Bachelor of Science - Computer Science
University of Central Oklahoma
05.2006
Adnan Syed
Overland Park,KS
Summary
- Over 16 years of extensive I.T Development and Leadership experience in Lean-Agile and Traditional frameworks across diverse industries.
- Coaching at all levels of Leadership and Leading Enterprise-wide Agile adoptions for organizations in different levels of their journey; Infancy, Maturity, or Reset.
- Incorporating components from different Frameworks (SAFe, LeSS, Scrum@Scale, Nexus, Spotify) to build a customized solution aiming to enhance Organizational and Business Agility.
- Taught 100+ workshops on ‘Customized’ Agile Frameworks (Roles, Processes, and Techniques).
- Mentoring Portfolio and Program leaders to create Strategic Roadmaps and manage value-flow.
- Coaching delivery teams on desired execution of various Process Frameworks – Scrum, Kanban, ScrumBan, Lean-UX, etc.
- Facilitation of Scrum and SAFe events with emphasis on ‘Purpose’ (Refinements, Daily Scrum, Sprint Retrospectives, I&A sessions, PI Planning events, System Demos, Scrum of Scrums, ART Sync and others).
- Building dashboards to share health of iterative-and-continuous delivery (Digital AI, Rally, JIRA).
- Promoting DevOps culture and Technical Excellence as both an entity and a behavior.
- Creating Communities-of-Practice, Guilds, & Circle of Excellence to support community learning.
- Reporting on Initiatives across Portfolios as part of Agile PMO delivery team. Managing personnel across geographically distributed teams (over 30 direct reports).
- Expertise in solution development of SaaS - Desktop and Mobile Applications.
Certification
- Certified SAFe 5 Agilist (SA); Practitioner (SP); Govt. Practitioner (SGP); SPC (Eligible) – Scaled Agile, Inc.
- Certified Agile Leader (CAL I) – Scrum Alliance, Inc. (Michael Sahota)
- Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM); Certified Scrum Master (CSM) – Scrum Alliance, Inc.
- Scrum Foundation Educator (SFE) – Scrum Alliance, Inc.
- ICAgile Coaching Bootcamp (Lyssa Adkins)
Skills
- Organization Agility
- Interpersonal Communication and Relationship Building
- Public Speaking
- Workflow Analysis
- Leading Scrum Meetings
- Software Process Management
- Risk Identification & Management
- Team Empowerment
- Stakeholder Negotiations
- Scrum Processes
- Backlog Management
- Effective Customer Communication
- Agile Best Practices
- Training & Presentation Skills
- Empirical Project Management
- Documentation and Reporting
- Performance Monitoring
- Work Planning and Prioritization
- Root Cause Analysis
- Conflict Resolution
- Coaching Leadership at all levels
- Coaching and Mentoring
Proficiencies
- Atlassian (JIRA and Confluence), CA Technologies (Rally), Digital AI (VersionOne), and ScrumWorks
- Service Now, Workday, and Microsoft Suite (SharePoint, Teams, and Office)
- .NET Framework 4.0/3.5, C#, Microsoft SQL Server 2008/2005 and Microsoft Access; Web Services, HTML/DHTML and CSS; Azure DevOps, GitHub, SVN, and TeamCity,
Education
Work History
Senior Agile Consultant (SAFe Enterprise Coach)
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Kansas City, MO
09.2021 - 09.2023
- Primary SAFe Portfolio and Program Coach responsible for SAFe 5.1 adoption and implementation strategy
- Directly responsible for coaching Officer team on culture, strategy, progress interpretation, & business agility
- Facilitated the creation of Value-stream, Product roadmap and strategic planning across Program Increments
- Directly contributed to the creation of the ART, hiring of critical roles, & oversaw execution from PI 0 to PI 8
- Trained and coached SAFe/Agile concepts across all levels (Team-Program-Portfolio) including SAFe 6.0 intro
- Mentored Product Managers/Owners, Enterprise/System Architects, RTE, Scrum Masters, in-house Agile Coaches, and stakeholders (within the bank and beyond)
- Supported Program Increment execution with focus on ‘Progress over Perfection.’
Senior Agile Consultant (SAFe Program/Team Coach)
American Century Investments (ACI)
Kansas City, Missouri
07.2019 - 09.2021
- Leading the SAFe 4.6 adoption initiative as part of the Agile-PMO group
- Providing customized SAFe training workshops for Portfolio, Program, and Team level contributors
- Coaching over 12 teams in the Client Experience, Operations, Sales, and Data Management domain
- Stepped into the Release Train Engineer role for over 9 months in addition to other responsibilities
- Help teams with PI Planning prep (Feature decomposition; model storms; etc.)
