Agile Coach / Project Management

VALERIE L. WILLIS

Raleigh, NC ***** 919-***-**** **********@*****.***

Product Delivery Agile Coach

Passionate experienced Agile Coach with expertise in driving Agile transformations and embedding sustainable practices. Skilled in partnering with leadership to align strategy, empowering teams to adopt Agile methodologies, and facilitating impactful sessions. Experienced in onboarding teams, fostering continuous improvement, and promoting collaboration for high performance. Adept at creating a culture of transparency, innovation, and predictability to achieve business objectives. Committed to enabling organizations to deliver exceptional outcomes through tailored coaching and Agile excellence.

CORE COMPETENCIES: Flow Accelerator Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) Lean Thinking Strategic Alignment Project Management Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Stakeholder Relations TECHNICAL SKILLS: Rally Jira Align Admin Comparative Agility MS Teams Miro SharePoint Confluence PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Dell Technologies, Inc., Remote Office, Raleigh, NC 07/2015 – Sr. Enterprise Agile Coach

As a certified SAFe Practice Consultant (SPC 6.0), I provide organizational analysis and leadership in implementing the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) within organizations, ensuring effective Lean-Agile transformations and fostering a culture of continuous improvement for the implementation processes within the Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) Converge and Hyperconverge business portfolios. I provide agile training for VxBlock and PowerFlex scrum and kanban teams using my agile transformation leadership skills ensuring alignment with business strategy goals and promoting agile at scale.

• SAFe Coaching and Leadership: Coached over 20 Agile teams and 50+ enterprise leaders on SAFe principles, roles, events, and best practices, resulting in a 35% improvement in team velocity and a 25% increase in overall employee engagement in Agile practices.

• Program Increment Planning and Collaboration: Facilitated 10+ Program Increment (PI) planning sessions annually, involving 150+ stakeholders, achieving a 98% alignment rate on program objectives and dependencies across five Agile Release Trains (ARTs).

• Agile Release Train Execution: Acted as a Release Train Engineer (RTE) for three Agile Release Trains, each consisting of 10-12 teams, achieving on-time delivery of 95% of committed features and a 20% reduction in lead time for critical deliverables through cadence alignment, risk management (RAID) and continuous delivery pipeline improvements.

• Portfolio and Backlog Management: Partnered with leadership to manage portfolio backlogs containing over 500 features, prioritizing work to deliver $10M+ in business value over a 12-month roadmap, while ensuring 100% alignment with strategic objectives and compliance with established guardrails.

• Agile Metrics and Tool Optimization: Developed and tracked 5 key Agile metrics (e.g., velocity, lead time, flow efficiency) across 50+ teams, resulting in a 30% increase in on-time delivery and a 15% improvement in quality. Optimized workflows and documentation using JIRA and Confluence, achieving a 20% reduction in cycle time through data-driven process improvements.

VALERIE L. WILLIS

919-***-**** **********@*****.*** Page 2

Verisk Analytics, Inc. Morrisville, NC 03/2012 – 06/2015 Scrum Master / Software Test Engineer

Project contributor focused on optimizing the delivery of highest priority deliverables by facilitating the scrum ceremonies. For example, PI Planning, Sprint Planning, Daily Stand Ups, Sprint Demos, and Retrospect ceremonies. Also, motivated product owners (PO), business sponsors, scrum teams, and stakeholders to collaborate, communicate, and maintain a constant pace without burnout while focusing on delivering customer solutions.

• Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and PMI Agile Practitioner (PMI-ACP): Implemented agile workflows across 5+ teams, transitioning from waterfall to Scrum and Kanban methodologies, resulting in a 30% improvement in team velocity and a 20% reduction in project delivery time.

• Software Testing Engineer: Developed and executed 100+ front-end and back-end test cases, validating data using SQL scripts, SOAP UI, and Quick Test Pro (QTP), which contributed to identifying and resolving 85% of critical defects before production, ensuring 90% software reliability.

• Scrum Master: Improved Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) processes for 5+ high-priority projects, leading to a 15% decrease in cycle time and 25% increase in overall team productivity by proactively removing impediments and driving continuous improvement. Ensured all sprints were delivered within 95% of project timelines, maintaining high-quality standards. Itron, Inc. Raleigh, NC 08/2010 – 03/2012

Scrum Master / Quality Assurance Engineer

Coordinated the time boxing for enterprise data warehouse (EDW), user stories, and story pointing via RALLY against product owner(s) acceptance criteria to confirm transparency. Communicated via Scrum of Scrum (SoS), scrum daily stand up (DSU) to track integration backlog, retrospective, burn down, sprint review, and sprint planning. Overall, collaborated with developers, product owners, quality assurance analysts (QA), and database administrators (DBA) to remove the agile “smell” and certify the delivery of valuable software.

• Quality Assurance Engineer:

• Validated 200+ SQL Developer and TOAD queries for QA tasks, ensuring 95% accuracy in business intelligence

(BI) reports using Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise 11g (OBIEE BI).

• Reviewed and optimized 50+ DMExpress jobs for SCD1, SCD2 dimension, and fact tables in ETL processes, reducing data load times by 20% and enhancing system performance.

• Scrum Master:

• Designed and implemented a framework to track team performance, visualizing velocity, cycle time, dependencies, impediments, and defects using JIRA dashboards, leading to a 20% reduction in defects and a 10% increase in sprint efficiency.

ADDITIONAL RELEVANT EXPERIENCES

Electronic Data System (EDS) of Plano, TX, System Engineer Sabre, Inc. / NC Department of Human and Health Services (NCDHHS) of Raleigh, NC, Quality Engineer Manager EDUCATION & CREDENTIALS

Masters in Technology Management – Southern College of Technology (Kennesaw State University) Bachelors in Business Administration (BBA) – North Carolina Central University, NCCU Concentration: CIS Scrum@Scale Registered Agile Coach; RAC Scrum@Scale Registered Scrum Master & Product Owner; RSM/RPO Scrum@Scale Registered Practitioner; RS@SP SAFe Practitioner Consultant; SPC 6.X Agile Coach; ICP-ACC SAFe Agilist; SA Agile Practitioner; PMI-ACP Scrum Master; CSM

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