Neba Nwafor
Project Manager / Agile Leader
College Park ,MD
Summary
Strategic, agile, and transformation-focused professional with over 15 years of experience driving billion-dollar enterprise initiatives in the financial services, technology, and retail sectors. Proven track record of scaling Agile practices across Fortune 500 organizations, managing portfolios exceeding $150 million in technology investments, and delivering annual cost savings of over $25 million through innovative transformation strategies. Highly skilled in building high-performing organizations through program-level coaching, resulting in a remarkable 45% acceleration in product delivery. Recognized for coaching teams in Agile adoption, achieving significant reductions of 60-90% in delivery delays, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Certified in SAFe®, PMP®, and AWS Cloud, with expertise in tools such as Jira, Confluence, and Azure DevOps. Passionate about empowering teams, scaling Agile frameworks, and consistently delivering impactful, data-driven results for global organizations.
Overview
14
14
years of professional experience
8
8
Certificates
2
2
Languages
Work History
Technical Program Manager (TPM) / Agile Transformation Coach
Gap Inc
San Francisco, California
04.2023 - Current
- Strategic Frameworks: Developed and implemented a lean SDLC framework, adopted across the product organization as the primary reference for operational processes, enhancing transparency and cross-functional alignment.
- Executive Collaboration: Partnered with the VPs to map end-to-end workflows, presented to the CTO to provide clarity on organizational processes, and influenced leadership decisions at the highest level.
- Pre-mortem Framework Implementation: Introduced the Pre-mortem framework to the TPM organization, adopted by Business Operations, Product, Technology, and external vendors. This initiative proactively identified risks, reduced project delays by 75%, and fostered alignment across diverse stakeholders.
- Jira Plans for Transparency: Led the adoption of Jira Plans across 55+ teams, replacing Excel for tracking major initiatives. This initiative became the primary source of truth for tracking critical tech projects and improved transparency.
- DORA Metrics Adoption: Championed the implementation of DORA metrics across the organization, enabling data-driven decisions and improving team performance by 20%. Supported teams in migrating to DevLake to automate metric tracking.
- Backlog Health Metrics: Developed and deployed a backlog health assessment model that improved backlog readiness by 60-90%, enabling better planning and reduced blockers. Collaborated with Power BI to scale this dashboard across the organization for enhanced reporting capabilities.
- Cultural and Team Leadership: Facilitated bi-weekly workshops and recognition programs, resulting in a 78% improvement in psychological safety and a 300% increase in team culture scores. Enhanced alignment on OKRs across teams to ensure measurable progress on strategic initiatives.
Agile Coach / Project Manager
Freddie Mac
McLean, VA
06.2022 - 04.2023
- Streamlined Operations: Optimized program management processes, reducing cycle times by 30% and saving $200,000 annually through efficient workflows and resource allocation.
- Enhanced Customer Experience: Delivered impactful customer-facing features, increasing satisfaction scores by 20%, which drove higher product adoption and retention.
- Real-Time Data Visibility: Designed and deployed Power BI and Tableau dashboards, enabling real-time tracking and reducing issue resolution time by 25%.
- Fostered Continuous Improvement: Introduced innovative retrospective formats that accelerated problem resolution by 15% and strengthened team collaboration.
- Incident Management Optimization: Streamlined incident resolution processes, reducing MTTR by 40% and enhancing system reliability across critical platforms.
- Team Leadership: Managed performance for 50+ direct and indirect reports, improving team productivity by 45% while maintaining a 92% employee satisfaction rate.
- Career Development: Developed and implemented competency matrices for five role types, resulting in a 30% improvement in promotion readiness and creating clear growth pathways.
- Employee Engagement: Launched a peer recognition program that increased team engagement scores by 40% and reduced turnover by 25%, fostering a positive work environment.
- Cost Optimization: Negotiated vendor contracts, achieving a 15% reduction in costs while maintaining delivery quality and prioritizing high-impact initiatives.
- Automation Leadership: Championed automation efforts that saved over 1,000 engineering hours annually, streamlining operations and increasing efficiency.
- Cloud-Native Modernization: Transitioned 15 critical applications to a microservices architecture, enhancing scalability and modernizing the tech stack.
