Agile Coach Security Clearance

SAJEELA SIDDIQUI

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

416-***-**** *******.********@*****.*** LinkedIn

ENTERPRISE AGILE COACH

An Enterprise Agile Coach and SAFe Program Consultant with over 17 years of expertise in driving product/project delivery, Agile/Lean transformations, and executing strategic initiatives within the financial and government sectors (Enhanced security clearance). Adept at enabling business agility and fostering sustainable success through leadership and coaching.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Process & - Agile transformation - Scaling Frameworks - Product Development

Methodology - Atlassian/Miro/Mural/PlanView - OKRs & Business Reviews - Design Thinking

Teams & - In-house Agile Trainings - Organization Restructure - Continuous Improvement

Organization - High performing Teams - Documentation/Wiki - Facilitation

Program - PI Planning - Strategic Roadmaps - Customer Feedback

Management - Value Delivery (VMO) - Value Stream Mapping - Release Management

Leadership - Business Agility - Product Strategy - Stakeholder Management

- KPI Tracking - Diversity & Inclusion - Mentoring

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Export Development Canada

Agile Consultant Apr 2023 – Present

My responsibilities include:

Lead implementation of Agile ways of working for EDC’s Medium Segment Initiative contributing to EDC’s 2030 business transformation.

Organize and lead experiment squads across various business units that use design thinking to improve various aspects of Medium Segment Value proposition.

Present/advocate for adoption of experiment results at VP Steering and Executive Committees.

Encourage and coach leadership to adopt Agile mindset, fostering innovation to better serve Canadian exporters.

Share experiment results with Medium Segment Community for awareness across the enterprise and gather feedback.

Lead annual and quarterly planning, visualizing strategic roadmaps and ensuring successful execution of business objectives.

Participate in coaching forums, workshops and trainings to ensure a standardized approach to Agile execution.

Conduct maturity assessments on Initiative and squads’ level to ensure sustainability of Agile practices and ways of working.

Operationalize the initiative outcomes in partnership with Change Management team across various EDC business units.

Serve as Senior Scrum Master for Finance and Integration Services families thus obtaining a comprehensive understanding of Business and Technical teams at EDC.

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE (continued)

Lead Annual & Quarterly planning and review for Finance and Integration Services families and visualize/update product roadmaps.

Create/gather Mural templates for Initiative Kick Off in Agile, Initiating and running Experiment Squads, and Integrated regional planning for Business units.

Sun Life Financials, Canada

Agile Coach Nov 2022 – Apr 2023

My responsibilities included:

Spearhead Agile transformation for Marketing Technology and Secure Web Business Units in Digital Enterprise Scaling Framework and set up their respective release trains.

Create Portfolio, Journey/Platform and Squad Mobilization plan that included establishing OKR, Product Roadmap and enable them to successfully adopt Scrum, Kanban practices, Chapter setups and shift-left approaches.

Coach leadership teams to execute project/program delivery, leveraging Agile scaling practices and OKR framework for successful outcomes.

Facilitate workshops and training sessions for teams, managers, and executives to establish OKR management, scaled agile roles and responsibility, risk management, stakeholder communication, DevSecOps practices.

Establish and track key performance metrics and dashboards on team, platform, solution and portfolio level.

Facilitate and create template for various scaled Agile ceremonies including Feature alignment with stakeholder, Quarterly Planning, Quarterly Business Review, Annual strategy review, quarterly retrospectives.

Develop and deliver customized upskilling program plan for RTE, Product owner and scrum master role.

Observe and conduct maturity assessments for Scaled Platforms and Squads to ensure Agile practice is upheld and continuous improvement is happening to optimize team productivity.

Monitor and report on Platform transformation highlighting issues and risks appropriately.

Using multiple information sources, proactively identify, investigate and implement refined action plans to solve complex issues.

Ensure that Mobilization activities and deliverable adhere to internal quality and audit standards.

Deloitte, Canada

Business Agility Consultant (Client: TD Bank) May 2022 – Oct 2022

My mandate included.

Upskill/bootstrap client’s Journey and Platform teams for transformation to TD Next Evolution of Work (NEW) program and increase their focus on business outcomes, stakeholder management, strategic change, and process/operating models.

