Daniel Howard

Dan is an Agile specialist, with over 20 years’ experience in Systems and I.T. analysis, having gained much of his experience in FS and the Platform industry. His experience spans business analysis, testing including data migration, operations support, software implementation, operational and technical process improvement, training and hands on project management. He has a very strong work ethic and delivery focus that is complemented by a good “bedside manner” when working with suppliers and clients. 

Finocomp/Bravura Aug 2020 – May 2023 – Head of Program Management & Change/Agile Practice Lead 

Current role is Head of Program Management & Change working closely with Product Management, Product Owners and Scrum Masters at Bravura & Finocomp implementing SAFe across all Agile teams in support of the Agile Transformation Strategy. This role is complimented with direct relationships with Customers and all client facing Project/Product Managers to reorganize PMO structure through JIRA/Confluence tooling development and real-time reporting and managing the continual flow of value to customers.

• SAFe Training, as a qualified SPC, provide training courses and 1-1 sessions with Leadership, Product Management and Agile Teams as the focus turns towards Business Agility.
• Designed, built, and executed a SAFe delivery tooling programme, implementation of the Scaled Agile approach in a DevOps environment to enable rapid product/platform build.
• Program Management, restructured Governance process to help shift left delivery & project management, introducing Business Owner, Architectural and Product Owner forums and resetting Project Management approach.
• Agile Practice Lead, Identified and led the evolution of communities of Practice teams such as LACe, Devops & Testing to allow the agile teams to continually collaborate and innovate.

Cognizant Sep 2019 – Aug 2020 – SAFe PM Consultant/Agile Tools Administrator 

Agile Coach with a core focus on supporting the SAFe Program Management delivery framework. Provided programme tooling and programme management services for a boutique financial services application provided by a large international bank.

• Designed, built, and executed a SAFe delivery programme, ensuring adequate reallocation of staff, training, and implementation of the Scaled Agile approach in a DevOps environment to enable rapid product/platform build.
• Facilitated the implementation of automated delivery pipelines ensuring the platforms could be rapidly scaled and deployed as seamlessly as possible.
• Created automated reporting leveraging core tooling data, and worked with the cross functional teams to ensure data practice and quality was of suitable quality
• Leveraged the reporting outputs to enable coaches to identify problematic team behaviours and respond

Global Platform Client Nov 2018 – Sep 2019 – Agile Coach/Agile Tools Administrator/Defect Management

Based in Cape Town, supporting the Program Management team creating their Group Investment Platform. Restructuring the PMO process to support their success in implementing Agility, training Scrum Masters and embedding Test and Defect Management processes.

• PMO Consultant, Leading the PMO team implementing Essential SAFe
• Agility Tools Coach, Creating and Delivering JIRA/Confluence Business Processes to support SAFe transition
• Test & Defect Management, managing the Testing and Defect resolution process

Aegon Asset Management April 2018 – Oct 2018 – Agile Tools Coach/Agile Tools Administrator

Dan joined the Global PMO team at AAM to support their Scaled Agile journey of implementing SAFe across 3 locations, UK, US & The Netherlands. Operating chiefly as a Tools Coach, the core focus to providing training and guidance on using JIRA and Confluence.

• Training, using numerous methods of workshops, stand-up meetings, one-to-one support to provide coaching to help all teams understand and enhance Agile Tools. 
• JIRA/Confluence PMO Consultant, helping both Global PMO and PMO in each location to support their transition to Confluence reporting. Moving from traditional static reporting of Excel and PowerPoint and helping to provide real-time automated KPI & Project Reporting.
• Refining 3 Legacy Configurations and merging into one Global Tool. Working across 3 locations to re-build both JIRA and Confluence instances working with Scrum Masters, Product Owner and key admin users to ensure alignment across each location.
• Process design and documentation to support Scaled Agile transition. Providing documentation and training to support front end usage and also guide administrators to apply support model process for change management.

Aegon UK 2017 – March 2018 – PMO Consultant

Dan joined the Digital Solutions team supporting training for JIRA and Confluence supporting the Agile approach implemented across the business. Using his expertise this support quickly expanded to support all workstreams and extensively for PMO, Testing, UAT and Defect Management areas to help reach this goal. 

• JIRA/Confluence PMO Consultant, building and enhancing JIRA/Confluence to support PMO team transition allowing PMO to engage with all workstreams.
• Process design and documentation to support change management 
• Defect Management - Creating and managing infrastructure in JIRA/Confluence to monitor and resolve defects both internally and external defects with suppliers.

InsightNow June 2014 – 2016 – Operations Manager

This was Dan’s transition role from an operational implementation and support specialist to a hands-on Operation manager. Accountable for the operational team delivering Client facing initiatives and projects to drive efficiency, optimization while growing InsightNow’s operational effectiveness.