- Partnering with Release Train Engineers (RTEs) across different Agile Release Trains (ARTs) on building a scaled approach for organizational improvement as well as managing cross-train dependencies and risks
- Contribute to the maturity of IT, Product, and Scrum Master Communities of Practice for shared learning
- Mentoring Scrum Masters to help navigate the ‘purpose-and-influence’ of their contribution.
Director of Agile Delivery
Cox Automotive Inc.
Mission, Kansas
06.2018 - 04.2019
- Responsible for Process and Operations as a Value Stream Engineer (Leader) for a multi-million-dollar Enterprise Value Stream (VinSolutions) located in Mission, KS
- On-site Coach for CAFÉ (Cox Automotive Framework: Product delivery framework based on SAFe and tailored for Cox Automotive)
- Responsible for escalation of impediments, management of risks, and driving of the Continuous Improvement backlog for VinSolutions Value Stream
- Accountable for overall coordination, execution and delivery of value while ensuring alignment towards a $1 Billion Retail Solutions Portfolio
- Facilitator of Roadmap creation, Backlog (re)prioritization using Epic value and tradeoff discussions, and Program Increment readout activities as a member of the Value Stream team (Vice Presidents of Business, Engineering, Product, and Architecture)
- Manager for the Release Train Engineers within our Value Stream
- Assuring consistency of practice, engagement, and stakeholder involvement across all the trains by passive mentoring (of Release Train Engineers) and active coaching by attending scheduled Release Train sessions
- Publishing Epic plans for the Program Increment (quarterly) to promote visibility and tracking
- Managing Investments and providing Financial tracking to the Portfolio (on behalf of the Value Stream)
- Facilitation of Periodic retrospective meetings for the entire Value Stream
- Participate in cross-Portfolio sync sessions each week to align dependencies, share learnings, and discuss opportunities to improve coordination and collaboration at a Value Stream and Portfolio level
- Building and participating in Communities of Practice (COP) and Communities of Learning (COL) around CAFé-SAFe, Lean-Agile, Engineering practices, Product development, and Quality improvement
- Coaching, Mentoring, and Motivating leaders and contributors in seeing the value of empowerment, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and building a Growth Mindset culture via trust and accountability.
Senior Agile Consultant (SAFe Enterprise Coach)
Discover Financial Services
Greater Chicago, Illinois
03.2018 - 06.2018
- 3-Month engagement to conduct an assessment, propose a path-forward, and assist with foundational implementation of a SAFe/Agile refresh
- Senior Agile Coach (Program) for the Payment Services Agile Release Train (ART)
- Coaching and Mentoring the RTEs on building a scaled approach for continuous improvement, risk, and dependency management across the organization
- Coaching and Mentoring the Scrum Masters to help guide their teams within the SAFe framework
- Engaging with the Portfolio leadership team to promote a ‘sustainable’ Business Agility model
Agile Coach
Cars.com
Chicago, Illinois
07.2017 - 03.2018
- Helped form the Consumer Portfolio structure (made up of 5+ teams) dedicated to improving the Vehicle Search experience on the Cars.com web and mobile site (resulting in Consumer rating being the highest and bounce rates from site & mobile being the lowest in Cars.com history only after 5 months of establishment)
- Planning and Facilitating Agile events (Daily stand-ups; Showroom; Retrospectives; Community of Practice; Cross-org sync sessions)
- Supporting the ‘Test-and-Learn’ framework (using Hypotheses, and Experiments to achieve quarterly Goals) in tandem with Continuous Delivery practices
- Creating training material and facilitating an ‘Agile Principles and Practices’ workshop at Cars
- Contributing to different corporate initiatives as an active member of the Agile Practices Team
- Working on culture initiatives sponsored by Chief Officers
- Improving the use of Agile Process Tools to support the transparency of expectation and outcomes
- Mentoring other coaches in the Agile Practices Team (as well as the Engineering Managers) to nurture empowerment and Agility as a mindset.
Senior Scrum Master (Coach)
Eze Software Group
Chicago, Illinois
09.2016 - 07.2017
- Planning and Facilitation of all Scrum events (Daily stand-ups; Product backlog refinements; Scrum of Scrums; Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives)
- Active member of the Lean Agile Circle of Excellence at Eze
- Mentoring and coaching all members of the Scrum team to promote self-management and self-accountability
- Using Confluence and JIRA dashboards to provide visual cues of progress with each passing day
- Helping the Scrum development team identify their ‘Kaizen’ as part of their retrospective meetings
- Constantly working with Product Management (PO’s) to help prioritize PBI’s, while, helping establish an open communication link between all members of the Scrum team without compromising the scrum principles.