Perform current state assessments to understand the agile maturity of product groups/pods and develop coaching plans based on leading practices and prioritization of key areas of coaching improvements in alignment with the TD NEW playbook and methodologies.

Provide recommendations to Product Family/Product Groups to create effective features/epics aligned with OKRs in Jira through workshops and working sessions.

Prepare Product Group/Pod POs for various TDSA ceremonies such as Quarterly Business Review (QBR), Pre-PI Planning, PI Planning, PFPO sync, Release Scrum of Scrums etc. by providing agenda, objectives/outcomes, activity list and facilitation guidance.

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE (continued)

Provide coaching to TD’s selected internal coaches, PGPOs, Pod POs and RTEs (as predicated in NEW program) in the flow of work on core agile topics to increase agility.

Provide regular updates and recommendations to TD program leadership regarding coaching progress, impediments and recommended potential resolution options for TD’s consideration.

Leverage delivery performance data and metrics to make recommendations to the TD leadership for quantifiable continuous improvements.

Provide assistance across all Deloitte Agile Coaches to enable consistency in approach, coordination of coaching effort, and highlight broader change themes across the program for TD leadership consideration.

Provide industry expertise, best practices and recommendations on topics including Agile Transformation, Future of Work, Change Management, Future of Banking, and Organizational Design for TD leadership consideration in shaping, defining, executing, and sustaining the NEW program.

Royal Bank of Canada, Canada (Capital Markets)

Agile Coach – Capital Markets Project Management Office Nov 2021 – Apr 2022

Responsibilities included;

Enabling programs/portfolios in the application of current RBC agile practices by providing hands on coaching & support.

Delivering a solution or service that meets the needs of various Lines of Business as part of a consultative engagement.

Accurately recognizing context of program/portfolio opportunities and making appropriate recommendations or providing solutions.

Improving the agile maturity and agile adoption by the program/portfolio.

Determining & making recommendations on which delivery frameworks and methodologies are relevant to different complex initiatives (e.g. Scrum, Kanban, Scaled Agile) to deliver highest value.

Engaging sponsoring executives, IT and Business leads, to establish trusted partnerships that enable commitment and buy-in to agile practices.

Supporting the development of agile coaches, team members and their leaders through mentoring, education, training etc.

Royal Bank of Canada, Canada (Capital Markets)

Agile Coach – Capital Markets Data Strategy Aug 2018 – Oct 2021

Starting as a Senior Scrum Master, I evolved into an Agile Coach for multiple Scrum teams in Capital Markets facilitating delivery for Data Strategy program. This program aims to harness the data available across various business units in Capital Markets and provides unique opportunity to use Agile’s collaborative and continuous improvement practices to deliver tangible business outcomes. On this journey, I ;

Helped the program identify their products and value streams across 15 different projects and re-organize 17 Scrum teams aligned to said products and value streams.

Bridged communication gap between business groups and development teams by setting up and facilitating PI Planning and PO syncs throughout the release cycle.

Set up Jira and Confluence governance and projects structure such that it provides transparency both on program and team level to all stakeholders through self-serve dashboards.

Facilitated revision of existing software development lifecycle and release management processes with program leadership to reduce waste.

Set up the Scrum Masters’ Community of Practice for collaborative learning which has now evolved into Capital Markets Agile Community of Practice.

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE (continued)

As a subject matter expert, I continue to promote Agile culture and.

Engage with individual Product Owners to understand their requirements; and jointly draft, monitor and pivot roadmaps to achieve the program goals.

Facilitate visualization of systems on leadership (C-suite and Managing Directors group) level using Kanban to identify roadblocks and optimize flow for maximum business value delivery.

Energize discussions across Product Owners & Scrum teams to collectively set the tone for the products being delivered that is aligned with business outcomes and key results.

Coach and conduct training workshops with Scrum Masters and Product Owners such that they learn to apply Agile principles for goal setting, decision making and conflict resolution within and across the Scrum teams. Continuously seek stakeholders’ feedback to improve team performance by promoting accountability for results.

Work with Test Engineering team to introduce tools and practices for test automation and an improved CI/CD pipeline.

