Certified Scrum Master with Agile Leadership Experience

TOSIN A. AKINOLA

Ohio University • Athens • Ohio • 740-***-**** • ************@*****.***

EDUCATION

Ohio University, Center for International Studies, Athens, Ohio, USA Master of Arts in International Development (as a Ford Foundation International Fellow) Jun 2011

CERTIFICATIONS

Certified Scrum Master (CSM) Scrum Alliance

SAFe Scrum Master, Scaled Agile Framework

SUMMARY

Experienced Certified Scrum Master, with tenacious and proactive approach towards effectively leading high-performance teams to driving projects from start to finish.

7+ years of experience in leading and managing small/large Agile programs and projects, including extensive experience in managing software development and system deployment.

Exemplary team player with definitive leadership and communication skills.

Expertise in overseeing complex, high-value projects with requirement gathering, analysis, planning, project development and risk management skills.

Servant Leader with background in building a positive working environment for the teams, customer, and stakeholder.

Great personality able to reach and relate with people from all backgrounds and cultures.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Marathon, Cleveland, oh 11/2021 – present

Scrum Master

●I lead cross-functional teams to iteratively deliver complex and global-scaled products. I facilitate and manage the success of each iteration and challenge my teams to refine processes to increase efficiencies and deliver well-polished, working software every iteration.

●Partner with Product owner to prioritize sprint backlog. Partner with development teams to deliver project objectives through iterative delivery by offering expertise in addressing blockers and dependencies.

●Collaborate with user communities and project teams for seamless QA activities including UAT. Contribute to continuous improvement and drive product quality and engineering velocity, perform peer to peer coaching, training, and mentoring to improve process competencies

●Create Agile communication plan to support the team's understanding and communicating performance and effectiveness.

●Lead agile teams as the scrum master and team member and employ best practices for Agile Methodology/Scrum Framework

●I collaborate with the Product Owners and team members to give input and support to the strategic direction of the initiative.

●Create self-organizing agile teams and facilitate the delegation of tasks and responsibilities to appropriate team members. Act as a moderator for sprint planning, daily standups, sprint demos, and refactoring/reflection sessions.

Dell, Austin, TX 12/2018-11/2021

Scrum Master

●As a Scrum Master, I served as a critical liaison between the product delivery team, product manager and senior management providing critical direction, communication and assuring the quality delivery of products and services to our customers. I coached, guided, and facilitated energetic and knowledgeable teams.

●Led new teams transitioning to agile and training team leads about Agile values, tracking tools, concepts, and implementation.

●Devised strategies for teams/team leadership to address their needs, wants, problems and concerns.

●Taught Agile from top-down for better understanding and team support.

●Motivated and supported team members and ensured they had the tools and knowledge to do their jobs and that all blocking issues were resolved quickly.

●Communicated team status to all internal stakeholders and continuously refined and improved metrics by working with the team. Coordinated cross-team dependencies with other Scrum Masters, escalating issues that required executive attention.

●Participated in the development of programs as a strategic partner and the company plan as directed by leadership.

●Performed analysis to determine the root cause of challenges and provided solutions for improved operational and process performance.

Uber, Columbus, OH 08/2015-11/2017

Scrum Master

●Created a viable working atmosphere with developers, as well as multiple product owners for two co-located sprint teams and one offshore team.

●Identified and removed impediments, conducted daily standups, retrospectives, planning sessions, and created tracking plans such as burndown charts and burnup charts.

●Participated in developing high performing development teams and best practices such as pair programming, code reviews, continuous integration/continuous deployment.

●Provided all support to the team using a servant leadership style.

●Avoided distractions by identifying and removing impediments.

●Motivated the team to work towards continuous improvement by addressing things that didn’t work during the next sprint.

●Collaborated with the project team to identify potential project risks and assisted with the development of preventive plans.

●Led Scrum and Kanban teams simultaneously with some QAs offshore.

●Taught team members how to remove impediments, providing escalation management, anticipating, and making tradeoffs, and balancing business needs against technical constraints.

●Creating a positive environment and a fluent workflow with product owners to assess sprint progress.

●Assisted Product owners with prioritization and grooming of backlog items.

●Oversaw project & resource planning and the implementation of Agile/Kanban based execution within two teams.

●Designed and defined requirements and specifications, project control with ability to support multiple simultaneous projects.

Ensured that scrum teams practiced core agile principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability, and visibility.

●Participated in PI planning, INA, System Demo, Scrum of Scrum, ART Sync and Agile Community of practice.

National City Bank, Cleveland, OH 10/2014-08/2015

Junior Scrum Master

● Coached and facilitated teams developing application that enabled users to access all necessary day to day banking needs. Also, on the backend enabled business to be able to keep track of end user records and account status.

● Worked with the scrum teams to facilitate, educate, and coach them on the Agile Scrum framework

●Inspired management to adopt new processes and improvements based on program retrospectives.

●Provided support in delivering effective programs through collaboration with cross-functional teams to enhance productivity and improve agile/Kanban methodologies.

●Successfully facilitated two Scrum teams and a Kanban team simultaneously.

●Motivated and led workforce with emphasis on quality and on-time delivery of projects to accomplish business aims and enhance operational excellence.

●Successfully transitioned a Waterfall team to Agile methodology.

●Created team-building opportunities, developed learning solutions aligned with business outcomes for all levels of employees and ensured employee performance improvements.

●Removed impediments and protected team members from interruptions and distractions to maximize productivity.

●Encouraged and implemented process improvements.

●Facilitated and headed project teams to deliver learning solutions for increasing staff working efficiency.

●Organized meetings with related project workforce to discuss key points for maintaining project timelines.

●Ensured implementation and adaptation of learning solutions by management as well as departments to meet set goals.

●Coached and built robust relationships by implementing efficient problem-solving skills and transparency.

●Created a healthy positive environment for cross-cultural teams.

American Red Cross, Athens, OH 06/2012-09/2014

Assistant Program Manager

●Developed key partnerships with local community organizations, and other agencies.

●Charged with researching and incorporating company policies with the lead team.

●Identified, researched, and put in place various team training programs.

●Established strong relations with local schools, churches, and grassroots support groups.

●Established structure for a new outreach division to service 100+ communities.

●Developed Policies and Procedures Manual covering my department and team.

●Identified and engaged key personnel for project kick-off.

●Oversaw accounts from contract through post event.

●Posted and monitored social media marketing weekly.

●Utilized online tools to connect with clients, building an on-line brand, and enhancing business visibility.

●Successfully implemented delivery of conferences and symposiums up to $500,000.

●Managed contracts for 1500 room blocks, 8 event rooms, catering orders, A/V needs and entertainment.

●Proactively promoted special event sales with 20+ potential clients weekly for 7 event spaces.

●Effectively led my team to execute logistics event setup to dismantling and in a timely manner.

●Coordinated logistics for 15 team-training events within 1 month for Learning & Development Market Implementation Teams.

●Managed teams with marketing, material orders/distribution/catering within 2-day delivery.

●Executed onsite setup/dismantling of room layouts, marketing display materials and learning materials for 150 people.

●Provided on-site team support during events.

Contact this candidate