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At Bank of America I was a Product Owner for one Agile scrum team

  • Roadmap and Backlog Ownership: Led the roadmap and backlog for the GFD (Global Fraud Director) Orchestration App, integrating enterprise payment flows with PFD (Payment Fraud Detection), a SAS vendor system.
  • Fraud Mitigation Solutions: Delivered high-impact fraud mitigation solutions within a SAFe Agile Release Train (ART), coordinating across multiple Agile teams to protect enterprise payment systems.

Detailed Experience at Bank of America

A comprehensive overview of my role and key contributions as a Product Owner and Agile leader within Bank of America’s fraud technology group.

  • Team Growth and Structure: I joined a rapidly growing fraud team that started with one Product Owner and expanded into multiple Agile teams with dedicated POs.
  • Product Owner and Scrum Master Dual Role: Initially took on dual responsibilities as both a Product Owner and interim Scrum Master, helping guide the team until a permanent Scrum Master was hired.
  • Agile Transformation: We began as a Kanban team and transitioned into a fully functioning Scrum team, implementing two-week sprint cycles to improve delivery and collaboration.
  • Backlog Management: I groomed and managed the backlog from scratch, addressing production incidents, cybersecurity updates, and future fraud-related initiatives.
  • Cross-functional Collaboration: Each initiative required thorough analysis and close collaboration with product managers, change coordinators, and other key stakeholders.
  • Knowledge Transfer (KT): Partnered with our tech lead to conduct knowledge transfer sessions to help the new team quickly ramp up on business systems and processes.

Key Differences at Bank of America

  • Regulatory Rigor: Bank of America operated under strict regulatory and audit protocols. Every epic and user story required complete descriptions, detailed acceptance criteria, and clearly documented design artifacts.
  • Acronym Clarity: All acronyms were required to be spelled out for clarity and compliance—for example, even simple and common acronyms like "UI" had to be defined as "User Interface."
  • Agile Discipline: Compared to other firms, the Agile process at Bank of America was consistently structured and enforced across teams, with clear expectations and standards.
  • Coaching Support: Dedicated Agile Coaches were available to support both Product Owners and Scrum Masters, helping ensure best practices and continuous improvement.
  • Comprehensive Documentation: Internal documentation was robust and well-organized, with Confluence wiki pages providing a centralized source of truth for product and process knowledge.

Key Challenges

  • Limited Initial SME Coverage: The team started with just one tech lead SME for GFD and one SME overseeing PFD while managing multiple Component Agile Release Streams (CARs).
  • Time Zone Coordination: Collaborated with cross-functional teams across the US, Europe, and India, which presented scheduling and communication challenges.
  • Complex Team Dependencies: Navigated dependencies involving multiple internal teams and business units throughout the firm.
  • Onboarding New Resources: Led and facilitated knowledge transfer (KT) sessions to ramp up newly onboarded developers and analysts quickly.
  • Dual Responsibilities: Balanced responsibilities as both Product Owner and interim Scrum Master until a dedicated SM was hired.
  • Backlog Hygiene: Audited, cleaned, and groomed an outdated backlog to bring it in line with current priorities and initiatives.
  • Hands-On Testing Responsibilities: Product Owners were expected to assist with QA and UAT testing by executing SQL queries using tools like Toad and Oracle Database, and by validating API behavior using Postman.