Freelance Scrum Master & Agile Coach

Worked as a Freelance Scrum Master & Agile Coach for Telefónica Germany GmbH & Co. OHG in the Telecommunications sector.

Key engagement details:

• Role: Transformation Program Management & Scrum Master.
• Objective: Supporting the RAITT large scale transformation as an agile expert in the mass market program management team (an internationally distributed 1000+ person digital transformation program).
• Acted as scrum master and facilitator for a new portfolio management team.
• Facilitated team kickoff, regular team events, workshops, and retrospectives.
• Coached the team in establishing and continuously improving their roles and working mode.
• Set up and supported the process framework, requirement artifacts, and dashboards in Jira.
• Collaborated closely with the way of working team, tribe leads, product owners, and other roles to support the delivery of program goals by optimizing cross-team coordination and scaled agile processes based on SAFe (e.g. PI planning).
• Supported the management and resolution of dependencies, risks, and impediments.
• Trained and enabled program members to leverage Jira and Confluence capabilities (Scrum Masters, Product Owners, program management, testers, ...).
• Provided program-wide transparency via Jira-based metrics and automated dashboards (Jira structure and eazyBI).

Key responsibilities and projects included:

As Scrum Master (2016-2021):

• Engaged in multiple application development projects, product internationalization/market expansion, agile transformation and scaling, tooling, and architecture/tech stack migration.
• Coached multiple software delivery teams (distributed, English speaking) as Scrum Master to become self-managing, cross-functional DevOps teams.
• Coached scrum framework and agile mindset.
• Facilitated scrum events.
• Managed impediments and dependencies.
• Helped establish team vision and focus.
• Supported transition to DevOps and new tech stack.
• Coached Product Owners in areas such as backlog management, story mapping, impact mapping, and vision boards.
• Introduced and continuously improved agile practices, e.g.: feedback workshops, team self-selection, team health checks, open spaces, tribe level retrospectives, OKRs.
• Supported and facilitated the agile community of practice / scrum master guild.
• Facilitated and optimized portfolio planning processes on tribe level, e.g.: planning & review workshops, Jira portfolio setup.
• Supported the kick-off and operation of a SAFe release train.
• Facilitated workshops for training, setup of new teams, and PI planning.
• Coached a scrum team within the release train as a certified SAFe Scrum Master.
• Supported the reorganisation and kick-off of the scaled organization, utilizing a custom scaled model with elements of SAFe and Spotify tribes.
• Taught and supported the use of Jira & Confluence, including workflows, boards, and automation.
• Supported and facilitated the initial transformation to agile teams.
• Facilitated workshops to reorganise and kick-off new teams.
• Conducted agile/scrum training sessions.

As Project Manager & Kanban SDM (2014-2016):

• Managed multiple internal IT projects using classic PMI methodology, with topics including product development, internationalization, security, and change management.
• Drove the agile transformation as a change agent and member of agile transformation task groups.
• Became certified as a Scrum Master and transitioned initial projects to the scrum framework.
• Co-founded the Scrum Master community of practice.
• Coordinated and optimized a multi-kanban system for seven operations teams.
• Identified bottlenecks and removed impediments.
• Tracked and visualized metrics.
• Facilitated retrospectives.
• Adapted processes to improve flow and lead time.
• Interfaced with business and development teams.