SOX Compliance was met and deficiencies reduced to Zero by observing and enforcing established IT controls. Additionally, achieved 100% PCI compliance in areas under my Management Résumé of Niraj Bhalla Page 6 of 6

Provided Leadership and utilized contract resources for Order to Cash historical and current data migration activities from Oracle 11i ERP to Becker e-Commerce, Data Warehouse and Lawson Financial System.

Led the effort to decommission and sunset Becker Oracle 11i systems (hardware and software). Developed and implemented retirement strategy, including remediation of outstanding PCI issue and required data destruction policy. Worked with Business Users, Application Development and Infrastructure Teams to accomplish the task.

Re-engineered Oracle CRM Business & IT processes to increase revenue and provide DeVry a competitive edge

Decreased production support help desk ticket backlog by implementing root cause analysis (RCA) methodology

Developed, managed and monitored team budgets and participated in the IT annual Budget process.

Designed cross-training plans based on skills matrix to ensure all key business areas benefited by multiple development and support resources. Developed succession plan, established actionable goals, stretch assignments, and additional responsibilities for team members to allow them to progress "faster" to achieve their objectives.

Conducted quarterly performance and development plan reviews with team members to ensure that personal growth aligned with team, department and company objectives. Provided feedback to mentor, coach and guide team performance and individual development.

Built, cultivated and maintained long-term relationships both within and external to the area of responsibility. DeVry Education Group, USA Aug 1997 – Mar 2007

IT Consultant

Reduced Operating costs and fulfilled ever-growing business needs by overseeing a full Life-cycle implementation of Oracle E-Business Suite version 11.5.8 Order to Cash Process, subsequently upgrading to version 11.5.10.2

Developed and maintained custom applications in IBM mainframe and IBM AS/400 environments

Co-Led the DeVry enterprise-wide Y2K conversion project within budget and two months ahead of schedule.

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