Grace Shilajoe

I am a self-starter with over 13 years working experience delivering multimillion rand project in the Private and Public Centre with vast knowledge and experience in PMBOK, Agile, SAFe, SAP IMPS, Lean Six Sigma, Azure Dev Ops, Jira and Kanban. I am a dedicated professional with a proven record of accomplishment of delivering projects with exceptionally improved efficiency. Agile scrum approach leading daily sprints/ stand-ups/ collection of estimates / resource management/ products; using personal vision, expert financial knowledge, technical acumen and motivational team management strategies.

Lead Scrum Master (SAFe) - ITQ Consulting PTY - Consulting at ABSA

(2025-07)

My main role was to ensure that the team lives agile values, principles and follows the processes and practices that is agreed upon.

• Lead and oversee multiple global cross functional teams, ensuring the successful delivery of various projects using agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe)
• Effectively manage and facilitate sprint ceremonies and PI events to support timely development and product releases
• Support the product owner in maintaining a healthy product backlog managing dependencies, and ensuring the alignment of scope with business
• Establish and nurture strong relationships with team stakeholders, vendors, and dependent teams. Collaborate to align on project goals and expectations
• Lead PI and sprint planning sessions to establish scope, create detailed release plans, and ensure alignment with sprint goals and PI. Facilitate estimation of epics and stories in agile tools
• Coach and mentor teams to foster self-organization. Guide Squats to achieve higher levels of agile maturity and efficiency.
• Proactively identify, track, and help remove impediments and dependencies that affect the team's ability to deliver
• Conduct retrospectives identify pain points and improvement area.
• Set up and regularly review metrics to track progress and performance. Escalate issues that impede progress to ensure timely resolution
• Identify and manage risks that could affect delivery timelines and project outcomes. Develop mitigation strategies in collaboration with teams and stakeholders
• Ensure that deliverables meet quality standards and requirements. Promote best practices in testing, documentation, and development
• Champion Agile principles and practices across the organization. Promote a culture of continuous learning and adoption to enhance agile adoption.

Scrum Master (SAFe) - Falcorp Technologies - Consulting at Vodacom Corporate

(2024-07 - 2025-07)

My main role was to ensure that the team lives agile values, principles and follows the processes and practices that is agreed upon.

• Lead and oversee multiple global cross functional teams, ensuring the successful delivery of various projects using Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe)
• Effectively manage and facilitate sprint ceremonies and PI events to support timely development and product releases
• Support the product owner in maintaining a healthy product backlog managing dependencies, and ensuring the alignment of scope with business
• Establish and nurture strong relationships with team stakeholders, vendors, and dependent teams. Collaborate to align on project goals and expectations
• Lead PI and sprint planning sessions to establish scope, create detailed release plans, and ensure alignment with sprint goals and PI. Facilitate estimation of epics and stories in Agile tools
• Coach and mentor teams to foster self-organization. Guide Squats to achieve higher levels of agile maturity and efficiency.
• Proactively identify, track, and help remove impediments and dependencies that affect the team's ability to deliver
• Conduct retrospectives identify pain points and improvement area.
• Set up and regularly review metrics to track progress and performance. Escalate issues that impede progress to ensure timely resolution
• Identify and manage risks that could affect delivery timelines and project outcomes. Develop mitigation strategies in collaboration with teams and stakeholders
• Ensure that deliverables meet quality standards and requirements. promote best practices in testing, documentation, and development
• Champion Agile principles and practices across the organization. Promote a culture of continuous learning and adoption to enhance agile adoption.

Scrum Master - Telesure Investment Holding

(2023-07 - 2024-07)

My main role was to ensure that the team lives agile values, principles and follows the processes and practices that is agreed upon.

• Facilitate agile ceremonies of sprint kick off, daily stand ups, sprint review and sprint retrospective to in order to meet the business requirements.
• Ensure the delivery team are practicing core agile principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability and visibility.
• Support the development team process, the product owner and scrum delivery team to ensure delivery of solutions and product releases.
• Use appropriate communication channels within the scrum team to create a trusting and safe team environment.
• Track and communicate team velocity, sprint progress and maintain progress documentation in accordance to best practice standards.
• Ensure that backlog maintenance, and facilitation of defects / bugs resolution to achieve and meet business needs.
• Mitigate external disruptions and distractions whenever possible to ensure optimal team effectiveness.
• Support and educate product owners on maintaining the product backlog, actively managing it and preparing for the next sprint.
• Monitor and ensure that items planned for the sprint are focused on, and unplanned work is identified and raised with the product owner to manage expectations and delivery.
• Provide the team with prerequisites before sprints to enable them to deliver against expectation.
• Identify key dependencies and manage them closely to ensure delivery.
• Monitor and raise issues/ blockers/ risks early so they can be mitigated or cleared, enabling the team to deliver optimally.
• Track and ensure that delivery takes place according definition of ready or definition of done.
• Optimise the velocity of delivery of delivery and focus on continuous improvement to enhance delivery and meet business needs
• Facilitates discussion leading to collective decision making, goal setting and conflict resolution within the team to ensure optimal team functioning.
• Work closely with delivery managers / team leaders (Development and Quality Assurance) to ensure the level of resources working on sprints are high standards.
• Work with other scrum masters to increase the effectiveness of the organization by following lean and agile principles.
• Coaching and guide the team in self-organization and cross functioning using the most appropriate agile approach.
• Overall progress on delivery.
• Received an award for determination, desire and drive to succeed, as I have managed to complete 7 initiatives within 6 months of joining the organisation.

Scrum Master - DSV - Global Transport and Logistics

(2022-08 - 2023-06)

My main role was to ensure that the team lives agile values, principles and follows the processes and practices that is agreed upon.

• Facilitate Scrum Events ensure that they are focused and productive (Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Planning, Sprint Reviews, Retrospectives and Backlog Grooming).
• Assist the Product Owner in prioritization and scheduling of work, to meet delivery time frames.
• Ensure backlog is in good standing by having regular re-occurring weekly backlog grooming sessions.
• Ensure that all the team members understand their role and fulfil them to the best of their ability.
• Manages pulse of the overall team and assists the Change Manager in maintaining the Forward Schedule of Change and the prioritization thereof.
• Assists with change compliance and CAB submissions.
• Manages resources in the System Analyst, Developer and Tester teams for all changes and projects in the SDLC space.
• Protect the team from interruptions and distractions to maximize productivity and create flow of work.
• Identify and facilitate the resolution of identified impediments.
• Help the team make achievable sprint commitments with the use of velocity data and team availability.
• Ensure the team / stakeholders adhere to Definition of Ready (DoR) / Definition of Done (DoD).
• Highlight risks and dysfunctions where the DoR / DoD is not met.
• Ensure adherence to the agile principles and Scrum process and help resolve an