Zigmond Heron

I am a Chapter lead for a group of 9 Agile coaches at Spark.

My role is to increase group wide agility across Spark and it's affiliate companies. My role is to ensure we create the right ways of working, embedding the right practices, mindset and standards. I create partnerships with business leaders, injecting fresh thinking and thought leadership. I have worked directly with two directors of Spark to improve business efficiency and output in the Marketing departments and Network and Operations, two very different areas but both with business critical portfolios. This role requires:

• Business acumen
• Passion for a data-driven approach
• Energy – positive and enthusiastic
• Clear and concise communication
• Ability to step back and see the bigger picture
• Track record of owning and delivering outcomes
• Enthusiasm and credibility to support and mentor agile coaches and partner with Spark leaders

Part of the global Product Practice & Coaching team with the mission to “Coach Xeros to grow, innovate and succeed together”. Working strategically across Company Divisions, Portfolios & teams to facilitate the adoption and continuous improvement of our Xero Product Practice. This involved Engaging with senior leaders, ( from Executive General Managers to Product Managers and Tech Leads) in one of Xero's divisions, on vision and plans for their teams continual improvement. Identifying organisational impediments and develop plans for meaningful change.

• Coach leaders at all levels in Xero, collaborating to agree what outcomes to target and support and which interventions required to unlock team effectiveness and operational excellence, at scale.
• My role operationalises coaching practice, bringing together strategic priorities with stakeholders needs; today, and into future. I lead 6 coaches, and work with stakeholders and leadership in my business area to maximise coaching value; ensuring product team and coaches needs are met.
• I foster learning culture that supports and inspires growth and development in line with our agile growth pathways; mentoring teammate practitioners and inspiring them to grow.
• Help Develop quarterly, Annual Plans and OKR form Divisional to team level.
• Empowered team members to self-organize, boosting morale and overall job satisfaction.
• Advised top management on agile strategy development, improving organizational agility at all levels.
• Developed customized training materials for Agile adoption, ensuring relevance to organizational needs.
• Mentored junior team members on Agile best practices, fostering collaboration and growth within the team.

Champion of agile practices and agent of change for teams, tools and processes. Responsible as a people lead, coaching and empowering teams to fulfil their potential ensuring contribution of value to customers.

• Led 3 teams in Data Engineering and Data science, developing and improving their ways of working.
• In this time, successfully rolled out worldwide, entirely new, class leading analytics platform for clients on time on budget.
• I developed “Agile 101” program for all new starters at Task which was well received and introduced History of Agile, methodologies and frameworks as well as engaging activities to underline theory.
• I initiated Task's very first company-wide Big Room Planning event which runs every quarter to align business and teams goals and roadmaps
• Co-authored training program for 18 new people leaders at Task focusing on Intent based leadership, conflict resolution, coaching and agile mindset.
• Produced initiative to improve ways of working between professional services teams (Projects) and (Product) delivery teams as often there are competing priorities.

Kaizen Coach is responsible for establishing agile working practices and mindset. Creating highly productive teams at Visa. I started work in Platform division.

• Fostered a culture of continual improvement in teams and wider processes at Visa. While working in Platform services, introduced Kanban to several teams to improve workflow and transparency.
• Co-designed "team liftoff" program for new teams which was rolled out across organisation. This fast track teams efficiency and reduce team friction.
• Initiated team health checks which was run across platform services including management team
• Created backlog of stream wide initiatives to tackle issues discovered. After successful 6 months I was approached with joining Delivery Division and looked after two scrum teams working in Banking and Expenses area, building software solutions for our partners
• I worked intensively with these teams, improving their performance by over 40% In this time. Worked very closely with Product owners and Business analysts up-skilling them in tools and techniques of design thinking and new methods to improve backlog and value delivered to our partners. Instigated design sprints and imbedded practice of design thinking in these teams. Facilitated cross functional initiatives to improve incident responses and architectural change.

• UoW was new to using Agile and Scrum and I was integral to introducing this framework and ensuring its success on the project. I was Scrum master for two development teams
• Mentored other new scrum masters and facilitated the scrum of scrums as well as Stand-up meetings, retrospectives and other scrum ceremonies. Successfully released our Minimum Viable Product and retired previous SMS.

• University of Canterbury engaged a new $16m Student Management System I was brought over from the UK as I had a track record in running these projects introduced scrum framework and used SAFe model to provide integration of this product with various other related and dependent systems at the university's was scrum master and coach to other SM and responsible for developing Release Train for developments we produced
• Provided expertise in using Scum methodology and using SAFe across wider IT department. Successfully released first phase of the product, and completed the MVP for second phase whilst working on Phase 1 enhancements.