Chiekwugo Nwachukwu

Experienced Agile Coach seasoned through leading organizations as a change agent, coach, scrum master with a focus on data-driven metrics. Blending Agile Delivery Frameworks, Design Thinking, SAFe certifications with real full business stack experience enables a unique vision and coaching style to enable high-performing organizations. Focusing on enabling organizations to lead from the top, define value and empower programs/teams to take ownership to deliver. Extremely comfortable working with organizations to define high-value programs and execute them across multiple teams. Experience working with non-traditional functional teams such as remote and component teams to deliver real business value as a program.

Senior Scrum Master/Agile Coach   07/2022 to date 
Allstate Insurance Company – Canada
• Facilitating organizational transformation into Scaled Agile environment.
• Influencing the software development teams, middle management and senior leadership to transform to Scaled Agile.
• Leading the development of the Community of Practice in coaching excellence, including mentoring other coaches, and fostering a servant leadership culture in scaled Agile across the enterprise.
• Interview, coach, mentor Scrum masters, product owners, and senior leadership, providing trainings on organizational strategies, business agility, scaled agile framework, and change management.
• Leveraging Agile to lead technological advancements, reducing waste and business bottlenecks, while increasing product output exponentially.

Agile Coach   06/2017 to 06/2022
Stanbic IBTC Bank- Nigeria
•  Working among a team of highly skilled Agile experts transforming a banking client to an industry- first large scale implementation of Scrum within a financial institution using SAFe.
•  Led the Agile Readiness Assessments & Maturity assessments in the organizations to assess the current   state of agility and come up with recommendations for areas of improvement.
(Proposed Continuous Integration (CI) Solutions, Standardized use of Agile tools, Scrum of Scrum)
•  Conducted agile chartering workshops for project teams and relevant stakeholders in which attendees received relevant agile training to kick-off their projects.
•  Instrumental in effective team building by coaching on the art of writing user stories, release planning using team’s velocity, planning & sizing techniques.

Scrum Master         07/2014 to 05/2017
A.C Harmony Nigeria
• Introduced agile best practices such as continuous integration, code or design reviews, rally tracking, product visioning, transparency with stakeholders, and self-management resulting in realized velocity improvement.
• Coached teams on realistic capacity planning for team predictability and collaborating with product owners and teams to deliver each sprint on time with about 90% decline in defect rates.
• Worked collaboratively with Product owners to groom and prioritize product backlogs after the product manager and stakeholders have defined the requirements and scope of the products to be built.
• Simplified the estimation process and reduced estimation time by 50% providing the team timelines based on established team velocity and capacity for more efficiency in the sprint planning meeting.

Project Assistant           06/2012 to 05/2014
A.C Harmony Nigeria
• Planned and led implementation of multiple bank-wide projects.
• Planned and supported in the implementation of programme of works covering migration to the bank’s first digital filing system.
 

Education 
MSc, IT Project Management (Distinction): Teesside University, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom
PG Diploma, Business Management (Upper Credit): Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, Nigeria
BTech – Information Management Technology: Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria
Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
SAFe Scrum Master (SSM)
Certified Professional in Agile Coach Certified Professional in Agile Coach (ICP-ACC)