Ashesh Desai
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Burlington, ON, Canada
Toptal member since May 11, 2020
Ashesh is a results-driven agile project manager with 20+ years of experience leading $200,000-3 million budget projects for startups and large enterprises. He is highly competent in successfully engaging with senior management and agile teams to deliver bottom-line results. Ashesh has a strong management consulting acumen to critically evaluate and collaboratively resolve complex problems.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Project Management
- Design Thinking
- Discovery Workshops
- Kanban
- Management Consulting
- Process Improvement Project Management
- Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
- Scrum Master
Work Experience
Agile Program Manager
Bank of Montreal (BMO)
- Facilitated the breakdown of the ambiguous program goal into smaller pieces through the application of customer journeys and design sprints to identify key problems to be solved for the customer and internal teams.
- Coached and trained the agile practices of scrum and kanban to management, product owners, scrum masters, and teams.
- Designed a central Agile Academy for the continuous development of business leaders, product owners, and scrum masters.
- Set up through Jira and Confluence multiple scrum and kanban project instances, including configuring boards and providing ongoing project administration support.
- Facilitated "big room planning" with multiple scrum, and technology platform teams to plan and align across multiple integrated releases.
- Drafted the initial portfolio roadmap and high-level epics with business goals and associated measures/key results.
- Partnered with UI/UX team to develop wireframes to show what the customer experience could be.
- Facilitated workshops to finalize the initial minimal viable product (MVP) aligned to epics on the portfolio.
- Prepared the agile teams through training/coaching of scrum masters, product owners, and teams on agile mindset, scrum/Kanban, agile events, metrics, user stories writing / estimation, estimations, and user story mapping.
- Mentored product management and product owners on drafting epics/features and user stories.
Agile Program Delivery Manager
AG Data (Agricultural Data)
- Led a large scale transformation of 100+ client processes to an agile delivery model, incorporating marketing, sales, and product development.
- Conducted a systems thinking approach to introduce the kanban system across development and support teams, including training, process design, and metrics.
- Trained and mentioned development teams and product owners on user story development, estimation, scrum ceremonies, and story mapping.
Agile Program Manager
Lone Wolf Technologies
- Transformed waterfall practices followed by product management and software development teams to a scrum interactive delivery process.
- Trained and coached product owners/business analysts on developing user stories using INVEST principles with proper acceptance criteria and non-functional requirements.
- Scaled multiple mobile and platform scrum teams to a program layer through the application of hybrid agile practices (combination SAFe/Nexus).
Project History
Digitization of Home Buying Transformation for a Top Ten Bank
Rapid design using concepts from design sprints, customer journey, story mapping, big room planning, and scrum delivery in under ten weeks.
Transformation from Traditional Processes to Agile for Large Agriculture Integrator
Reduced operating costs and improved quality of output through the introduction of agile kanban practices, which created transparency across the marketing, sales, and development areas.
Improvements to Real Estate Product Development and Release Processes for Tech Firm
Improved the overall quality of the software engineering and release processes.
Education
Master of Business Administration Degree in Business Transformation
University of Reading (Henley Business School) - United Kingdom
Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Sciences and Mathematics
University of Witwatersrand - South Africa
Certifications
AWS Cloud Practitioner
Amazon
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Kanban Certified Professional (KCP)
Kanban University
Certified Program Consultant (SAFe)
Scaled Agile Framework
Skills
Tools
Microsoft PowerPoint, Jira, Microsoft Excel, Slack, ARIS Cloud, Confluence, Balsamiq
Paradigms
Agile Leadership, Agile Delivery, Agile Workflow, Scrum, Waterfall Delivery, Agile, Agile Project Management, Change Management, Requirements Analysis, Lean, Release Trains, Agile Product Management, Design Thinking, Kanban, Test-driven Development (TDD)
Platforms
Windows
Industry Expertise
Agribusiness, Financial Services, Banking & Finance
Other
Process Improvement, Process Improvement Project Management, Design Sprints, Discovery Workshops, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Stakeholder Interviews, Customer Interviews, Agile Sprints, Agile Coaching, Metrics, Scrum Coaching, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), SAFe 4 Advanced Scrum Master, Agile Scaling Frameworks, Team Mentoring, Mentorship, Mentorship & Coaching, Sprints, Sprint Ceremonies, Sprint Planning, Retrospective Techniques, Agile Transformation, Training Content, Certified Trainer, Training Materials, Leadership Training, Soft Skill Training, Training, Training Workshops, Project Consultancy, Project Consultation, Client Management, Client Delivery Management, Engagement Strategy, Customer Engagement, Stakeholder Analysis, Stakeholder Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Workshops, User Interviews, Customer Journeys, Customer Analysis, Remote Team Leadership, Remote Work, Remote Work Consulting, Online Banking, Wealth Management, Core Banking Systems, Fintech, Agile Product Delivery, Mobile Banking, Waterfall Methodology, Project Management, Client Presentations, Presentation Development, Presentations, Communication, Training & Training Content Development, Complex Problem Solving, Management Consulting, Scrum Master, Agile Program Management, Program Management, Project Delivery, Business Process Optimization, Digital Project Management, Digital Transformation, Stakeholder Mapping, Delivery Management, Detail-oriented, IT Projects, Project Tracking, Business Transformation Program Management, Advisory, Business Advisory, Process Flows, Technical Program Management, Project Planning, Project Timelines, Microsoft 365, Lean Startups, Surveys, Scrum Testing, Vendor Management, Growth Strategy, Test Planning, Technical Product Management, Mobile Apps, Engineering, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Jira Administrator, Strategy, Web Applications, Web Project Management, Story Mapping, User Stories, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Mobile Applications
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