KISHA BANKS

• Led and facilitated Agile Release Trains (ARTs), coordinating multiple cross-functional Agile teams to ensure the timely and budget-conscious delivery of high-quality software products, while driving alignment with overall business objectives.
• Planned and executed comprehensive Program Increment (PI) events, including PI Planning, Inspect and Adapt (I&A) sessions, and Scrum of Scrums, ensuring that team objectives and priorities remained aligned with broader business goals and stakeholder expectations.
• Collaborated closely with Product Management, Product Owners, and key stakeholders to define and prioritize program backlog items, while proactively identifying and escalating program-level impediments and risks to senior management to maintain program momentum and resolve critical issues.
• Fostered a culture of continuous improvement within the Agile Release Train (ART), facilitating retrospective meetings and promoting collaboration and feedback to drive ongoing process improvements, while providing regular status updates and tracking key performance metrics to ensure stakeholder transparency and visibility.

• Built and nurtured successful relationships within our team and across the business, fostering collaboration and alignment on strategic initiatives that enhanced overall performance and engagement throughout the organization.
• Identified opportunities for improving engagement across the Experience Organization by proactively analyzing processes, pinpointing gaps, and developing action plans for transformation and effective team coaching.
• Leveraged data-driven insights to provide actionable recommendations for continuous growth, facilitating improvements in team performance through the analysis of health metrics and targeted strategic roadmaps.
• Partnered with senior leadership to coach and assess product development teams, driving the execution of Agile strategies and ensuring alignment with organizational goals for improved project outcomes.

• Assisted with the identification, collection, and reporting of Agile practice metrics and measurements, providing valuable insights that informed decision-making and drove continuous improvement across the organization.
• Identified and resolved barriers to scaling Agile methodologies by developing and implementing comprehensive training programs focused on improving individual and team performance, which facilitated smoother transitions to Agile practices.
• Launched Agile Release Trains (ARTs) by strategically planning and executing rollout strategies, while coaching leaders and stakeholders to build and maintain essential elements like Vision, Roadmap, and Program Backlogs.
• Advised organizations through their Lean-Agile transformation by utilizing scaling frameworks and optimizing value streams, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

• Collaborated with the executive team to prioritize and transform Agile-based organizational strategies into effective technology and business initiatives that aligned with overall goals, ensuring that Agile practices were integrated into the company's strategic vision.
• Implemented and oversaw best practices for Agile change ceremonies at both macro and micro levels, including daily scrums, sprint planning, retrospectives, and program increments, ensuring effective execution and continuous improvement.
• Provided recommendations and scaling expertise to leadership teams, facilitating the realization of Agile values and enhancing overall organizational agility by aligning team practices with Agile principles.
• Acted as a change champion, driving delivery and change methodologies while developing stronger Agile practices throughout the organization and aligning with internal and external partners for a successful Agile transformation.

• Developed and delivered comprehensive training materials and workshops for teams and the organization, effectively building knowledge and skills to facilitate Agile transformation across the enterprise.
• Established and supported communities of practice that promoted a deeper understanding of Agile roles, enabling individuals to develop their capabilities and enhancing organizational agility.
• Led and facilitated Program Increment (PI) Planning sessions for sales, assisting in the enterprise-wide adoption of Agile practices and ensuring that all teams were aligned with business objectives to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.
• Served as an Agile Coach for six highly mature Agile teams within the ZX Data Chapter, leveraging SAFe to optimize cross-team dependencies while championing cultural change through collaboration with other coaches to advance organizational transformation.

• Launched and coached single Agile teams and SAFe Agile Release Trains (ARTs), providing tailored guidance to ensure successful implementation of Agile practices within the organization.
• Trained and coached ongoing SAFe programs by delivering coaching sessions to multiple teams across the ART, fostering collaboration and enhancing team performance to meet key project objectives and deliverables.
• Provided strategic recommendations and scaling expertise to leadership teams, facilitating the realization of Agile values and ensuring alignment with organizational objectives, which contributed to a culture of continuous improvement.
• Mentored and trained internal coaches, Scrum Masters, senior leaders, Release Train Engineers (RTE), and product owners and managers, extending coaching initiatives across both business and information technology teams to drive comprehensive Agile transformation.

• Trained, coached, and mentored teams and programs on Agile values, principles, roles, practices, frameworks, and techniques—including Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, and SAFe—while supporting business agility transformation activities throughout the organization.
• Led and facilitated Program Increment (PI) Planning sessions, assisting in the enterprise-wide adoption of Agile methodologies and ensuring that all teams were effectively aligned with strategic business objectives to enhance collaboration and efficiency.
• Instructed teams on producing Agile metrics and helped them understand how these metrics provide valuable insights into progress at both program and team levels, fostering a culture of transparency and continuous improvement.
• Supported and mentored other coaches in executing and refining change management plans to guide transformation within their respective domains, ensuring effective implementation of Agile practices.
• Ran Agile-specific workshops to build skills among Agile practitioners, while providing thought leadership and collaborating with other coaches on best practices in the industry related to techniques, tools, and strategies.

