Jari Laakso
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Tammela, Finland
Toptal member since May 13, 2021
Jari comes with 18+ years of experience in management. His past roles include, e.g., agile delivery manager, scrum master, engineering manager, and project manager. Companies hire Jari to solve problems, such as slow value delivery, blowing past commitments, low predictability, inconsistent quality, teams not aligned with the business, being too busy putting out fires, or underperforming, customer attrition, communication and visibility issues, and when Agile didn't bring the desired results.
Project Highlights
Education Highlights
Certification Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Coaching
- Kaizen
- Metrics
- Project Management
- Risk Management
- Scrum
- Scrum Master
Work Experience
Delivery Manager
Freelance Clients
- Established and led the whole delivery management function of the company.
- Set up program management processes and monitoring of R&D investments.
- Implemented Atlassian-based tooling for global progress tracking of initiatives.
Engineering Manager
Betfair Romania Development
- Joined the company to manage engineering and delivery for a platform team.
- Stabilized the needed processes and metrics to accurately report on progress and performance of the team.
- Led my team to become the department's highest-performing team based on management-selected criteria.
- Defined the roadmap, technical architecture, dependencies, and milestones for a new product together with the engineering team and its stakeholders.
Agile Delivery Manager
ComplyAdvantage
- Established the Agile delivery management function and defined how it operates.
- Set up and improved processes and practices for release planning, incident management, and progress monitoring.
- Led a team of software delivery teams to become highly effective, focused, and self-organizing.
- Made sure that teams stayed on track to deliver sprint, quarterly, and yearly goals.
- Drove continuously improved performance of teams, using Scrum and Kanban.
- Boosted the application of Agile engineering practices, such as automated testing, pair programming, and CI/CD.
- Provided coaching on two levels: technical with developers, focusing on team practices, and process with management, focusing on establishing leadership for Agile teams and overseeing successful adoption of the Agile methodology.
- Implemented Kanban where improving flow and visualization were imperative, Scrum where regular cadence was beneficial, and XP where technical excellence was needed.
- Implemented Kanban, sprints, and burndown boards; wireframes for dependencies; dashboards for status; cycle and lead time for forecasting; so-called Accelerate metrics; retrospectives for continuous learning; and OKRs for team alignment.
- Built a custom Agile adoption assessment based on the values established with the stakeholders.
Scrum Master
Itiviti Group
- Plunged in to reap the benefits of Scrum by setting the bar high and then going over it.
- Increased effectiveness of the teams and upheld their laser-sharp focus.
- Decreased production release time from two weeks to two hours.
- Established metrics to drive high-performing teams and provide visibility to the work.
- Revamped the release planning process and governance.
- Implemented Kanban where improving flow and visualization were imperative, Scrum where regular cadence was beneficial, and XP where technical excellence was needed.
- Provided coaching on two levels: technical with developers, focusing on team practices, and process with management, focusing on establishing leadership for Agile teams and overseeing successful adoption of the Agile methodology.
- Developed standards and requirements for the Agile process.
- Implemented a version of the Nokia Test for checking the Agile maturity of the teams.
QA Lead
SellerEngine Software
- Joined the company to enable more frequent releases to production.
- Set up the foundations for a continuous delivery pipeline.
- Decreased the time to release projects to production by reducing rework and improving the QA process.
- Coached a team in Agile practices, methods, and principles.
- Implemented Kanban to drastically improve flow and get changes to production faster than ever.
Head of QA
YOPESO
- Established the QA department and assisted with the transformation from fixed-price waterfall contracts to Agile contracts and teams.
- Coached, trained, and scaled the QA department and set up the processes needed to adhere to ISO 9001.
- Hired and trained the QA personnel and set up their performance management system.
- Defined and monitored quality metrics for projects.
- Coached and trained teams, clients, and the organization in Agile ways of working.
- Worked in conjunction with the CEO and CTO to implement Kanban and Scrum in tens of projects.
Project Manager
Cybercom Group
- Joined the company as a test team lead and progressed to managing projects, including other managers and team leads, with 60+ team members.
- Set up the structure, processes, and adequate governance, scaling a team from two team members to multiple teams in two countries and collaborators around the world.
- Managed monthly, quarterly, and yearly billing and personnel forecasting for the projects I led.
- Acted as a scrum master for a cross-functional team.
- Planned, executed, monitored, and controlled numerous projects.
Project History
AML Screening and Monitoring
https://complyadvantage.com/aml-screening-onboarding-monitoring/Managed delivery of the customer screening and ongoing monitoring platform of ComplyAdvantage by implementing the Scrum framework and Agile practices.
Accomplishments:
• Improved the delivery speed, quality, and transparency of four teams by enabling self-organization and doubling down on focus.
• Moved from variable iteration lengths to weekly sprint planning and review cadence.
• Set up release planning and the ability to track progress via dashboards. - Managed incident communication, resolution, and root-cause analysis across all software delivery teams in the company.
• Drove continuously improved team performance by using Scrum and Kanban.
• Strengthened the application of Agile engineering practices, such as automated testing, pair programming, and continuous delivery.
UL IRIS
https://www.itiviti.com/execution-management/pre-trade-riskLed and coached a team to make releases smaller, faster, and more predictable, enabling the transparency and visibility that stakeholders desired.
Led and coached a cross-functional team to truly own their work, commitments, and performance, resulting in the ability to make 30 releases in the same time it used to take to make just one. The product was a complex, high-performance, pre-trade risk management tool used by the biggest financial services companies in the world, such as Bank of America, BNP Paribas, and HSBC.
Publishing to Nokia Ovi Store
Managed 60+ people spread across multiple teams and projects with stakeholders in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Managed 60+ people working on different projects, set up the team structure and reporting, managed a team of managers, handled billing and financial forecasting, and owned accountability for team performance.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Häme University of Applied Sciences - Forssa, Finland
Certifications
Professional Coach Diploma
CoachCompanion
Skills
Tools
Jira, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, Trello, Slack, Google Slides, Google Docs, GitPrime, Gerrit, Zoom, Google Hangouts, Git, GitLab, Confluence, Skype, Google Sheets, Excel 2010, GitHub
Paradigms
Scrum, Kanban, Agile, Agile Project Management, Agile Software Development, Agile Product Management, Change Management, Object-oriented Programming (OOP)
Industry Expertise
Electronics, Banking & Finance
Other
Project Management, Coaching, Test Management, Scrum Master, Agile Coaching, Metrics, Kaizen, Leading Quality Assurance (LQA), Issue Management, Communication, Project Timelines, Project Tracking, Status Updates, Leadership, Sprint Ceremonies, Performance Management, Risk Management, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Agile Transformation, Web Project Management, Project Budget Management, Project Planning, Account Management, Business to Business (B2B), Consulting, Mentorship & Coaching, Stakeholder Management, Backlog Management, Computer Science, Java, Networking, Assembly, VHDL, Circuit Board Design, People Management, Software QA, Mobile App Testing, Website Testing, Budgeting, Billing, Financial Forecasting, Training, Hiring, ISO 9001, Test Automation, Reporting, People Development, Program Management, Quality Assurance (QA), Release Management, Test Planning, Quality Management, Software Development, Java 8, Java 9, Scrumban, Scrum Coaching, Agile Product Delivery, Project Delivery, Roadmaps, Dependency Management, Vendor Management, Engineering Management
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