Enterprise Agile Coach

Sunil Raghavan

https://www.linkedin.com/in/raghavansunil/

Cell : 202-***-**** Status : US Citizen E-Mail : ad72to@r.postjobfree.com Sr Agile Coach/ Team & Enterprise Agile Coach/ Release Train Enginer/ JIRA & JIRA Align Expert/ Microsoft Azure Expert

SUMMARY

• Experienced Thought Leader & Operations &

Technology strategist, with 23+ years proven

expertise in Executive Agile Coaching,

Organizational Change Management, DevOps

Strategy and Technology Strategy in the

domains spanning, Banking, Financial Services,

Transportation, Logistics, Digital Commerce, and

Mobility

• Used Jira Align to facilitate the coordination of multiple Programs

• Bootstrapped a Lean Incubator within with the

organization, with Lean Portfolio Principles and

creating a Lean Kanban along with a dozen full-

stack developer squads, with ScrumBan techniques

for rapid prototyping of Supply Chain bots and

ideas

• Partnered with Segment CTOs and CxO

organization in defining the Agile transformation

strategy and roadmap through Business Agility and

OKR principles

• Led the Design Think and Business Agility

workshops to re-envision the Bank’s functional

Capabilities and time-to-market for new product

prototypes, through an effective LPM

• Led cross-functional leadership teams to align

capabilities (i.e. portfolio management, budgeting and governance processes) leveraging SAFe’s

principles to recommend a framework for fostering

a culture and mindset change in organizations

.

• Incubated several Agile CoPs, Guilds and CoEs, by developing working agreements, lean

collaboration, change agent mentorship, program

governance playbook, performance reporting KPIs,

and Agile best practices, while driving process and tools improvement to support increasing maturity

levels of business agility

• Expert in JIRA and JIRA Align and have conducted configuration and training sessions

• Created Organizational Models and worked on

starting up Agile squads at all levels of SAFe –

Essential, Program, Solution as well as Portfolio

SAFe.

• Worked with the CIO’s office, in setting up an Agile Transformation Working group, in onboarding 5

Agile Release Trains across 45+ Agile teams, right from person identification, imparting role-based

training, customizing sprint ceremonies based

on the program and the resource distribution,

participation in actual ceremonies, and reporting

on governance/metrics

• Coached and mentored over 80+ Scrum Masters,

Product Owners, RTEs, STEs, Product Managers and

Solution Managers

Licenses & Certifications .

• Certified SAFe SPC-6.

• Certified SAFe LPM-5

• Certified SAFe RTE

• Certified SAFe POPM-5

• Certified SAFe APM-5

• Certified SAFe SASM-5

• Certified SAFe® Remote Trainer, Scaled

Agile, Inc.

• Certified SAFe® 5 Program Consultant, Scaled

Agile, Inc.

• SAFe 5.0.1 Practitioner Certification, Scaled

Agile, Inc

Agile Transformation Credentials .

• SPC 56, Spotify, ICP-ACC

• 7+ Agile Playbooks

• Agile Maturity Models

• Agile Scaling Toolkits

• OKR based Value Stream Mapping & Capability

• Role-based Training for SM, PO, RTE, PM, STE,

SM

• Lean Portfolio Management Set-Up

• Charter for Agile Communities of Practice

• Pragmatic SAFe for an Enterprise

• DevOps Culture

• Playbook for Hybrid Agile

• Playbook for Co-existence with Non-Agile

departments

• Distributed/ Global Agile Ways-of-Working

• Measures for Value and Progress

• Enterprise Agile Planning Tools – JIRA, AZDO,

RALLY, VONE

• OCM models in Agile

• Facilitating HR job models and career paths

Professional Experience .

Pepsico since Feb 2023

Sr Agile Coach/ RTE

• Brought onboard for the 3-year Consumer Division’s Portfolio transformation program – which included the rationalizing legacy platforms, applying Design Think for rapid ideation of Portfolio level Backlog, for rolling out Cybersecurity and Network Operations optimization initiatives

• Working closely with the CISO office and the Infosecurity and Data Center Operations teams to line up Value Streams, Intake mechanisms, value measurements and program planning

• Refined and created simplified SAFe practices for different roles in the Organization, right from a Business Sponsor down to a Scrum Master and Release Engineer, including training content and job aids

• Worked with the CISO’s office, in setting up an Agile Transformation Working group, in onboarding 5 Agile Release Trains across 45+ Agile teams, right from person identification, imparting role-based training, customizing sprint ceremonies based on the program and the resource distribution, participation in actual ceremonies, and reporting on governance/metrics

Lead a team of 4 other contractor Coaches, while mentoring 5 internal Client staff coaches through the various Agile steps. Ran successful ARTs.