Facilitate Capital Markets Agile Community of Practice so members of the community can draw from each other’s experiences and emerge as change agents in the organization.

Coach leadership such that they understand Agile principles and can apply them to bring about necessary changes in the Organization design.

TATA Consultancy Services, Canada Jul 2017 – Jul 2018

Scrum Master – Mobile Application Development (Client: CIBC)

As a Scrum Master, I

Managed two cross-functional Scrum teams (16 members) responsible for iOS and Android application development for CIBC.

Created and maintained appropriate vehicles for open communication within the scrum teams (e.g., tracker boards) to create a trusting and safe environment.

Facilitated discussions leading to collective decision-making, goal setting and conflict resolution within the teams.

Removed impediments to achieve sprint goal through the proactive management of external dependencies and escalated issues through business and/or PM channels where necessary.

Continuously sought stakeholders’ feedback to improve teams’ performance by promoting joint accountability for results and solving productivity issues.

Used retrospective items to implement new processes within teams to increase sprint efficiency.

Facilitated and engaged in business analysis, user experience and technical conversations across platforms and multiple levels of influence.

Provided proactive coaching to the teams and recommended continuous improvement of processes and tools to optimize teams’ productivity, quality, and time-to-market.

Facilitated and supported Scrum meetings and work sessions.

Communicated and reported teams’ progress and accomplishments ensuring transparency of progress and outcomes.

Influenced and coached team members with an agile mindset.

CaseWare International, Canada Aug 2016 – May 2017

Agile Project Manager – Cloud Services

Responsibilities included:

Engage Product team and stakeholders to develop realistic project guidelines and plans that ensure timely project delivery.

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE (continued)

Lead a team of 20 developers and 6 QA testers to to define milestones and ensure on-time and in-scope delivery.

Act as a conduit between business and technology teams in driving design conversations around project deliverables.

Lead, communicate and rally business groups together to ensure the right resources and skills are allocated to project tasks.

Coach teams in Agile and Lean principles and development practices.

Concurrent Systems, Pakistan & South Africa Jun 2014 – Feb 2016

Scrum Master/Agile Coach

Helped implement Agile and Kanban methodologies to DevOps teams as pilot team for Agile transition in the organization.

Championed Kanban processes and methodologies for 3 DevOps teams (15 team members), as key member of Agile transition team to improve development quality and velocity. Organized company-wide SCRUM and Kanban workshops on monthly basis.

Facilitated Agile initiatives within Product Management, Pre-Sales, Sales and Marketing, and Operations groups.

Conducted user experience and user interaction analysis that helped DevOps teams create solutions with awesome customer experiences resulting in customers’ satisfaction.

Solicited Stakeholders’ Feedback throughout the lifecycle of the product; performed quantitative and/or qualitative analysis to measure the impact and success of features on the product market.

Concurrent Systems, South Africa Mar 2012 – May 2014

Support & Integration Team Lead

Started off as Support & Integration Engineer then was promoted to Team Lead for Global Support & Integration team of 15 engineers residing in South Africa & Pakistan supporting customers in 43 countries in Middle East and Africa region and achieved 99.999% Network Availability as well as 100% SLA compliance for support trouble tickets.

Nokia Siemens Networks, Pakistan Jun 2007 – Feb 2012

IN/VAS Back Office Team Lead

Led a team of 7 engineers to provide 24/7 Systems Administration support for Installation and Commissioning of Unix / Linux based Business Support and Operations Support systems.

Delivered Voucher Management System (VoMS) migration project worth US$10M in the year 2009-10.

Was lead integration engineer to deliver US$15M worth of IN SCV upgrade projects in the year 2010-11.

EDUCATION / PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

BE Electronic Engineering, NED UET, Karachi, Pakistan 2003 – 2007

Certified Scrum Master 2016

Certified Scrum Product Owner 2016

IC Agile Certified Professional Coach (ICP-ACC) 2019

Kanban Management Professional (KMP-I) 2019

SAFe Program Consultant (6.0) 2023

IC Agile Certified Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF) 2023

IC Agile Certified Coaching Agile Transformation (ICP-CAT) 2023

IC Agile Certified Enterprise Coaching (ICP-ENT). 2023

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