
Anna Zakoyan
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Anna is an agile coach, senior scrum master, trainer, and consultant with 16 years of experience in project and team management. She has helped 50+ companies transform how teams collaborate and how work gets done. These include SGS Digicomply, Krisp, Ucraft, HSBC, Ameriabank, and Joomag. Anna's extensive industry experience is backed by CSP-SM, CAL-1, CSM, A-CSM, and PSM certifications and a master's degree in international relations. She loves collaborating and cultivating an Agile mindset.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Agile Coach
ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank
- Joined as an external Agile coach to help accelerate their digital transformation in regard to how people communicate and how the work gets done.
- Defined clear value streams and formed cross-functional teams across defined value streams. Introduced new roles to support agility and transformed traditional team lead roles into tech leads, system architects, etc.
- Established clear team goals and ways to measure them. I defined the metrics we would like to collect to measure team performance. We set up transparent and effective work processes, providing a healthy amount of autonomy.
Independent Agile Coach and Consultant, Transformation | Founder
PrimeProjekt
- Worked with 40+ companies to integrate Agile and Scrum, consult on best practices, improve team collaboration, and transform processes and product development flows.
- Coached and helped 100+ teams to move up the Agile ladder.
- Trained and mentored 3,000+ individuals in Agile essentials and proficiency, scrum master and product owner roles, and preparation for PSM1 courses.
Agile Transformation Coach
Ucraft
- Coached, trained, and mentored scrum masters in their growth paths and daily activities.
- Coached, trained, and mentored product owners and product teams to reach product goals on three different products.
- Coached executives and leadership teams to adopt an Agile mindset and business agility model.
- Mentored development teams in their Scrum frameworks.
- Collaborated with the HR team on setting OKRs and conducting performance evaluations.
- Ran scrum of scrums and organizational-level retrospectives and facilitated milestone discussions.
- Advised on best practices for Jira setups, add-ons, and other collaboration tools.
Agile Project Management and Scrum Master Courses Trainer
Business Development Group
- Ran 50+ Agile Project Management Essentials courses with a 97% trainee satisfaction rate and 70% of attendees finding appropriate jobs or being promoted after attending.
- Ran 40+ Preparation for PSM1 courses with a 95% trainee satisfaction rate.
- Provided complimentary consulting and mentoring for the most enthusiastic trainees in their Agile journey.
Agile Coach and Armenia Team Manager
C-Labs Digicomply
- Implemented the Scrum framework for a distributed and multinational Dow 30 company.
- Set up all workflows, working agreements, best practices, and project management and collaboration tools to help teams increase their effectiveness and performance.
- Applied many Lean principles and metrics in the product development area to create transparent continuous delivery on that level.
- Formed feature-based teams, each with a dedicated scrum master whom I assigned and coached.
- Hired QA specialists, increased product quality, and filled gaps: optimized the workflows and collaboration with developers; defined what done means from a QA perspective; and how to deal with stories, defects, changes, and improvements.
- Managed the Armenia team, consisting of six QAs, two scrum masters, one product owner, and three developers.
Senior Scrum Master
Joomag, Inc.
- Served as a senior scrum master for multiple teams: three product development, HR, marketing, and customer success. Developers were already using Scrum, but they were still in the storming phase. I led them to the performing phase.
- Collaborated with senior executives and product leadership to define product goals, roadmaps, project plans, and growth plans.
- Coached, trained, and mentored everyone within the organization on Agile adoption and continuous improvement.
- Created, from scratch, business processes for each type of product request across multiple teams and projects.
- Created project management tools, such as documentation templates, wiki spaces, collaboration environments, and workflows, and acted as the Jira and Confluence administrator.
- Facilitated all team and company-level events related to Agile and Scrum.
Agile Project Manager | Scrum Master
Fiuze, Inc.
- Managed dailysale.com, a Magento-based eCommerce store with 100,000+ users.
- Integrated the Scrum framework within the development team and acted as a scrum master for them.
- Acted as an intermediary between the client and the development team, making sure that all deliverables were valuable, transparent, usable, and as agreed.
- Set up workflow processes, iterations, and all the necessary project management and collaboration environments.