• Wrote the framework of a Product Development framework which focused on pivoting software development into an MVP based product approach. Refined the concepts of TDD/ BDD along with requisite toolsets to complete the DevOps pipeline

• Created the portfolio models on JIRA Align and mapped Value Streams to the Protfolio models within Align. Configured the right hierarchy and issue types within Align to match up with JIRA structures. Cigna Feb 2021-Jan 2023

Release Train Engineer

• Worked with the Enteprise PMO to launch the Agile Transformation and Scaling initiatives within the two largest business units

• Led cross-functional leadership teams to align capabilities (i.e. portfolio management, budgeting and governance processes) leveraging SAFe’s principles to recommend a framework for fostering a culture and mindset change in organizations

• • Directed Worked with a team the of entire 8 other IT Operations Scrum Master and in Infrastructure assisting with organization the overseeing across the 2 team AVPs, and 6 Sr program Directors growth and a team journeys of 1500+ staff + contractors to layout the agility roadmap

• Worked with the Data group in building out a cloud datawarehouse for the enterprise using modern toolsets such as Snowflake; Apache suite and microservices

• Created Portfolio Agility models to mimic the Life-cycle on JIRA Align

• Taught the teams usage of Agile tools such as Mural, Miro, AgilityHealth Radar and AzureDevOps, including conducting quarterly surveys with AHR

• Worked with Product Managers in coaching on rapid Product Prototyping, Value streams, Roadmap Creation, Prioritization techniques, MVP identification and OKRs

• Launching the Team and Program level coaching and personaly coached and mentored 4 ARTs, 1 Solution Train and 40 Teams through the Agile journey

• Launched 4 ARTs comprising of up to 28 teams, comprising of both Agile and Waterfall methodologies and lead them through 3 successful PI cycles, including executive reporting set up on VersionOne Ultimate

• Created a Solution Train, with extensive coaching to STE and Solution Manager, and help set up the operating model, of 7 ARTs underneath comprising of 108 teams, and conducted distributed PI Planning, as well as planning of the Architectural Runway

• Spanned across 15 ARTs, 2 Solution Trains across the 2 CIOs and 800+ individuals Northern Trust FInancial Feb 2019 – Aug 2021

Sr Agile Coach

• Partnered with Segment CTOs on defining the Agile transformation strategy and roadmap through Business Agility and OKR principles..

• Drove the change management activities for adopting the agile mindset, ensuring execution aligns with strategy and delivery execution easily adapts to changing customer, market and regulatory needs.

• Led the Design Think and Business Agility workshops to re-envision the Bank’s functional Capabilities and time-to- market for new product prototypes, through an effective Spotofy approach

• Set up the Working Agreements for the Chapters and Guilds across several Tribes to drive mastery, pair new members with mentors, help with functional/ technical challenges, and fuel continuous improvement which allowed the organization to benefit from improved quality and cooperation across domains.

• Establish the cadence of working between the Tribe and Squads underneath a Tribe, including sharing a Squads across multiple Tribes.

• Designed, implemented, and led integrated operating models providing the structure and necessary governance for enabling IT & Business working together as one team to optimize delivery of superior client experience.

• Worked with Non-Agile participants such as Audit, Infosec, Risk and Finance to ensure the operating model incorporates interconnects with such groups

• Enabled Jira Align Adoption for a $50+ Million strategic transformation program involving 27 Squads and 6 Programs As a Transformation Leader helped 20% - 30% Productivity improvement by adopting scaling practices

• Product thought leadership - Atlassian Community leader helped to scale JIRA Align product by identifying the defects, new features required and usability of the product.

• Integrated Atlassian products - JIRA Cloud and JIRA Align to achieve seamless execution and visibility from team level to Enterprise level, enabling visual and Realtime Program Measures

• Configured the Developmental Value Stream Workflow Process Steps, Screen configurations, Field Configuration for 15 stream aligned teams in JIRA

• As Scum Master for the Agile CoE, developed program governance playbook, performance reporting KPIs, and Agile best practices while driving process and tools improvement to support increasing maturity levels of business agility.

• Facilitated enterprise’s Scrum Master and PO Community of Practice to drive mastery, pair new members with mentors, help with functional/ technical challenges, and fuel continuous improvement which allowed the organization to benefit from improved quality and cooperation across domains. FedEx – North America Jun 2018 – Feb 2019

Release Train Engineer

• Brought on board as an Agile Evangelist/ Coach/ RTE to help integrate the Lean Portfolio of one of the operating companies, as part of modernization and replacement of the core Warehouse & Order Management Systems

• Worked extensively with the Business/ Sales/ Operations and Product Management teams to put in place a Capability Model, with Core and Flexible components, that could be shared across the different operating companies, and created a Portfolio level Kanban to launch the Solution Trains and Agile Release Trains. Launched Lean Agile CoE (LACE), along with its operating charter and meeting cadences to help support the Agile Transformation.

