Sheila Olds

Sheila Olds is an Agile Coach and Trainer based in Charlotte, North Carolina at Solutions IQ. I have worked with many teams in banking, pharmaceuticals, and shipping to assist them in making their workplace better by applying agile principles. PRODUCT OWNER and AGILE BA My first role in Agile was as a Product Owner at a large financial institution. I worked closely with the stakeholders to understand their needs and turned those needs into Features and Stories for our delivery team(s) to turn into a reality. This is where I learned how to write effective user stories and to work closely with delivery teams to deliver a successful product to our end users. As new teams and product owners came into the program, I worked with them to come up to speed on what Agile means and how to manage the work. Working closely with dev and QA teams, I facilitated backlog refinement sessions to make sure that the teams had a robust backlog with and the stories were written and understood in the priority order. SCRUM MASTER AND COACH Moved onto a role at delivery company on a team as a Scrum Master and Coach. The team was having some communication challenges and I worked closely with them to get back to some basics and remember that anyone can write a user story (we don’t have to wait for refinement), retrospectives were impactful, and planning sessions were meaningful. By the time I moved to a new team, this one had learned to keep all of their work visible and to work together successfully to deliver a valuable product. After that team, I moved on to coach teams in Pharmaceuticals and Financial Institutions. Continuing to work with the teams to understand the value of keeping their work visible, working in small work items, communicating with each other, being honest and trusting in retrospectives, and keeping continuing to inspect and adapt to the Agile Manifesto and Principals. AGILE TRAINER: I have facilitated Agile Boot Camp and Product Owner essentials to multiple teams. Each time I will try to experiment with something new in order to better demonstrate Agile Principles. I have started using a Task Board and Burn Down chart to show the progress towards the goal. I collaborated with a few other coaches to design some exercises in the classes as well to help participants understand the terms. Most of the classes I have facilitated have had a pre defined agenda. Many companies wanted to make sure that all of their teammates heard the same message. I have facilitated story writing workshops with teams who have asked for more in depth assistance with story refinement. SOUTHERN FRIED AGILE Southern Fried Agile is an Agile Conference Held in Charlotte, North Carolina. Last year, we had over 800 participants. I have volunteered with the speakers to arrange the agenda and make sure they have everything they need (one microphone, two microphones, easel paper, etc). This was a great experience and I look forward to doing it again this year!