Biography
Rosemary Ikharo is a Project Delivery Professional with over 10 years of project management and software delivery experience; the last 4 years has been in Agile Scrum, Kanban and Lean Methodologies. Her career began as a Business Analyst leading teams in assessing projects, documenting current state processes, identifying opportunities for improvements and documenting future state requirements largely in Healthcare, Insurance and Government sectors. By the year 2000, Rosemary’s career progressed from handing off project requirements to full management of technical teams in the development and implementation of future state solutions.
The first exposure to Agile came in 2010 under the mentorship of two champions, P. Walker and L. Sabarsky, in Agile Adoption and Transformation at BlueCross and Blue Shield of NC. In 2011, Rosemary transitioned a geographically distributed waterfall team (US and India) into the first Agile Scrum Team for the Solutions Value Stream located in BCBSNC’s Enterprise Data Warehouse. She successfully managed 21 departmental and enhancement projects end to end.
In 2011, Rosemary also became a Lean Practitioner and led three lean projects uncovering over $600,000 of waste in resources and future costs savings
In 2012, Rosemary initiated two Kanban teams consisting of 4 scrum masters and 8 business analysts. These teams managed PMO intake and coordinated the delivery for all Information Management and Analytical Services Projects in the Enterprise Data Warehouse.
Presently, Rosemary is engaged as a Senior Consultant for CSpring Inc. Since 2014, she has been working at the Raleigh NC client site, where she coached 4 Scrum Teams distributed among multiple states in US, France and Egypt. These teams value delivery involve Data Migration, Java Application Development and Process Management.
Rosemary’s ambition is to continue coaching Agile Scrum teams, help organizations with Agile transformations and become a subject matter expert in Lean Six Sigma.
Work experience
CSpring, Senior Consultant, Scrum Master
July 2014 - Present, Morrisville, NC, United States
Contract: Syngenta, RTP, NC
Material Identity and Inventory Tracking (MINT) Project
• • Managed 4 Scrum Teams distributed among multiple states in US, France, and Cairo Egypt.
o Data Migration and Integration Services Team - skilled in ETL and Database Analysis
o 2 Java application development teams
o Team of Business Process and Change Management Professionals responsible evaluating conformance to Global Standard Processing and workflows to identify gaps in workflow processes, solutions and infrastructure to accommodate product adoption.
• Ensure the Scrum teams are practicing the core agile principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability, and visibility
• Resident coach agile tracking systems, VersionOne - standardized its utilization for backlog, sprint and release management.
• Track and communicate team velocity and sprint/release progress
• Produced and Maintained Wall Visuals showing Sprint Goals, Product Road Maps and Team Metrics for transparency and visual queues
• Developed Agile Playbook to define the standard ways of working Scrum in the MINT Program - playbook defined each scrum ceremony, milestones for code freeze and demos, best practices for collaboration such as peer reviews, code merges and defect management.
• Created multiple metric tools for radiating information to team and strategically communicated metrics to ensure team could self-adjust in time.
• Lean Process Change Agent
Blue Cross Blue Shield NC, Enterprise Data Warehouse Scrum Master, Lead Data Analyst, Lean Practitioner
September 2006 - January 2014, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
Enterprise Data Warehouse Scrum Master, Lead Data Analyst, Lean Practitioner, Agile Project Manager, Program Manager, Portfolio Manager.
Information Management and Analytic Services Department
Received BCBSNC CEO Award Recipient for Outstanding Employee Performance.
• Functioned in role of Lean Practitioner, Agile Project Manager, Program Manager, Portfolio Manager.
• Successfully managed 21 departmental and enhancement projects end-to-end with collated and distributed teams (including near and off shore resources).
• Transitioned a distributed waterfall team (US and India) into the first Agile Scrum Team for Solutions Value Stream. As Scrum Master coached team in successful delivery of 13 enterprise projects within first 10 months. Maximized team productivity to match volume delivery of 4 waterfall teams. Improved quality and stakeholder satisfaction.
• Introduced and Facilitated Kanban to manage intake and coordinated delivery for all Information Management and Analytical Services Projects
• Ran 2 Kanban teams one with 4 scrum masters and one with 8 business analysts to coordinate department wide scope intake and project delivery.
• Designed and installed visual workspace showcasing all active enterprise projects (Agile and Waterfall) which added transparency in project workflow, cross team impacts, resource workload and business value.
• Collaborated with other team members from other departments to align project deliverables and provide direction for IMAS resource engagement on Enterprise Initiatives.
• Templated business interaction models and impact assessment diagrams for sharing knowledge on project scope and expedite discussions requiring architectural decisions.
• Program Manager for Analytics Services during Corporate Data Warehouse Retirement Project
• Designed and Facilitated Release Planning sessions including 6 scrum and 3 waterfall teams
• Lean Practitioner for 3 Requirements Workflow Improvement Projects – team delivered 56% reduction in BA process steps (59 to 26), 69% • Reduction in BA artifacts (13 to 4), 79% Reduction in Cycle Times (781 to 162 hrs), 88% Reduction in Requirement Phase Lead Time (172 to 21 days). Traceability artifacts spanning across all roles and phases had 83% artifact reduction from 126 to 22 resulting in 85% reduction in traceability cycle times from 40 to 6 hrs.