Anna Zakoyan

• Client’s BI Team (42+ members) relied on Waterfall processes with ad-hoc requests coming via email or direct stakeholder contact.

• Lack of structured prioritization and workflow management led to inefficient delivery and frequent context switching.

• Difficulty in coordinating team efforts and tracking progress across multiple BI teams.

• Goal: Transition to Agile/Scrum to improve efficiency, visibility, and alignment with business priorities.

• Led Agile adoption across 12 BI teams, introducing Scrum/Kanban, standardized ceremonies, and Jira for centralized planning and reporting.

• Scope change reduced from 80% to 25%, increasing delivery predictability and alignment with business goals.

• Scaled Jira adoption for backlog, sprint tracking, dashboards, and reporting, cross-team collaboration, enabling full visibility for leadership and teams.

• Strengthened prioritization and capacity planning, reducing context switching and balancing workloads.

• Introduced Product Ownership role and SEBP involvement, improving stakeholder alignment and backlog clarity.

• Embedded retrospectives and created an Agile knowledge base, building a continuous improvement culture.

• Delivery predictability significantly increased due to reduced scope changes (80% → 25%).

• Cross-team visibility enhanced through Jira dashboards, enabling leadership and teams to track progress effectively.

• Stakeholder alignment improved via product ownership and SEBP involvement.

• Team efficiency increased by reducing context switching and balancing workloads.

• Continuous improvement culture established, embedding retrospectives and Agile knowledge sharing.

After conducting a core analysis of the status quo through assessments and coaching sessions at the team and management levels, I identified the team’s five dysfunctions, lack of Agile knowledge, and lack of consistency.

Based on these findings, I led the creation of an impediments and improvement plan, an Agile leadership team was formed, and actions were assigned. Agile knowledge increased through a series of Agile training sessions and workshops.

The practical Scrum framework was established from scratch. By working closely with scrum masters, product owners, and the development team and using different models to work with change and human social experience, I switched their focus from mechanical Scrum to core Agile and Scrum values.

Simultaneously, I conducted coaching sessions with the Agile leadership team and senior management to unleash their potential, understand business agility, see the context, and step on a true leadership road.

Product roadmaps and milestones were clearly defined, and the team learned to focus on a value-driven approach. Architecture, QA automation, XP practices, and documentation became some of the key objectives for the teams. OKRs and performance review systems were established.

We started with implementing a Scrum framework for fully remote team collaboration and product development. As the work progressed and the development teams started norming and understanding the core values and principles, many Lean principles were also applied to product development to create transparent, continuous delivery on that level.

Teams began to focus throughout the day on cycle time, work capacity, work predictability, team ownership of the product and goals, dealing with dependencies and priorities, accomplishments, and growth. Feature-based teams were formed, each with a dedicated scrum master who I assigned and coached.

Later, we integrated a QA team to fill the gaps in these areas. The team optimized the workflows, collaborated with developers, defined what done meant from a QA perspective, and determined what tools to use and how to deal with stories, defects, changes, and improvements. A whole automation framework was written using Selenium to focus on automated tests.

BREAK Media is a loyal client, and I have been happy to work with them for so many years.

After a year of work, the company saw these results:
• 25% progress in the speed of delivery by working with dependencies and changing priorities.
• 70% project visibility and transparency.
• 90% in Agile and Scrum knowledge, values, and practices.

WORK DONE
• Collaborated with the IT department to align with business goals by reviewing value streams, involving business unit owners in strategic alignment, establishing PI cycles, and restructuring teams into product, platform, and service units with designated leaders and architects. Engaged with the HR team to define performance metrics and devise a performance management strategy.
• Partnered with product owners, scrum masters, tech leads, and teams to establish team foundations, implement suitable frameworks (Scrum and Kanban), and streamline delivery and product roadmap/backlog initiatives.