Julia is available for hire
Hire JuliaJulia Manning
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Location
Bloomfield, NJ, United States
Toptal Member Since
April 7, 2022
Julia is a Certified Senior Agilist and Project Management Professional with an impressive track record of delivering complex products. She is well-versed in Scrum, Scrum@Scale, SAFe, Kanban, Kaizen, and XP Agile methodologies. She's been a servant leader for seven transformations at premier Fortune 50 companies. Julia has mentored teams to be self-directed and transparent with strong accountability, decision-making, and conflict resolution skills.
Project Highlights
Ancestory.com Health Reports
Managed a team of developers that created lab reports for the Ancestory.com project.
Health Care Service Corporation
Launched and managed several releases for effective processing of healthcare claims.
Launching the E-Commerce Portal for PepisCo Websites
Launched an automated web portal site for PepsiCo internal clients and enabled the faster launch of PepsiCo digital campaigns and targeted customer reach.
Expertise
Work Experience
Senior Scrum Master | Agile Coach
2023 - 2023
Johnson & Johnson
- Acted as a trusted advisor, guiding teams through Agile transformations and fostering customer relationships.
- Collaborated with internal teams, including Product Management and Cloud Operations, to ensure unified customer approaches.
- Led cross-functional teams in the successful implementation of enterprise software solutions.
PMP and Agile Trainer
2023 - 2023
Certification Academy
- Taught a four-day PMP and Agile bootcamp virtual class to 15 students.
- Received 95% excellent feedback scores from students on overall class.
- Answered students' detailed questions regarding PMP and Agile exams.
Agile Coach | Advisory Role
2022 - 2022
BD
- Advised the digital marketing team on the new Agile working process.
- Influenced decision-making on adopting Jira, an Agile tool, for the marketing team's Agile process.
- Set up Agile marketing governance, supported Agile tool adoption, and prepared the team to adopt Agile methodology by 75% within three months.
Agile Coach | Scrum Master
2022 - 2022
PepsiCo
- Coached team members individually to understand the Agile ways of working and adhere to Agile manifesto principles completely.
- Collaborated with a team to create an effective team agreement that boosted the team's self-organization skill sets by 50% within three months.
- Taught Microsoft Azure DevOps basics, story splitting, and information radiators to a global team of 40 members with excellent feedback on sessions.
- Planned quarterly PI planning events, supported tech product owners and a development team, and facilitated retrospectives and scrum of scrums.
- Coached IT executive leadership on value mapping in one-on-one sessions to create an environment of learning that allows failure fast to pivot to success.
- Followed up on process improvement items from retrospectives to ensure recommended improvements, increasing team happiness by 60%.
- Oversaw the automation of a website portal and the deployment of 52 existing websites to a new platform.
Senior Agile Delivery Manager
2021 - 2022
CipherHealth
- Revamped a story point creation process to ensure that added features improved the quality accuracy of estimates by 85%.
- Guided a development and product team to set sprint goals to meet achievement targets sprint over sprint.
- Increased happiness in the Agile process and tooling by 50% in three months.
- Enhanced team delivery on web and data product sprint goals by 110% by collaborating with a PO to ensure sprint reviews and inspections were done on a frequent cadence within four months.
- Oversaw rapid delivery of three products: a nurse rounding mobile app, a modernized patient onboarding tool, and an optimized SMS gateway.
Scrum Master | Flow Master
2021 - 2021
Quest Diagnostics
- Collaborated with a PO and team to create value-added business features for the ancestory.com lab reports.
- Taught team principles of flow and integration automation tools, increasing product deployment from conception to production by 75%.
- Used frameworks such as Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Kanban, Scrum, and one-on-one Agile coaching.
- Integrated existing lab report application features to a new platform for resiliency within four months.
Scrum Master
2019 - 2021
Pfizer
- Conducted story mapping workshops for an agile squad to deliver a Pfizer global assistant product, leading to it being delivered three months early.
- Presented in the agile community of practice on sprint zero best practices and liberating structures.
- Coached and trained three different teams on the purpose of agile scrum events, XP, daily stand-up, sprint planning, sprint review, and sprint retrospectives.
- Assessed teams' confidence after workshops on agile maturity and noted improvement in agile maturity by 75%.
- Oversaw the delivery of a Pfizer agenda tool, health assessment tool, IBRANCE health mobile app, and Azure DevOps implementation.
Agile Coach | Scrum Master
2017 - 2019
Johnson & Johnson
- Guided and trained a development team on story creation and functionality within Jira.
- Coached executive leadership, a product owner, and a development team individually to ensure positive outcomes on team collaboration and product development.
- Achieved rapid value realization from zero releases in production to releasing every two weeks.
