the vendor onboarding project, I identified that two separate departments were manually
inputting the same compliance data, and I successfully advocated for an automated integration
to eliminate that duplication of effort.
GROWTH AREAS & CHALLENGES
A recurring challenge for me this year has been managing scope creep. In my desire to be
helpful and maintain positive relationships with business stakeholders, I sometimes struggled to
push back when they requested "quick" feature additions mid-sprint. I realized that
accommodating these seemingly small requests was quietly derailing the development team's
velocity and causing burnout. I am actively working on my ability to firmly but diplomatically say
"no," or more accurately, "we can add this to the product backlog for the next prioritization
meeting."
Additionally, I sometimes get too bogged down in creating perfect, exhaustive documentation. In
an Agile environment, this level of detail upfront isn't always necessary and can slow down
momentum. I need to practice delivering "just enough" documentation to get the developers
moving, relying more on direct conversation to clarify the nuances.
FUTURE GOALS
To continue growing in my role and providing more independent value to the team, I have set
the following goals for the upcoming year:
Enhance Technical Data Skills:
Complete an intermediate SQL and PowerBI training
course by the end of Q2. My goal is to become less reliant on the Data Engineering team for
basic data extraction and initial feasibility analysis, allowing me to validate business
assumptions much faster.
Improve Agile Facilitation:
Take the lead on facilitating our team's backlog refinement and
sprint planning ceremonies over the next two quarters, focusing strictly on capacity limits to
prevent the scope creep issues I experienced this year.
Professional Certification:
Begin studying for the Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
or similar Agile framework certification to deepen my understanding of backlog prioritization
and product strategy, with the aim of sitting for the exam by Q4.
•
•
•