- Managed the full product lifecycle, workflow processes, organization, and team efficiency improvements. Analyzed performance and calculated budgets.
Agile Project Manager
Myraid Advertising
- Managed successful launches of the following .com products: totalgarciniadiscount, buytotalgarcinia, gettotolgarciniacambogia, gettotalslims, and getx-lean.
- Developed business strategies, project plans, and budget calculations.
- Integrated Agile principles into the team's daily workflow, increased team capacity with freelancers as needed, and monitored team performance and goal achievements.
Agile/Scrum Consultant | Process Coach
SocialObjects
- Introduced and integrated Scrum and Kanban frameworks in the company.
- Led web and mobile projects as a scrum master and scrum consultant; collaborated with product owners, the CEO, and customers; and assisted in hiring product owners and a scrum master to replace me.
- Managed teams, including education and recruitment; settled correct workflows and work culture; and organized training sessions and presentations.
Scrum Master | Project Manager
Plexonic
- Organized and managed all the gaming projects, including our own and those we did for partners, using Lean thinking and Scrum.
- Took care of team inner discipline, morale, performance, and relationships.
- Established the company's HR management and people operations.
- Managed the company's international relations with acting partners, possible partners, and simply market players.
- Created business plans and presentations and conducted research for pitches to possible investors and partners.
Customer Care Manager | Project Manager
Armenian Datacom Company
- Organized and managed operations of the two divisions of the customer care center—B2B and B2C.
- Created and implemented projects related to the CRM system, commercial policies and procedures regarding selling methods, resolving problems, and ensuring the maintenance of good company relations with customers.
- Recruited and organized training sessions for customer care specialists.
Telesales Team Lead, Key Accounts Department
Beeline
- Progressed from being the assistant to the key accounts department head to a telesales specialist and then received a promotion to a team lead role.
- Managed the group of telesales specialists working with new and potential clients. Trained and mentored them on customer support best approaches, customer collaboration and negotiation skills, and conflict resolution.
- Managed and delivered different projects within the division based on PMP standards related to internal tools, procedures, and customer requests.
Project History
Agile Transformation for Ucraft.com
http://www.ucraft.comTeams are confident and in the performing stage, roles and goals are clear and aligned, sprint goal completion improved from 30% to 95%, there's a powerful leadership team, key objectives are set, and there's constant learning and growth.
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.
Agile Adoption in C-labs Digicomply
http://www.digicomply.comLed and cultivated a high sense of responsibility, ownership, and desire to go the extra mile; completion of sprint goals; collaborative backlog management; full knowledge of Agile, Scrum, and Lean; and a solid automation framework.
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 whom I assigned and coached.
Later, we integrated a QA team to fill the gaps in these areas: optimized the workflows and collaboration 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.
Agile Adoption in BREAK.Media Solutions GmbH
https://www.break-media.com/dePartnered with BREAK since 2017 to implement the Scrum framework, including roles, events, artifacts, and appropriate tools. The team's dysfunctions were eliminated through observation, coaching, mentoring, and consulting on a day-to-day basis.
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.
Agile Workshops for Ameriabank
https://ameriabank.am/en/Played a pivotal role as a consultant and trainer in the early stages of a digital transformation process. Designed and delivered workshops on Agile mindset, product ownership, and Agile roles.
As a first step, I delivered a series of workshops for 300+ people, focusing on what Agile is and the Agile mindset, roles, and product ownership.
To be continued...
Education
Certification in Business Administration
Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien - Vienna, Austria
Master's Degree in International Relations
Yerevan State University - Yerevan, Armenia
Progress Toward Degree in International Relations
Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski - Sofia, Bulgaria
Certifications
Agile Leadership by Arie Van Bennekum (Co-creator of Agile Manifesto)
https://www.creo.am/
Agile Masterclass by Arie Van Bennekum (Co-creator of Agile Manifesto)
https://www.creo.am/
Certified Scrum Professional (CSP)
Scrum Alliance
Certified Agile Leadership I (CAL I)
Scrum Alliance
Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM)
Scrum Alliance
Professional Scrum Master Level I (PSM I)
Scrum.org
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
Scrum Alliance