Senior Agile Coach
Capital One
Richmond, VA
06.2021 - 06.2022
- Orchestrated Scalable Change: Led the modernization of 15 mission-critical applications, migrating to a cloud-native microservices architecture. This effort not only enhanced scalability and system reliability but strategically aligned technology capabilities with future business demands.
- Delivered Strategic Alignment Across Teams: Partnered with VP-level leaders across Technology, Product, and Data Science to establish a collaborative governance framework, resulting in a 40% improvement in quarterly OKR alignment.
- Customer-Centric Solutions: Championed process improvements in call center workflows that increased service efficiency, reducing average customer response time by 15% and improving satisfaction scores by 10%.
- Empowered Productivity at Scale: Coached teams to adopt a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) mindset, eliminating non-value-add tasks and reducing delivery cycles, saving 60+ developer hours monthly.
- Anticipated Risks to Drive Success: Introduced Spotify Health diagnostics and proactive risk assessment workshops to identify and address bottlenecks. This initiative improved workflow efficiency, cutting delays by 20% across critical programs.
- Up-skilled for Future-Ready Talent: Designed and rolled out a technical competency program for 100+ team members, fostering a 45% increase in promotions and reducing external hiring costs by $200,000 annually.
- Revolutionized Remote Engagement: During the rapid organizational shift to remote work, developed innovative team-building practices tailored to virtual settings, boosting engagement by 55% and maintaining 95% productivity across 150+ team members.
Agile Transformation Coach / Lead Scrum Master
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland
01.2019 - 03.2021
- Kanban Adoption Success: Transitioned two mature Scrum teams to Kanban, streamlining workflows and achieving a 97% improvement in on-time project delivery by enhancing transparency and adaptability.
- Seamless Cloud Migration: Led the team through a complex on-premises to cloud data migration, ensuring minimal disruptions, enhanced data management capabilities, and continuous system availability during the transition.
- Proactive Risk Mitigation: Monitored project progress using Burndown Charts and real-time metrics, providing consistent updates to stakeholders, mitigating risks daily, and fostering cross-functional alignment to reduce delays and maintain focus on high-priority tasks.
- Cultural Transformation Leadership: Spearheaded a cultural transformation initiative across three departments, directly impacting over 200 employees and elevating employee engagement scores from 65% to 92% through targeted programs and open communication channels.
- Diversity and Inclusion Impact: Established comprehensive diversity and inclusion programs, resulting in a 45% increase in diverse hiring and a 60% improvement in inclusion scores, fostering a more equitable workplace environment.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Developed and implemented a collaboration framework that improved team satisfaction by 40% and reduced inter-team conflicts by 65%, enabling smoother workflows and better inter-departmental synergy.
- Optimized Workflows with WIP Limits: Implemented Work In Progress (WIP) limit optimization, reducing average cycle times from 15 days to just 4 days, significantly enhancing delivery speed and efficiency.
- Flow Efficiency Framework: Created a flow efficiency measurement framework that boosted team performance by 40%, providing actionable insights to optimize throughput and reduce bottlenecks.
Program Manager / Scrum Master (SAFe)
Marriott International
Washington, DC
04.2015 - 06.2019
- BDD Framework Implementation: Introduced a Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) framework across eight teams, improving requirements clarity by 65% and reducing defect leakage by 40%, ensuring higher-quality deliverables.
- Quality Enhancement: Established quality gates and automated code review processes, resulting in a 55% improvement in code quality metrics and reducing post-deployment issues.
- Technical Practice Playbook: Designed a comprehensive technical practice playbook encompassing TDD, BDD, and CI/CD best practices, achieving a 90% adoption rate and elevating team adherence to modern engineering standards. Enhanced Engineering Excellence: Spearheaded the adoption of a comprehensive technical framework, including Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), Test-Driven Development (TDD), and CI/CD best practices, across eight teams—improving requirements clarity by 65%, reducing defect leakage by 40%, and achieving a 90% adoption rate while elevating code quality metrics by 55%.