• Delivered training courses for Scrum Masters and teams focused on Agile best practices, significantly improving team dynamics and overall performance to enhance productivity and collaboration.
• Mentored and trained Scrum Masters, teams, and other Agile coaches by providing expert guidance and sharing best practices, which fostered a robust culture of continuous learning and improvement throughout the organization to drive Agile maturity.
• Orchestrated and facilitated Program Increment (PI) Planning sessions for the MTS ART, ensuring strategic alignment with program objectives and driving collaboration among teams to achieve shared goals and effectively manage deliverables.
• Established a governance structure that empowered teams by weighting decision-making toward those closest to the work, promoting accountability while facilitating regular communication across the program to enhance transparency and awareness of progress and impediments

Planned, implemented, and coached clients through Enterprise Agile Transformation by creating customized training programs tailored for all stakeholders and teams, ensuring effective adoption of Agile practices across the organization.

Defined 3-years Agile maturity model to guide the transformation scaling process, enabling organizations to track progress and achieve desired outcomes while uncovering process barriers to adoption.

Established communities of practice to promote organizational understanding of Agile roles and coached teams, Scrum Masters, Business Analysts, and executives on Agile values and principles to foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Championed cultural change and facilitated Scrum of Scrums for distributed teams across U.S. states and offshore in India, managing program risks and issues that could not be resolved by impacted teams to ensure a smooth Agile transition.

• Conducted meetings with product owners and cross-functional teams to negotiate and prioritize user stories for upcoming sprints, ensuring alignment with business objectives and maximizing team focus on delivering value.
• Managed the team to ensure successful sprints by facilitating effective communication and collaboration among team members, ultimately fostering a high-performing environment and consistently meeting project goals.
• Collaborated on key artifacts such as product backlogs, sprint burndown charts, and release burndown charts, providing visibility into progress and identifying opportunities for continuous improvement in team performance.
• Facilitated Scrum of Scrums for U.S. teams and offshore teams in India, enhancing communication and coordination across distributed teams while evangelizing the value of Agile practices organization-wide.

• Leveraged Scrum, Agile, and Waterfall methodologies to ensure the seamless implementation of Microsoft CRM, facilitating a smooth transition that maximized user adoption and minimized disruption to ongoing business processes.
• Assisted in organizing the product backlog by applying MoSCoW prioritization techniques, effectively mapping results to ensure that development efforts were aligned with critical business priorities and stakeholder needs.
• Proactively removed impediments faced by the development team, alleviating pressure and enabling team members to concentrate on delivering high-quality work, which improved overall team productivity and morale.
• Coached and mentored other Scrum Masters in Agile best practices, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and enhancing the overall Agile maturity within the organization, leading to more effective project delivery.

• Directed and monitored all activities throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), overseeing processes from high-level design to testing and quality assurance to ensure projects were delivered on time and met quality standards.
• Developed and coordinated comprehensive documentation to explain changes to baseline requirements, ensuring that all stakeholders were informed and aligned with project goals, which facilitated smoother communication and minimized misunderstandings.
• Reviewed the implementation of approved changes to maintain project integrity, ensuring that outcomes consistently met both quality expectations and stakeholder needs while fostering accountability within the project team.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to identify potential risks and implement mitigation strategies, enhancing project success by proactively addressing issues and ensuring that all project activities aligned with overall business objectives.

• Instituted bi-weekly risk management and status update calls with leadership to ensure alignment with strategic goals, proactively addressing potential issues and enhancing project delivery.
• Ensured proposed projects aligned with Division and Comcast goals, facilitating effective communication of objectives and improving project prioritization based on organizational strategy.
• Created key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics for projects and project managers to measure success, enabling data-driven decision-making and fostering continuous improvement in project outcomes.
• Managed a team of 10 project managers, successfully training them to adopt Scrum Master roles, which fostered a culture of Agile practices and significantly improved team effectiveness across multiple projects.

• Directed and coordinated projects from initiation to implementation, leading cross-functional teams through requirements analysis, risk mitigation, change control, and comprehensive status reporting to ensure successful project delivery.
• Led the deployment of Six Sigma infrastructure, managing project selection, tracking, reporting, and the development of communication resources, policies, and procedures to enhance overall organizational efficiency.
• Expertly guided Agile development processes utilizing Scrum methodologies, including managing sprints, conducting daily stand-ups, and overseeing backlog management to optimize team performance and achieve project objectives.
• Fostered a culture of continuous improvement by implementing best practices across projects, enhancing collaboration among teams, and ensuring alignment with organizational goals and strategies

• Led the seamless migration of client medical products from the Amisys system to the UNET system, ensuring minimal disruption to operations while maintaining high standards of service throughout the transition.
• Managed the rollout of new Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare HMO and PPO products, including New Hampshire NetOption, Massachusetts Tiered Network, and High-Deductible Health Plan, coordinating all aspects of product implementation.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to communicate project goals, timelines, and updates, fostering strong relationships and ensuring alignment on project objectives.
• Developed training materials and conducted training sessions for staff to ensure a smooth adoption of new products and systems, enhancing overall operational efficiency and service delivery.

• Planned and delivered cutting-edge web-based and eCommerce solutions to clients, maintaining full accountability for budgets, requirements gathering, status reporting, and team productivity to ensure successful project outcomes.
• Executed cleanups based on production data analysis, identifying and resolving data discrepancies to enhance system performance, reliability, and user experience.
• Escalated production timelines to meet client requests, proactively identifying production issues impacting code modules and collaborating with development teams to implement effective solutions.
• Developed and maintained comprehensive documentation for projects, including technical specifications and user guides, to support ongoing maintenance and facilitate knowledge transfer among team members.