• Created a Ways of Working/ Operating Charter for the Agile working for the Business & IT Teams, along with detailed Role creations, descriptions, established boundary lines and gated process flow with clear deliverables at each gate

• Worked on coaching Program Coaching – over 50 Teams, across the 7 ARTs on both Business and IT, in Agile ways of working, incorporating SaFe principles

• Advocated JIRA Align and Cloud JIRA data hierarchies for Issue Types, so Portfolio Planning and Agile Budgeting activities for the ARTs could be synchronized

• Defined the metrics at a Team and Program level and how to configure, measure and report them from the Backlog Management tool. Successfully conducted the PI Planning for the Operating Company

• Bootstrapped a Lean Incubator within with the organization, with Lean Portfolio Principles and creating a Lean Kanban along with 3 full-stack developer squads, with ScrumBan techniques for rapid prototyping of Supply Chain bots and ideas

US Bank – Multiple locations Mar 2017 – Jun 2018

Sr RTE

• Brought on board as an Agile Evangelist/ Coach/ RTE to help integrate the Lean Portfolio of one of the operating companies, as part of modernization and replacement of the core Warehouse & Order Management Systems

• Worked extensively with the Business/ Sales/ Operations and Product Management teams to put in place a Capability Model, with Core and Flexible components, that could be shared across the different operating companies, and created a Portfolio level Kanban to launch the Solution Trains and Agile Release Trains. Launched Lean Agile CoE (LACE), along with its operating charter and meeting cadences to help support the Agile Transformation.

• Created a Ways of Working/ Operating Charter for the Agile working for the Business & IT Teams, along with detailed Role creations, descriptions, established boundary lines and gated process flow with clear deliverables at each gate

• Worked on coaching Program Coaching- Over 50 teams across the 7 ARTs on both Business and IT in Agile ways of working, incorporating SaFe principles

• Launched 4 ARTs comprising of up to 28 teams, comprising of both Agile and Waterfall methodologies and lead them through 3 successful PI cycles

GENCO, A FedEx Company - Lewisville, TX Sept 2015 – Feb 2017 Scrum Master

• Worked with the Supply Chain Transformation Program, which was a $100M+ engagement envisioning the revamp of the Reverse Logistics and Revenue leakage value streams within the carrier

• Worked as a Product Owner for the SAP ECC Integration modernization Program, which included building a modern platform data lake, with a S4/HANA backend SAP infrastructure and store business logic for front end systems

• Consulted on the architecture best practices and evaluated product sets for Data Ingestion, Streaming and Persisted Storage layers for a Data Aggregation/ Data Lake concept, that would effectively reduce transaction hops into legacy

• Created Product recommendation for Data Fabric, Data Ingestion and Data Storage mechanisms. Worked with the team of architects to create an event mapping and workflow mechanism to retire existing SAP infrastructure purely as a System of Record

• Created interface framework, RACI, outcomes and milestones for IT Product Owners and Business Product Owners to interact along with McKinsey

• Refined the Mixed Mode Program model, for collaboration between Agile and Waterfall programs

• Coached teams on concepts of Story Writing, customizing fields within CA Rally, points estimation, MVP determination and Backlog refinement. Kick-started 8 teams of Business and IT stakeholders.

• Contributed to creating Journey Maps, based on internal created Value Stream BNSF Railway –– North America Aug 2013 – Aug 2015

Agile Coach

• Customized the SaFe framework for a $300M Mainframe modernization initiative at the client, with a 14-step framework from Portfolio in-takes down to Release and IT Operations, which included activities, role-based responsibilities, deliverables and exit criteria. Worked with senior leadership (VP, SVP, C-level) to garner support and enthusiasm for Agile methodology.

• Created specific Agile metrics to determine optimum backlog definition, refinement at a Portfolio level and developer productivity at a Feature team level.

• Led 3 Program Increment ceremonies including oversight of Content preparation, Team Boards, Executive messaging and Critical Success factors for the ceremony. Participants included over 25 Feature teams, Client executives and Contractor staff

• Created an E2E Delivery Strategy aligned with Scaled Agile (SaFe) principles with the entire requirement to production cycle happening over a quarterly, 2-week Sprint cycle – scaling across 50 teams in 4 different towers

• Led the entire Continuous Build Pipeline (CBP) build-out based on Jenkins, Jacoco, Artifactory and Chef

• Put in place the governance and value-measurement mechanisms utilizing a Value-Stream approach of decomposing the different tracks. Peak team size of 130+

Unisys Corporation Aug 2011 – Aug 2013

Director – Consulting & Program Management

SunGard Financial Systems Mar 2009 – Aug 2011

Director- Solutions, Banking & Financial Services

Microsoft Corporation Jan 2008 – Mar 2009

Industry Manager – Partner Management

Multiple Jan 2005 – Jan 2008

Principal Consultant – Global Consulting Group

CHTM Aug 2001 – Dec 2004

Research Engineer – Client Advisory Group

Education .

• Masters of Science – Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, USA

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