- Oversaw the delivery of an executive CIO plant and project dashboard that utilizes big data and the configuration and digitization of a manual plant process using Siemens MES.
- Turned around a failing project to a successfully delivered product, presented in increments, and submitted everything within a timely fashion to a product owner.
Agile Project Manager | Agile Coach
2015 - 2016
Wyndham Destinations
- Delivered the first POC Agile project for a type-ahead-find feature in Google within four months.
- Authored and co-authored ten business cases with budgets from $1.5 million to $10 million.
- Presented the Scrum training process to a global PMO of a team of 30 members.
- Oversaw the creation of the Salesforce sales marketing form and the deployment of the Google type-ahead-find feature.
Senior Project Consultant | Scrum Master
2015 - 2015
Optum
- Facilitated Agile Scrum team events, including daily standup, sprint planning, and sprint retrospective.
- Delivered eight releases and 32 features in nine months and upgraded the UnitedHealthcare website. I was in charge of reporting and budgeting.
- Delivered a highly complex front end and back end of a web solution that served all UnitedHealthcare COBRA clients.
- Achieved 100% PCI compliance for a Cobra web form and oversaw updates to the platform and integration of databases to collect PCI data within three milliseconds.
Project Manager
2011 - 2014
Health Care Service Corporation
- Managed a multi-million-dollar strategic program for a major player in the healthcare insurance industry.
- Led custom application and infrastructure projects for a healthcare exchange ERP Oracle CRM application, including claims management system, marketing, communications, and IT Siebel 8.1 upgrade.
- Achieved project success in delivering Siebel 8.1 customer service and sales automation upgrades.
- Managed the Enterprise Marketing Sales – Web Fundamentals program with multiple contractors and a diverse team.
- Facilitated daily stand-ups, trained team members on Agile methodology, and reviewed burndown charts and velocity metrics with the team and management. Introduced Waterfall, SDLC, project management lifecycle, and PMO forecasting.
- Ensured that operational online web enrollment for claim forms was 100% on time, oversaw digital customization of claims, and upgraded the PeopleSoft customer service and market CRM 50% ahead of time.
Project History
Living with Cancer Mobile App
Managed a team of developers and product designers to create a leading app for cancer patients.
Led a team of developers and designers to create a mobile app. Ibrance treatment combined with a mobile app assists breast cancer patients in managing their overall health and adherence to medication. Trained the team on agile principles, which led to the success of rapid product delivery.
Ancestory.com Health Reports
http://ancestory.comManaged a team of developers that created lab reports for the Ancestory.com project.
Led nine developers in a distributed environment. Facilitated all the agile ceremonies and ensured the team's happiness. Reported the quick wins and successes and presented them to executive management.
Health Care Service Corporation
https://www.bcbsil.com/provider/claims/claims-eligibility/electronic-commerceLaunched and managed several releases for effective processing of healthcare claims.
Managed a team of 20 developers to create the claims processing application. Performed program management for several projects that ensured the integrity of the data of the claims processed was accurate. Managed the vendor relationships to ensure the compliance of vendor artifacts was accepted.
Launching the E-Commerce Portal for PepisCo Websites
Launched an automated web portal site for PepsiCo internal clients and enabled the faster launch of PepsiCo digital campaigns and targeted customer reach.
I mentored and coached three teams at PepsiCo in the web and web3.js digital space bringing 52 sites to production. My team's feedback, together with my listening skills, helped them come up with solutions to most of their problems.
Education
2005 - 2007
Master of Science Degree in Business Information Technology
DePaul University - Chicago, IL, USA
1998 - 2002
Bachelor's Degree in Management Information Systems
DePaul University - Chicago, IL, USA
Certifications
MARCH 2023 - PRESENT
AWS Cloud Technical Accreditation
AWS Training and Certification
APRIL 2022 - PRESENT
Scaled Agile Program Consultant
Scaled Agile
SEPTEMBER 2021 - PRESENT
Certified Product Owner
Scrum Alliance
FEBRUARY 2021 - PRESENT
Certified Scrum Foundation Educator
Scrum Alliance
SEPTEMBER 2019 - PRESENT
Certified Scrum at Scale Practitioner
Scrum Inc
JUNE 2019 - PRESENT
Agile Certified Coach (ICP-ACC)
ICAgile
JUNE 2018 - PRESENT
PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
Project Management Institute
MAY 2014 - PRESENT
Certified Scrum Professional (CSP)
Scrum Alliance
APRIL 2011 - PRESENT
ITIL Foundation Certification
EXIN
FEBRUARY 2011 - PRESENT
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
FEBRUARY 2011 - PRESENT
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
FEBRUARY 2011 - PRESENT
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute
FEBRUARY 2010 - PRESENT
Six Sigma Green Belt
MicroTrain
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