SUMMARY:

• Seasoned executive consultant focused on delivering measurable, value - driven results for his clients. Passionate about helping enterprises transform their culture into one exhibiting truly adaptive Business and IT alignment, Chris’ experience positions him to become part of any executive leadership team and be effective at fostering collaboration at every level of the organization. Whether value-stream mapping, launching Agile Release Trains (ARTs), coaching RTEs, Product Managers, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, leading SAFe courses or designing and training customized curriculum, Chris introduces innovative, pragmatic solving techniques with a focus on value delivery, built-in quality, team engagement and accountability.
• Specialties include holistic enterprise agility, business agility, enterprise lean-agile leadership, organizational transformation, systems thinking, DevOps, Scrum, Kanban, hypothesis, Behavioral Driven Development (BDD) and Test Driven Development (TDD) techniques, formal certified SAFe training (learners have option to test for SDP, SA, POPM, SSM and SP certifications) and custom workshops and training courses.

EXPERIENCE:

Confidential, Detroit, MI

SAFe Agile Coach and Trainer

Responsibilities:

• Performed an active Enterprise Level Coaching role for a multi-portfolio, “Full SAFe” implementation leveraging the SAFe 5.0 framework.
• Coached various roles to write better Epics, Capabilities and Features. Provided input for economic prioritization based on Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) and was instrumental in facilitating needed transparency, so the business could make better decisions.
• Launched two ARTs. Teams on the train’s spanned North America and Europe.
• Coached new RTEs, SAs, BOs, SMs and POs throughout to ensure success.
• SAFe 5.0 trainer for the enterprise. Developed and led custom workshops and training courses.

Confidential, The Woodlands, TX

SAFe Agile Coach, STE, RTE and Trainer

Responsibilities:

• Performed an active Enterprise Level Coaching role for a “Full SAFe” implementation. Leveraged the SAFe 4.5 and 5.0 framework, offering the best in Lean-Agile thinking and continuous value delivery in the shortest sustainable lead time.
• Coached various roles to write better Epics, Capabilities and Features. Provided input for economic prioritization based on Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) and was instrumental in facilitating needed transparency, so the business could make better decisions.
• Formed and implemented a roadmap to improve the organization over several quarters. Highly effective in reducing anti-patterns at all levels.
• STE and RTE for several Program Increments (PIs). Teams on the ART spanned North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Trained RTEs.
• SAFe 4.5 and 5.0 trainer. Developed and led custom workshops and training courses.

Confidential , The Woodlands, TX

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SAFe Agile Coach, RTE and Trainer

Responsibilities:

• Performed an active Enterprise Level Coaching role for a “Full SAFe” implementation. Leveraged the SAFe 4.0 and 4.5 framework, offering the best in Lean-Agile thinking, scalable DevOps and continuous value delivery in the shortest sustainable lead time.
• Formed and participated in a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) that provided the needed momentum to push the organization to positive change.
• Launched a Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) Committee led by the C Suite and EVPs. Successful in moving scope of work from waterfall projects to WSJF prioritized Epics within the Portfolio level Kanban.
• Engaged SMEs, Business Owners, Product Managers and Architects to map Value Streams. Worked with key players to target the best scope and resources to ensure a successful launch of the pilot Agile Release Train (ART). Launched two trains.
• Instrumental in forming a Community of Practice (CoP) for RTEs, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Architects and DevOps.
• SAFe 4.5 trainer. Developed and led custom workshops and training courses.

Confidential, Washington D.C

SAFe Agile Coach and RTE

Responsibilities:

• Performed an active Program Level Coaching role for a scaled agile implementation utilizing the SAFe 4.5 framework.
• Engaged key Business Owners, Product Managers, Architects and SMEs to define Operational and Development Value Streams. Once identified, formed and launched an ART that included ten Agile teams.
• Excelled as the RTE for the ART. Facilitated PI Planning and the Scrum of Scrums (SoS). Tracked the execution of features, resolved impediments and encouraged collaboration between teams.
• Facilitated PI System Demos, Retrospectives and Problem-Solving Workshops during the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event occurring at each Innovation and Planning (IP) iteration. Effectively leveraged the Ishikawa diagram, the ‘5 Whys’ and Pareto chart to identify the root cause of program-level issues. Stories and Features addressing the problems were then created and fed into the next PI Planning session.

Confidential, Washington D.C

SAFe Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

• Excelled as a SAFe Scrum Master for three Agile teams. Facilitated Sprint Planning, Grooming/Refinement, Daily Stand Ups, Demos and Retrospectives. Utilized burndown and velocity charts, cumulative flow diagrams and sprint reports to concisely communicate delivery of scope sprint by sprint. Employed agile games for team building and Scrum/Kanban boards for story tracking. Coached team members.
• Provided support to each team member using a servant leadership style; led by example. Protected team members from outside distractions and promptly addressed impediments.
• Leveraged a decade of experience leading technology teams to develop strong working relationships with Product Owners, Developers and QA to effectively bridge the goals of the business with the capabilities of technology. Effective in building cross team relationships.
• Led the Scrum Master CoP for a dozen Agile teams. Actively participated in the Scrum of Scrums. Led PI Planning for one PI.

Confidential, Nashville, TN

SAFe Product Owner

Responsibilities:

• Create, maintain ed and prioritized the team backlog as Product Owner. Ensure d stories and acceptance criteria were detailed enough developers were clear on the requirements, stories could be effectively tested, and the team knew what would be demoed. Served as team PO during each PI. Jira Administrator.
• Conduct ed grooming and planning sessions to prioritize work in upcoming sprints . E ngage d directly and daily with Scrum team members.
• Quickly worked to understand the technical environment while developing strong relationships with internal partners and external vendors. This positioned me to become an important asset to the team for the largest software initiative in FTB history: replacement of the retail online banking platform and mobile application.
• Partnered with various teams to decouple deployment from release allowing the business to release the solution on demand as four canary releases. This effort was effective in reducing risk as large scope changes were deployed to the production environment but only to a subset of the user base.

Confidential , Nashville, TN

Scrum Master / Agile Coach

Responsibilities:

• Persuaded executive management to move the organization from a traditional software development process to the Agile Scrum framework. Excelled as a change agent to implement the change. Once fully adopted the company enjoyed marked improvement in prioritization, productivity and customer satisfaction resulting in significant gains in sales, decreased overhead and improved employee retention.
• Increased the maturity level of the organization’s adoption of the framework by continually coaching from team through executive levels.
• Executed Agile Scrum principles as a Scrum Master for two Scrum teams. Resolved conflicts, improved morale and established clear goals while effectively managing to tight timelines.

Confidential, Franklin, TN

Scrum Master / Project Manager

Responsibilities:

• Utilized the Agile Scrum framework to manage multiple mission critical communication and emergency notification software projects across a matrixed project team spanning multiple countries. Clients included the Confidential,Confidential , Confidential, Confidential ,Confidential ,Confidential, Confidential and more.
• Facilitated Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Retrospectives and Demos. Routinely mitigated risks and reported status through multiple channels.
• Developed a solution to save the company from losing a $9.2MM contract with the Confidential. Managed the solution through deployment.

Confidential, harlotte, NC

Project Manager

Responsibilities:

• Excelled managing Enterprise Wholesale Credit Risk initiatives built on a Data Warehouse across multiple vendors, technologies and LOBs. Managed the execution of project activities through the use of Six Sigma tools/methodologies across matrixed project teams.
• Interviewed SME’s, wrote BRDs, Use Cases, UI specs, User Manuals, DFDs and other project specific documentation. Identified and resolved defects across the Enterprise Data Warehouse.