Lauren Steyn
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Las Vegas, NV, United States
Toptal member since October 4, 2022
Lauren has extensive experience as a scrum master and agile project manager in software development, data warehousing, and analytics using SAFe, Scrum, and Kanban. She also has a strong UX and UI background and is a certified business and usability analyst.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Data
- Kanban
- Project Management
- Scrum
- Strategy
- Usability Analysis
Work Experience
Scrum Master | Agile Coach
Marriott
- Led 2 teams as a re-platforming team scrum master on a billion-dollar initiative for Marriott's loyalty program. In an excessively complex environment, extensive stakeholder management and coordination within a train of 14 teams was required.
- Redirected the team's operational execution, optimizing processes for better work-in-progress flow and more accurate timeline estimating in a hybrid waterfall/ agile execution.
- Merged waterfall and agile reporting to best align with stakeholders' expectations and the team's operating model using a product-milestone approach.
- Enjoyed putting my PhD research topic of hybrid execution into practice here to ensure more seamless delivery.
Scrum Master - Data
Commonwealth Financial Network
- Drove measurable improvements to predictability, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and process optimization. This was achieved due to better adherence to the Scrum framework by teams through coaching on the "why" behind Agile.
- Bridged the gap between management and development teams by developing a Confluence/Jira integration for monitoring and reporting project dependencies, risks, and status. This assisted with transparency and managing stakeholder expectations.
- Championed Agile delivery by leading team sprints and events while promoting the adoption of Agile practices. Facilitated events for collaboration and understanding, including facilitation of PI quarterly planning onsite in Boston and remotely.
- Fostered collaboration and project success through individual and team coaching, creating a role-based, clickable Figma prototype of the delivery ecosystem framework to enhance understanding of the operating model.
Scrum Master | Agile Project Manager
Nedbank Group
- Managed incremental delivery of an enterprise Datamart by collaborating closely with stakeholders to refine and prioritize backlog items according to iterative development review feedback, ensuring alignment between business and development efforts.
- Facilitated release planning and coordination across multiple Scrum teams, ensuring alignment and effective management of dependencies while adhering to the greater enterprise Waterfall milestones and roadmap.
- Excelled in conflict resolution and continuous improvement initiatives within a high-pressure environment, fostering a culture of transparency, trust, and constructive feedback.
- Managed stakeholder expectations effectively in an extremely matrixed organization while monitoring team metrics to identify areas for process optimization and maintain transparency.
- Coached teams with Scrum, Agile, Jira, Confluence, and UX on how to best present data and suggest role-specific training and promotions for performing staff to line managers.
- Handled extremely matrixed stakeholder management and reporting, which required adapted operating frameworks to best cater to complex cross-enterprise delivery.
SAFe Scrum Master
Nedbank Group
- Orchestrated delivery for two full-stack development teams within a SAFe train, managed stakeholder expectations, and provided comprehensive executive reporting. Handled conflict management in a high-pressure environment.
- Facilitated the adoption of SAFe through training and mentoring team members to promote organizational agility and scalability.
- Excelled in conflict resolution and continuous improvement initiatives within a high-pressure environment, fostering a culture of transparency, trust, and constructive feedback.
- Led dependency and risk management across nine SAFe Scrum teams, proactively identifying and mitigating external dependencies through effective collaboration and communication with release train engineers, product managers, and teams.
Senior UX Analyst and Scrum Master
Discovery
- Onboarded the entire team into the Scrum framework, illustrating the value of an Agile workflow and providing guidance in managing project deadlines effectively.
- Managed stakeholders for enterprise UX project and front-end HTML/CSS delivery.
- Resourced planning across functional UX and front-end team while aligning the release calendar to ensure the development was not impeded.
- Ensured wireframes were accurately translated and signed off by business stakeholders to alleviate rework.
- Facilitated project scoping and timeline management, aligned business requirements with user needs, and translated business requirements into user stories.
- Developed user-centric solutions to posed business problems and did user testing and interface building with HTML.
Senior UX Analyst
MultiChoice
- Worked as a senior UX analyst in a full-stack scrum team, translating business needs into requirements and then into wireframes and prototypes.
- Developed the UI using HTML/CSS for web and app development.
- Conducted requirements mapping with stakeholders to understand user needs and translate these into user stories.
Project History
Enterprise Datamart
Built a scalable, modular enterprise datamart for BI and compliance reporting in-flight using the Kimball methodology. We constructed two tabular models to enable reporting through Power BI and a semantic layer containing business rules.
Facilitated all ceremonies and was the primary contact point for all enterprise stakeholders in the data team. I managed stakeholder expectations in a highly pressured regulatory, business intelligence-reporting, and audit environment.
Delivered the product through uncertainty and pressure, with the Power BI reports having the highest usage in the bank.
My most notable personal achievement was that I had no attrition in my core scrum team and created a healthy working culture.
Juristic Onboarding and Servicing Portal
Built a juristic onboarding and servicing portal for a banking transformation program by translating business requirements for a highly complex project while managing two scrum teams through a Waterfall to SAFe transition.
In addition, I managed the risk register, scrum team budget, and project plan.
Pregnancy and Maternity Wellness Portal for Private Healthcare
Built a pregnancy and maternity wellness portal for private healthcare from planning to delivery using Scrum.
Education
Doctor of Business Administration (PhD) in Commerce and Business Administration
Cranefield College - Pretoria, South Africa
Master's Degree in Project and Program Management
Cranefield College - Pretoria, South Africa
Postgraduate Diploma in Project and Program Management
Cranefield College - Pretoria, South Africa
Bachelor's Degree in Visual Communication and Web Design
The Open Window School of Visual Communication - Pretoria, South Africa
Certifications
PMP
Project Management Institute
Advanced SAFe Scrum Master
Scaled Agile
Professional Scrum Master Level I
Scrum.org
Certified Business Analyst
Faculty Training Institute
Certified Usability Analyst
Human Factors International
Skills
Tools
Jira, Confluence, Figma, Asana, Microsoft Project, Slack
Paradigms
Agile, Scrum, Agile UX, Kanban, Agile Workflow, User Testing, Agile Project Management, Agile Product Management, Servant Leadership, UX Design, Management, Change Management
Industry Expertise
Healthcare, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Financial Services
Other
IT Projects, IT Project Management, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Scrum Master, Usability Analysis, Project Management, Strategy, IT Program Management, PI Planning, Dependency Management, User Experience (UX), Lean UX, Consulting, Coaching, Scrum Coaching, Operations, Agile Product Delivery, Agile Practices, Startup Consulting, Agile Transformation, Sprint Planning, Data Privacy, Privacy, Data Governance, System Integration, Process Mapping, Operations Tools, Process Flows, Business Delivery Management, Communication Strategy, eCommerce, Operational Streamlining, Healthcare Services, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Stakeholder Management, Data Warehousing, Process Improvement, Operational Excellence, Program Management, Strategic Planning, Operational Efficiency Improvement, User Research, Project Management Professional (PMP), Agile DevOps, Business, IT Business Analysis, Business Process Analysis, Supply Chain, Web, Web Design, Web UI, HTML, Business Management, Data, User Interface (UI), Agile Coaching, Organizational Design, Innovation, CSS, Lucidchart, Business Intelligence (BI), Entity-relationships Model (ERM), Data Strategy, IBM Cloud, UX Strategy, Business Administration, Hybrid Project Management, ServiceNow, Matrix Management
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