Project Manager/Scrum Master
African Development Bank
Abidjan, Côte D'Ivoire
10.2010 - 03.2013
- Defined Systems Scope and Objectives: Applied advanced expertise in business analysis to define systems scope and objectives, aligning organizational goals with user requirements and creating comprehensive process flows and functional specifications.
- Documented Digital Transformation Strategy: Developed and documented a comprehensive digital transformation strategy, capturing the current state of operations across marketing, sales, and support functions. Centralized documentation in SharePoint, streamlining knowledge management and accessibility.
- Business and Technical Alignment: Drafted and maintained business requirements, ensuring alignment with functional and technical specifications. Played a key role in transitioning teams to agile methodologies, enhancing collaboration and delivery efficiency.
- Operational Optimization: Recommended and implemented operational improvements, establishing a robust management control and reporting system that tracked performance metrics and supported data-driven decision-making.
- Agile Methodology Adoption: Partnered with leadership and teams to ensure projects adhered to agile principles. Designed and executed execution strategies that improved project alignment and delivery effectiveness.
- Waterfall-to-Scrum Transition: Spearheaded the digital transformation of 15 teams, successfully transitioning from traditional waterfall methodologies to the Scrum framework, resulting in improved adaptability and faster project cycles.
- Facilitated Team Collaboration: Acted as a trusted advisor to management and staff, facilitating collaboration and ensuring the successful execution of digital transformation initiatives aligned with organizational goals.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Natural Resources Management
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, MDMaster of Science - Program Management
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, MDSkills
Agile Transformation & Coaching – Leading Agile adoption across teams and organizations
Scrum, SAFe & Kanban Frameworks – Implementing Agile methodologies at scale
Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) – Aligning work with strategic business objectives
Program Increment (PI) Planning – Driving Agile Release Train (ART) synchronization
Enterprise Agile Maturity Assessment – Evaluating Agile implementation maturity
Servant Leadership – Enabling teams to be self-organizing and high-performing
Stakeholder & Executive Communication – Bridging technical and business priorities
Change Management & Agile Mindset Adoption – Helping teams embrace Agile
Jira & Confluence Expertise – Managing Agile workflows, dashboards, and automation
Azure DevOps & Agile Tooling – Optimizing Agile delivery pipelines
Backlog Prioritization & Refinement – Aligning feature development to business goals
Value Stream Mapping – Identifying and eliminating bottlenecks for efficiency gains
Risk Management & Issue Resolution – Proactively addressing Agile delivery risks
Metrics & Agile Performance Tracking (DORA, Flow Metrics, OKRs) – Using data to drive continuous improvement
Accomplishments
- Led $15M+ cross-functional programs with 97% on-time delivery, aligning technical and business roadmaps to drive strategic objectives.
- Directed cloud migration for 20+ enterprise applications, reducing infrastructure costs by 40% and improving system reliability by 30%.
- Spearheaded Agile transformations, launching and coaching three Agile Release Trains, training 100+ professionals in SAFe and Scrum principles.
- Enhanced team culture and delivery speed by introducing DORA metrics, OKRs, and innovative retrospective formats.
- Reduced technical debt by 25% and improved operational efficiency by optimizing program processes.
- Delivered customer-focused solutions that increased satisfaction scores by 20%.
Certification
Certified SAFe 5 Program Consultant (SPC), 01529672-6683, 06/15/23, Virginia
Timeline
Technical Program Manager (TPM) / Agile Transformation Coach
Gap Inc
04.2023 - Current
Agile Coach / Project Manager
Freddie Mac
06.2022 - 04.2023
Senior Agile Coach
Capital One
06.2021 - 06.2022
Agile Transformation Coach / Lead Scrum Master
University of Maryland
01.2019 - 03.2021
Program Manager / Scrum Master (SAFe)
Marriott International
04.2015 - 06.2019
Project Manager/Scrum Master
African Development Bank
10.2010 - 03.2013
Bachelor of Science - Natural Resources Management
University of Maryland, College Park
Master of Science - Program Management
University of Maryland, College Park
Affiliations
- Project Management Institute
- Rotary International
- Association of Information Technology Professionals
- Toastmasters
Languages
English
Native or Bilingual
French
Native or Bilingual
Spanish
Professional Working
Interests
Basketball