Senior Scrum Master (Coach)
DST Systems Inc.
Kansas City, Missouri
10.2014 - 08.2016
PBI’s to assess an upcoming releases’ health
Constantly working with Product Management Team (PO’s) to prioritize the Product Backlog with the goal of limiting surprises for the Scrum teams, while not compromising on Scrum principles.
PO’sPBI’s
Agile Consultant (Scrum Master)
Pinsight Media
Kansas City, Missouri
08.2013 - 10.2014
- Mentoring and coaching Agile (Scrum) practices for multiple projects within the Pinsight Media application that are responsible for architecture, design, and development of Sprint mobile apps & services across Android, iOS, and Blackberry platforms
- Joined the office of PMO as a Project Manager to help facilitate the prioritization, management and reporting of new and existing development and infrastructure projects (Big Data) as part of the 1-N strategy list
- Primarily responsible for setting up an automated tool to help report real-time project status to the Executive staff
- Planning and facilitating the Daily Scrum events, Sprint Planning, and Estimation sessions, as well as, the Sprint Retrospectives meetings, while, creating and tracking Burn-down/Velocity charts and Capacity planning documents
- Facilitating infrastructure and change management using Kanban as an Agile methodology
- Managing Rally as the primary Administrator, while, constantly enhancing the tool's potential by either utilizing existing apps and connectors/plugins or by collaborating with Rally support for larger concerns
- Setting up customized dashboards within Rally for executives; Managers, Directors, and VPs
- Constantly working with Product owner(s) to perform weekly story refinement sessions to help prioritize the general and release backlog well in advance of the Iteration Planning sessions
- Successfully managing an offshore-onshore model of more than 13 resources
- Conduct one-on-one meetings with individual resources to assure everyone is moving towards their career goals, while, resolving or escalating issues to upper management
- Interviewing candidates to add to the growing needs of the Development teams
- Authored a Capacity planning and Retrospective document for multiple projects within the organization
- Authored a checklist document for Production releases, which was recommended as a template, by the management, to multiple teams across the organization
- Tracking of defects and user trials for multiple mobile applications under development.
Agile Consultant (Scrum Master)
ExamOne – A Quest Diagnostics Company
Lenexa, Kansas
09.2012 - 07.2013
CAFé
- Performed a multifaceted role in the BlueprintForWellness (BFW) application; from overseeing Scrum and Kanban development, to Release management, to Resource management
- Planned and facilitated the Daily Scrum meetings, Sprint Planning, and Estimation sessions, as well as, the Sprint Retrospectives meetings while creating and tracking Velocity charts and Capacity planning documents for the BFW application
- Extensively used Rally as the primary tool to track and report the progress of each task within an iteration by reviewing the Iteration Status and Burn-down chart while managing the Release/Unscheduled backlog
- Conducted one-on-one meetings with individual members as well as assisted in Interviewing and hiring
- Managed the BFW Production Support bucket (Level 3 and 4) that ranged from resolving database performance issues or broken Application functionality to critical issues like a user’s inability to log into the system or a PHI compliance issue
- Managed the design, implementation, and delivery of a ‘game changer’ application in the self-screening market (DirectPay), which resulted in my team being awarded the Quest Diagnostics 2013 Q2 Quality Award, while competing against another impressive implementation corporate wide
- Proudly held the record of having zero defect releases for the BFW application since taking charge, spanning across 6 Major releases and more than 12 Interim releases
- Authored a checklist document for Production releases, which was recommended as a template, by the management, to multiple teams across the organization
- Responsible for advertising pre-and-post implementation statuses to all impacted groups, Product Owners, and Stakeholders, including setting up meetings and sending email notifications
- Created and maintained multiple sites using SharePoint 2010 for accessing process and design documentation, scrum documentation, release documentation, out of office calendar for the resources etc.
Release Manager Lead
Sprint Nextel Corporation
01.2007 - 09.2012
- Release Manager (Sep 2010 - Sep 2012)
- Lead Developer and Support Analyst (Jan 2010 - Sep 2010)
- Application Developer Lead (Oct 2007-Jan 2010)
- Application Developer II (Jan 2007-Oct 2007)
Programmer Analyst
Viceroy Solutions, Inc.
Overland Park, Kansas
07.2006 - 01.2007
- Developed Client programs and scripts to produce detailed analysis of data, reports, and data extracts using SQL and PL SQL for clinical, financial, and other departments and hospital management
- Created prototypes and developed user interface (UI) mock screens to establish client satisfaction or gather feedback for upcoming project(s)
- Developed data flow diagrams in the system along with formulating test plans.
References
Available upon request