Rauf Azam, Project Manager in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
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Rauf Azam

Verified Expert  in Project Management

Bio

Rauf is a highly skilled Agile leader, having been in the Agile arena for over 14 years. He has enterprise-level experience with companies in various industries, such as Accenture, RasGas, and an Uber-acquired company, Careem. He is equipped with a cross-section of skills around Agile delivery, with a deep understanding of the importance of data-driven decisions in a dynamic environment. Rauf is versatile, with exceptional communication, facilitation, and influencing skills at all levels.

Project Highlights

Ride-hailing Application Development
Contributed to crafting OKRs, mapping out a release plan, delivering iteratively, and measuring data for continuous improvement.
Membership Application System Migration
Migrated a membership application system from below-the-line traditional server centers to above-the-line AWS.
Tablet Banking Application Delivery
Collaborated with three cross-functional teams to deliver a tablet banking application.

Expertise

  • Agile Coaching
  • Agile Delivery
  • Agile Leadership
  • Consulting
  • Jira
  • Scrum Master
  • Scrumban
  • Trello

Work Experience

Associate Vice President, Agile Coach, and Scrum Master

2020 - 2022
Emirates NBD
  • Reviewed the Agile transformation strategy and drove positive organizational changes via the Agile chapter. Coached people from the engineering and product team to foster positive behaviors, enabling growth and an agile mindset.
  • Managed a failing development team to become high-performing, solving user problems and delivering value. Coached scrum masters to help them grow within their domains, from facilitation, scaling, and the agile mindset, to name a few.
  • Coached developers on XP techniques such as pair programming, mob programming, and techniques such as TDD. Mentored and coached newly graduated employees to become scrum masters of three development squads, working towards having CI/CD.

Agile Coach | Transformation Lead

2018 - 2019
Careem Networks FZ
  • Devised and rolled out the Agile transformation strategy across a subdomain of Careem, an Uber-acquired company.
  • Crafted training materials for the strategy and conducted training for team members at the organizational level.
  • Created a maturity assessment of the strategy and applied it via a pilot program.
  • Managed a customer subdomain consisting of eight squads working together to deliver the Careem ride-hailing application.
  • Contributed to the product vision, OKRs, delivery, and iterative releases.

Agile Delivery Lead

2017 - 2018
The Co-Operative Group, UK
  • Contributed as an Agile lead across two teams for the UK's largest consumer cooperative.
  • Redeveloped the membership website and owned the digital transformation of the banking and group membership program for over 1.5 million members.
  • Coached the team on Scrum and Kanban, applying my strong knowledge of the Agile methodology and frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, and extreme programming (XP).
  • Trained and coached scrum masters to become certified Professional Scrum Masters, accredited by Scrum.org.
  • Led a migration project for a customer membership program, moving from a traditional data center to AWS, applying enterprise design thinking and Lean UX techniques to deliver amazing experiences.
  • Mentored teams on constructing and maximizing user stories using behavior/test and hypothesis-driven development.
  • Developed, facilitated, and contributed to workshops and creative sessions and helped foster creativity within workshops.

Agile Delivery Lead | Scrum Master

2016 - 2017
TalkTalk
  • Contributed as a scrum master for one of the UK's leading consumer and B2B telecoms provider.
  • Owned the transformation in Pega of the CRM systems integrated with interactive voice response and payment systems used by over 5,000 agents in contact centers.
  • Facilitated and coached scrum masters on all Scrum rituals and promoted self-organizing teams.
  • Increased the average velocity of the scrum team by over 100% by refining rituals and ways of working.
  • Introduced various refinement methods, such as three amigos, to help mature the refinement process.
  • Coached the team on Agile techniques, including user stories, continuous integration, pairing, automated testing, and Agile games.
  • Applied the ability to take and understand commitments to deliver the product on time.
  • Collaborated with the product owner and business analyst to manage the product backlogs and make stories ready for the next sprint.
  • Implemented processes, practices, and tools to allow multiple delivery paths, such as creating simplified, consistent, reusable, efficient, and flexible methodologies.

Senior Agile Professional

2011 - 2016
RasGas (Exxon Mobile & QP JV)
  • Contributed as a senior Agile professional for one of the world's premier integrated LNG enterprises with revenue exceeding $40 billion.
  • Owned the digital transformation program of IT system initiatives, which are safety-critical.
  • Functioned as scrum master, facilitating daily standups and maintaining the team's focus from current sprints towards broader project objectives.
  • Influenced stakeholders and decision-makers to embrace the Agile methodology and drove the methodology through the business.
  • Analyzed customer business plans, processes, practices, and industry trends and provided recommendations to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Improved the current systems using Lean thinking principles.

Associate Manager | Agile Delivery Manager

2007 - 2011
Accenture
  • Contributed at the associate managerial level with clients such as Unilever.
  • Owned part of the systems, applications, and products (SAP) enterprise resource planning (ERP) and digital transformation projects in some of the world's largest and most complex environments.
  • Provided consultancy services, recommending and coaching clients on Agile delivery methods and aiding failing Agile teams to improve.
  • Planned and delivered multiple SAP ERPs, including business warehousing and financial reporting solutions in the management information system area, using exchange infrastructure (XI) under tight constraints over various international territories.
  • Measured and monitored project progress during each phase to ensure the application was tested, validated, and piloted on time and within budget and that it met/exceeded expectations.

Scrum Master | Business Analyst

2006 - 2007
TomTom
  • Managed projects throughout the software development lifecycle and led the QA and test team as the business analyst lead.
  • Facilitated Agile rituals as a scrum master while leading the corporate website upgrade project, which had a complex architecture with CRMs, GPS, and traffic updates.
  • Liaised with end-users to gather user requirements through user stories and worked closely with developers and testers in an Agile working environment.

Project History

Ride-hailing Application Development

Contributed to crafting OKRs, mapping out a release plan, delivering iteratively, and measuring data for continuous improvement.

As an Agile coach, I worked across eight teams and collaborated closely with scrum masters, delivering the customer application for ride-hailing. Each team had a different section of the journey with their own OKRs for making a more valuable product.

Membership Application System Migration

Migrated a membership application system from below-the-line traditional server centers to above-the-line AWS.

I led a team of eight people to migrate and update a membership application to the cloud with zero downtime. The project's main driver was to reduce costs. We achieved this by simplifying and making leaner the otherwise complex process.

Tablet Banking Application Delivery

Collaborated with three cross-functional teams to deliver a tablet banking application.

I led three teams working towards a shared goal: to deliver a banking application where customers can apply for a current account, savings account, and credit cards. I also coached and used data to enhance our delivery quality and speed.

Education

2001 - 2004

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

Manchester Metropolitan University - Manchester, UK

Certifications

JANUARY 2017 - PRESENT

Professional Certificate in Agile Business Analysis

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

MARCH 2016 - PRESENT

Certified Scrum Master

Scrum Alliance

JANUARY 2012 - PRESENT

Project Management Professional (PMP)

Project Management Institute (PMI)

Skills

Tools

Confluence, Jira, Trello, Slack, Salesforce

Paradigms

Agile Delivery, Agile Project Management, Agile Leadership, Design Thinking, Scrum, Agile, Kanban

Industry Expertise

Financial Services

Platforms

MacOS

Other

Scrum Master, Scrumban, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Agile Coaching, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Financial Products, Startups, Consulting, Business Analysis, Agile Product Delivery, Strategy, Training, Software Engineering, IT Project Management, Networks, CRM APIs

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