Daniela Amuchastegui
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Toptal member since May 10, 2022
Daniela is a senior scrum master and PM with 13+ years of experience in the IT, fintech, and mining spaces. The cornerstone of her success resides in identifying and resolving barriers to organisational success, formulating and implementing effective strategies, embedding the company's operational efficiencies, and ensuring effective people and process management. She has earned the trust of clients as well as the respect of her colleagues and executives and exceeded expectations on every level.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Coaching
- Agile Delivery
- Enterprise Coaching
- Scrum
- Scrum Master
- Story Mapping
- User Stories
- Vertical Slicing
Work Experience
Product Owner
Tic:Toc
- Joined the team as a scrum master, then moved into the product owner role after building great relationships with the stakeholders and team members.
- Created a backlog using agile methods that allowed iterative and incremental delivery of functionality focusing on what the customer prioritized.
- Delivered website functionality for a new product with strict deadlines and on budget.
- Helped team members provide input leading to a complete and robust backlog that enabled us to deliver high-quality results.
Agile Coach
OZ Minerals
- Coached corporate teams to become self-organising and high performing teams. Worked directly with C-suite executives. The teams adopted visual management tools and Agile ceremonies to deliver value faster, build on successes, and fail fast to learn.
- Supported the company's update of the work methodology process standard incorporating Agile ceremonies and risk-based management concepts to align and set minimum expectations for the business.
- Introduced Agile concepts into how we work together company-wide ways of working.
Scrum Master
Capgemini
- Received more frequent updates on smaller user stories as a product owner. The stories were created as a maximum of 3-4 days of effort each, which helped increase the business visibility on the work performed during the sprint.
- Elevated attendance and consistency in Agile ceremonies, which, together with coaching on the correct values, helped the team be in a flow state, continuously delivering, reflecting, inspecting, and adapting to the environment and PO's requirements.
- Increased consistency in processes and practices shared across teams. Teams sharing the same Agile concepts helped them to collaborate, and some members of one team became consultants for the other team as required.
Agile Project Manager and Scrum Master
Aligent Consulting
- Proposed and implemented Scrum in 2017. Created the first team in the company, and six months later, the whole company was split into groups and implemented Scrum as well.
- Iniciated the vertical slicing concept to Magento implementations, enabling potentially shippable increments every sprint.
- Introduced an agility assessment tool to ensure and organize continuous business improvement.
- Established quality metrics, including customer and team focus.
- Increased the company's agility by creating and delivering training sessions and informal coaching to teams to transition from Waterfall to Scrum.
Marketing Coordinator
Elders
- Delivered 50.79% of sales from the direct marketing campaign. The campaign was completed on time and included ten fax, 23 SMS, and 26 email campaigns, with the total number of Facebook fans surpassing the KPI of 25% by growing to 59% before mid-2015.
- Developed a procedure and templates to streamline the campaign process, reducing the time by 50% and increasing the accuracy of the campaign database and content.
- Implemented a new SMS platform (SMS broadcast), increasing reliability and reducing processing times by 5%. Created images, allowing more flexibility to send campaigns and reduce the design costs.
Project History
Scrum Implementation for An eCommerce Agency
Proposed and implemented Scrum. I created the first pilot scrum team in the company and scaled it company-wide. Introduced a potentially shippable concept to Magento implementations, agility assessment, and quality metrics.
As a project manager at an eCommerce agency, I delivered bespoke software solutions to diverse clients and helped the organization become truly agile.
In this position, I organized the first Scrum team in the company, refined the process, and ensured that the organization adopted these practices. This included the introduction of quality metrics, agility assessment tools, and team training sessions to up-skill teams regarding Scrum artifacts and events like backlog grooming, vertical slicing sprint planning, and relative estimation.
The results were significant company-wide. Improved project delivery, lowered project risk, the effective onboarding of clients to Agile development, and a process of ongoing continuous improvements.
Responsibilities
• Facilitated Scrum ceremonies and removed blockers.
• Helped teams become self-organizing.
• Assisted product owners with backlog refinement, customer journeys, and user story mapping to build shared understanding and increase collaboration with business and development teams to create better solutions to customer needs.
• Delivered workshops and training sessions.
Data Science Teams in SaFe Release Train
A culture shift. Increased the adoption of Agile practices in a government department, SAFe release train, including teams' self-selection and launch. Increased the frequency of delivery by implementing vertical slicing concepts into data science.
I coached cross-functional data science and research teams to successfully deliver projects. In this position, I introduced user stories and story mapping sessions, implemented Scrum training, and shared practices in teams that initially had a negative perception of agility.
By working and communicating with others, I improved team consistency and culture and enhanced the business’s focus, successfully transforming the team’s culture into one with an Agile mindset and behavior.
Growth Journey in A Fintech Scale Up
Supported the rapid growth of the IT department while keeping a high level of engagement, over 90%, while increasing squads' performance and capacity.
Facilitated the creation of a Kanban squad to shield streaming squads from interruptions.
Responsibilities
• Coached four development teams to become self-organizing and high-performing teams.
• Trained and coached about Agile practices and helped leaders to further embed Agile behaviors, leveraging company values.
• Introduced story points and velocity metrics to increase visibility and reliability of delivery.
• Trained a team member to become a successful scrum master.
• Self-selection and teams launch to support the growth.
• Coached product owners in user stories creation.
Education
Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing in Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing Institute - Dublin, Ireland
Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA)
Torcuato Di Tella University - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration
Siglo 21 University - Cordoba, Argentina
Certifications
ICAgile Certified Professional | Coaching Agile Transitions
ICAgile
ICAgile Certified Professional | Agility in the Enterprise
ICAgile
PRINCE2 Agile Practitioner Certification
Axelos
SAFe 5 Practitioner
Scaled Agile
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Project Management Diploma
Blas Pascal University
Skills
Tools
Confluence, Jira, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools
Paradigms
Iterative Delivery, Scrum, Agile Delivery, Agile, Agile Project Management, Kanban, Marketplace Platforms, Change Management, Agile Product Management, Requirements Analysis, Iterative Development, Management
Industry Expertise
Business Technology
Other
User Stories, Vertical Slicing, Scrum Master, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Sprint Planning, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Reporting, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Process Optimization, Best Practices, Stakeholder Management, Executive Support, Story Mapping, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), IT Project Management, Discovery Workshops, Backlog Management, eCommerce, Project Management & Delivery, Jira Administration, Remote Team Leadership, Estimation & Planning, Process Improvement Project Management, Project Timelines, Operational Efficiency Improvement, Web & Mobile Applications, Project Scoping, Scope Management, Mobile/Web Project Management, Product Owner, Web Development, Consulting, Project Tracking, Project Planning, Mobile Apps, Team Leadership, Hybrid Project Management, Technical Project Management, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Process Flows, Prototyping, Project Coordination, Operations, User Experience (UX), Web Applications, Business to Business (B2B), IT Product Management, Project Discovery, Partnership Strategies, PRINCE2 Project Management, Agile Coaching, Enterprise Coaching, Leadership & Coaching, Business, Culture Management, Finance, Project Management, Marketing, Marketing Campaigns, Web Marketing, SMS Marketing, Digital Marketing Strategy, Release Management, Business Process Analysis, Risk Management, Business Delivery Management, Customer Support, Business Analysis
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