Vice President, Program Management, Agile Operations

• Feb 2023 - Present

Senior Director, Program Management, Agile Operations

• Aug 2021 - Feb 2023

• Driving process improvements across the company, increasing product development efficiencies, and iterating upon operating metrics.• Partnering with team leads to build product roadmaps, refine capacity planning, determine resource allocation/gaps, and to build a prioritized product development pipeline.• Evaluating and collaborating with senior leadership on strategic initiatives.• Tracking and reporting on project status including progress, risks, highlights, and upcoming milestones. Show less

Director, Program Management & Agile Operations

• Sep 2019 - Aug 2021

• Drive quarterly planning, requirements gathering, and roadmap sessions across the company’s Platform product, which spans seven scrum teams within the U.S. and Poland. Routinely identify and manage risks across Product / Engineering, Analytics, Life Sciences / Business Development, Operations, and Medical. • Guided the reorganization of data / analytics, product, and engineering teams (25 employees) to maximize software development, increase cross-team communication, and minimize customer deliverable risks. Track OKRs and partner with engineering leadership to assess resource allocation and identify timing to initiate new projects. • Collaborate with senior stakeholders and account / project managers to build timelines, forecast deliverable dates, and to budget for resource allocation [internally and via a third-party vendor]. • Lead organization forums on improving company agility & implementing best practices without sacrificing quality or speed to market. Built & trained three scrum teams from inception & standardized scrum practices across the company. • Deliver hands-on coaching on various Agile techniques such as creating healthy backlogs, utilizing ceremonies effectively, lessening dependencies / decreasing risks, increasing transparency, & limiting work in progress. • Manage artifacts such as program plans, Jira boards, Confluence repositories, sprint metrics, and risks / issues log and provide weekly progress towards department milestones for the executive team. • Won COTAN of the Month (Top Employee) in September 2020. Show less

Director, Agile Operations (Sr. Scrum Master / Agile Coach)

• Sep 2017 - Sep 2019

• Championed the Agile transformation from ‘Water-Scrum-Fall’; implemented Scrum framework & established regular cadence of ceremonies. Introduced artifacts and metrics to help teams accelerate / refine software delivery. • Introduced [across the company] new product-building techniques, namely story mapping, validation boards, end-user surveys, and Design Sprints based upon Marty Cagan’s Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) principles. • Built an opportunity assessment model to gauge organization’s scrum maturity across seven teams. Practiced daily coaching to help the respective teams continue to improve and to add customer value. Composition of teams included collocated and distributed resources in multiple locations, including offshore. • Built the Agile & Scrum Master’s Organization; managed two direct reports and personally served as the Scrum Master for the Product Organization’s #1 priority, across three teams. Routinely offered suggestions, removed impediments, and partnered with the product owners to maintain groomed and prioritized backlogs in Jira and TFS. • Introduced new techniques / activities to maximize effectiveness of scrum ceremonies. Key highlights include team satisfaction during retrospectives, user-story alignment during sprint planning, and improved swarming across the team. • Won QPIDian of the Month (Top Employee) in March 2018. Show less

Business Operations and Agile Program Manager / Scrum Master

• Oct 2014 - Sep 2017

• Provided daily leadership for the Digital Advertising & eCommerce startup team that operated using design thinking, lean startup, and Agile scrum methodologies. Led strategic planning, financial reporting, customer service, analytics, testing, process improvement, vendor management, and stakeholder relations. • Managed the build-out of the digital advertising framework that was projected to deliver $10MM+ by 2018. The SaaS / cloud-based ecosystem includes DIFM & DIY products and strategic partnerships with Facebook and multiple third-party vendors. o Proof of concept delivered $400K in revenue during eight-month pilot phase. o Teamed with Sales and Marketing to scale the platform from 650 initial customers to a larger cohort. • Led a 25-person cross-functional team, including vendors, to determine the integrations and eCommerce build vs. partner strategy. Worked closely with marketing, UX, and the product teams to build the functionality roadmap. • Led weekly process improvement meetings to identify opportunities to improve customer metrics (NPS, CLTV, and Retention), to increase efficiencies through technical solutions, and to implement new product roadmap features. • Partnered with Support to scale customer service across multiple locations and hundreds of representatives. Created comprehensive training curriculum, including FAQs, customized templates, phone scripts, and eLearning tools. Show less

Agile Project Manager / Scrum Master

• Jul 2013 - Oct 2014

• Facilitated two scrum teams responsible for the CRM migration of 3,000+ reports from Siebel to Salesforce.com and the re-branding of the eCommerce jobsite portal. Partnered closely with the product owners and global development teams to ensure success throughout sprints. Used IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC) and Salesforce’s SPRINTER to manage product backlogs, taskboards, sprint velocity, and to remove impediments. • Shared Agile / Scrum methodology best practices and coached 20 team members in the Product and Technology divisions across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. • Managed a $1MM, six-month project and was responsible for leading the integration of the Avaya Predictive Dialer functionality with Monster’s Siebel CRM application; served as the key point of contact for all project-related activities. • Chaired weekly internal and vendor meetings for 20 people. Proactively prepared dashboards, status reports, captured meeting minutes, and identified / tracked the project risk log. Facilitated transparent communication throughout the global PMO among participants, stakeholders, and senior business partners. Show less

Agile Project Manager / Business Systems Analyst, Platform Solutions

• Mar 2012 - Jul 2013

• Worked collaboratively across business units and IT to identify critical problems and recommend solutions based upon industry best practices to position the company for Homesite 2.0. Projects included claims processing, customer service retention, help desk ticket resolution, and telephony routing. • Secured catastrophic weather [coverage] requirements from Insurance carriers, Progressive, GEICO, and American Family, and led the telephony solutions design for the Claims Organization, spanning three regional offices and the at-home employee workforce. Provided menu of solutions for executive management and partnered with IT Infrastructure and vendor to implement solution and meet respective client's SLAs. Managed a cross-functional team of 12 resources. • Researched the integration of a home-grown CRM tool with Microsoft SharePoint. The proposed enterprise solution intended to improve customer service and the claims experience for a customer base exceeding 850,000 policies. • Created project plans, dashboards, business cases, scorecards, storyboards, & Visio process flows to aid in efficiency improvement & resource allocation projects. Used Agile and Waterfall methodologies; successes included: $2MM reduction in back-office expenses (projected over a 5-years) and 47% improvement in claims processing accuracy. Show less

Assistant Vice President and Senior Business Analyst / Project Manager

• Jun 2007 - Jan 2012

• Led a 7-person cross-functional team, including a third-party vendor, to implement a centralized document repository to meet federal compliance regulations. Created a KPI dashboard and modeled workflows using Visio to detail each function / process; routinely provided status reports to senior management. • Analyzed program specifications, defined the project scope, created business requirement documents (BRDs), and managed project plans to satisfy federal regulations. Selected highlights from over 25 projects include programs designed to track $800MM in real estate exposures and reduce $40MM in global operating losses. • Shadowed the cash monitoring process and recommended an automated workflow solution. Results increased efficiency by 40 minutes per request, centralized 3,500 annual records, and saved $3MM in annual expenses. • Served as a Microsoft SharePoint Subject Matter Expert and liaison between IT Infrastructure and business units; led end-user (UAT) trainer throughout global Risk Management division (350+ employees). Show less