Ashfaq Ahmed

Experience

• 

  Visma

  Feb 2008 - Sept 2019

  • Servant Leadership: Successfully led two high-performing teams in delivering a comprehensive Business Analytics portfolio to over 10,000 customers across the Nordics. Managed both cloud-based and on-premises solutions, ensuring high availability, scalability, and customer satisfaction.• Process Improvement: Spearheaded continuous process improvement initiatives, resulting in enhanced operational workflows and a 20% increase in team efficiency. Implemented best practices and agile methodologies to drive productivity and quality.• Impediment Removal: Proactively identified and resolved impediments, ensuring smooth and timely product delivery. Leveraged strong problem-solving skills to mitigate risks and eliminate bottlenecks, maintaining project momentum.• Communication and Coordination: Orchestrated seamless internal and external communications, facilitating effective task coordination, progress tracking, and dependency management. Established clear communication channels that improved transparency and stakeholder engagement.• Founder and Organizer of Visma Agile Guild: Established and led the Visma Agile Guild, a forum for Agile Leads and Scrum Masters across Visma. Fostered a collaborative environment for sharing experiences, discussing challenges, and promoting the implementation of the Visma Continuous Delivery Model (VCDM). Show less • Complex Integration Management: Successfully coordinated the integration of 13 systems across three product lines within a distributed work environment, ensuring seamless interoperability and efficient workflow.• Project Scheduling and Delivery Planning: Expertly defined comprehensive project schedules and delivery plans, managing activities to adhere to strict timelines and milestones, thereby ensuring on-time delivery of high-quality products.• Risk Mitigation and Impediment Removal: Proactively identified potential project risks and impediments, implementing effective mitigation strategies to ensure smooth project execution and delivery. Maintained a focus on continuous risk assessment and resolution.• Testing and Deployment Coordination: Managed and coordinated system testing, integration testing, piloting, and deployment activities. Ensured rigorous testing protocols were followed to deliver reliable and robust solutions.• Customer Engagement: Actively participated in customer events, including product launches, partner forums, and customer visits. Gathered valuable feedback to refine and enhance product offerings, strengthening customer relationships and satisfaction. Show less

  • Agile Lead/ Scrum Master

    Mar 2014 - Sept 2019

  • Release Coordinator / Project Manager

    Jun 2011 - Feb 2014

  • Member of Visma R&D Quality Board

    Jan 2012 - Apr 2013

  • Business Analyst / Quality Assurer

    Feb 2008 - May 2012
• 

  Nexi Group

  Oct 2019 - now

  Digital Delivery Lead / Senior Scrum Master

  • Successfully delivered digital products: Led cross-functional teams across eight countries in Europe and Asia, delivering high-quality Fintech products on time and within budget. This effort resulted in a significant increase in market share and drove substantial revenue growth. • Improved Delivery Efficiency and Processes: Streamlined product delivery processes by implementing Continuous Delivery, DevOps, Design Thinking, and Lean practices, reducing time-to-market by 150%. These improvements accelerated feature launches and significantly boosted customer satisfaction. • Strengthened Stakeholder Management & Communication: Cultivated and maintained strong relationships with key stakeholders by fostering a culture of open and transparent communication, deeply understanding their needs, and aligning their expectations with project goals. • Successfully Scaled Agile Practices Across Teams: Orchestrated 20 Program Increments (PIs) across twelve teams, ensuring effective cross team collaboration and dependency management. This resulted in consistent, on-time, and high-quality product releases. • Agile Coaching and Team Development: Transformed team performance and agility by introducing OKRs, SAFe, Scrum, Kanban and Lean practices, significantly enhancing responsiveness and delivery speed across the organization.• Learning Culture Creation: Pioneered the establishment of "Devs Corner," a knowledge-sharing platform. Conducted competency mapping to identify key improvement areas, fostering a culture of continuous learning and professional growth.• Team and Organizational Design: Contributed to the exponential growth of the product by implementing innovative team setups and topologies, e.g. implemented Team Topologies Show less