SUMMARY

• Resilient, proactive, zealous, dynamic, attentive and pragmatic Senior Business Analyst with 8+ years of experience in business analysis implementing a variety of projects in Banking, Finance, E - Commerce and Education sector. Certified Scrum Master with a proven track record of working in self-organizing and cross-functional teams.
• Extensive knowledge, expertise and involvement in various phases of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) in Waterfall, Scrum, Agile (Extreme Programming, Test-Driven Development) and Scrum-Waterfall Hybrid software development life cycle environments
• Substantial experience in conducting structured walkthroughs with clients using workflow diagrams to identify, understand and conduct process analysis for business process modeling and re-modeling.
• Skilled in conducting and facilitating Requirement Gathering Activities to gather SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely) requirements using diverse elicitation techniques including, but not limited to, Interviews, Requirement Workshops, Prototyping, Survey/Questionnaire, JAD Sessions and Brainstorming.
• Excellent writing and documentation skills in creating, modifying and analyzing Business Requirement Document (BRD), Functional Requirement Document (FRD), System Requirements Specification (SRS), Use-Case Specification, High Level and Low Level Documents (HLD/LLD).
• Detailed understanding of preparation of RACI Matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed) and Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM) throughout the process to verify adherence.
• Seasoned in facilitating Scrum Ceremonies including Daily Scrum, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective and Backlog Refinement meeting.
• Experienced in conducting Scrum Training Workshops and User Story Writing workshops to familiarize stakeholders with Scrum process skeleton and concept.
• Adept in handling Requirement Churns by performing Impact Analysis.
• Skilled in objective and goal driven conflict resolution and impediment management with an eye to identify and resolve impediments proactively.
• Well versed with backlog prioritization techniques (Moscow, Business Value, Kano, And Technical Risk) and estimation techniques (Planning Poker).
• Proficient in Requirement Management, Sprint Planning, Issue Tracking, Impediment Management, and Work Allocation using tools like JIRA, RALLY and HP ALM.
• Thorough understanding of preparation and use of Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams including Process Diagram, Activity Chart, Use Case Diagram, Sequence Diagram, Data Flow Diagram and ER Diagram using MS Visio and Rational Rose.
• Experienced in creating Prototypes, Wireframes and Mock-Up Screens to visualize Graphical User Interface (GUI) using tools like Balsamiq MockUps and MockUp Screens.
• Proven Track Record in conducting AS-IS and TO-BE analysis, GAP Analysis, Risk Analysis, Cost-Benefit Analysis and SWOT Analysis to assist PO and PM in planning.
• Proven expertise in developing Test Cases, Test Plans, Procedures and Traceability Matrix and documenting defects using HP QC and HP ALM. Collaborated and monitored Black-Box Testing, Smoke Testing, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Regression Testing.
• Well versed with writing SQL queries to integrate and extract data for analysis and reporting.
• Experienced in working with Three-Tier Architecture, Web Services (SOAP, WSDL), Ajax and Client Side Verification and Server side Verification.
• Skilled in creation and use of Data Warehouse involving Data Migration from OLTP to OLAP cubes using ETL in Informatica Power Center. Proficient in Data Mining and Data Analysis for finding systematic relationships and consistent patterns for complete Knowledge Discovery in Databases.
• Detailed understanding of Data Warehousing, Data Marts, Data Modeling and Schemas and use of Business Intelligence (BI) to enable effective decision making.
• Throughout understanding Business Intelligence (BI) and experience in creating interactive, analytical dashboards using Tableau and IBM Cognos for decision making.
• Knowledge of performing Roll-Up, Drill-Down, Slice and Dice and Pivot functions on OLAP cube to design and deploy data to generate analytical reports.
• Involved in creating training modules and training scripts for end users.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Operating Systems: Windows XP/Vista/7 Macintosh

Modeling Tools: MS Visio, Mock-Up Screens, Rational Rose

SDLC Methodologies: Waterfall, Waterfall Scrum Hybrid, Scrum, Agile-Scrum, Agile

Business Skills: Process Modeling, Change Management, GAP Analysis, Impact Analysis, SWOT Analysis, JAD Sessions, Project Scheduling, Project Budgeting

Data Warehousing: Data Modeling, Data Marts, OLTP, OLAP, Data Mining, Slicing/Dicing, Drill Up/ Drill Down, Pivot

Project Management Tools: MS Project, MS SharePoint Server

Requirement Management: JIRA, Rally, HP ALM, MS Office, Confluence, ClearQuest

Testing Tools: HPQC, HPALM, Fiddler, HegeHog

Reporting/BI Tools: Tableau Desktop, IBM Cognos, Tibco, MS Excel, SAP Logon, Spotfire

ETL Tools: Informatica, Oracle Warehouse Builder

Methodology Tools: JIRA, HP ALM, RALLY

Databases: MsSQL, Oracle, MS Access

Finance Tools: Thompson Reuters, Experian, Bloomberg B-Pipe, MorningStar

Languages: HTML, XML, SQL, .Net, Java

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Confidential, PENNINGTON, NJ

SR. BUSINESS SYSTEMS ANALYST/SCRUM MASTER

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Interviewed Subject Matter Experts and performed extensive Document Reviews to develop a thorough understanding of legacy business processes to aid Business Processes Re-Engineering.
• Conducted Scrum Workshops to familiarize the team with Scrum as a concept and process skeleton. Also, conducted User Story Writing Workshops for the stakeholders not proficient in the art.
• Constantly acted as a liaison between Scrum team and management, change agent and a servant leader. Mentored the team and provided business value oriented conflict resolution.
• Helped PO and PM in conducting Feasibility Study, Cost-Benefit Analysis and SWOT analysis in order to be prepared for potential business and technical risks to the system.
• Identified Business Rules for credit line approval by conducting extensive one-to one and focused group interviews with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and Business Document Analysis.
• Led high level requirement gathering activities involving elicitation practices like JAD Sessions, Focused Groups, One-to-one Interviews, and Document Analysis.
• Reviewed and analyzed Business Requirement Document (BRD/HLD), Functional Requirement Document (FRD/LLD) and helped transforming them into a complete System Requirement Specification (SRS) as to enable all the stakeholders to accurately understand requirements.
• Facilitated, conducted and established agendas for Sprint Ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective and Backlog Refinement).
• Assisted project manager and product owner to track and improve efficiency and Team Velocity using Sprint Burn-Down Chart and Product Burn-Down Chart, Work Breakdown Structure, Milestones List and Gant chart. Also, strategically handles requirement churn
• Heavy involvement in Sprint Planning, Issue Tracking and Impediment Management using JIRA.
• Assisted product owner in Sprint Review meetings by facilitating product demos and backtracking them to the requirements to determine when it is DONE and shippable.
• Identified actors, paths and steps leading to an output and prepared Use Cases, Use Case Narratives and Use Case Diagrams to define actors, interactions and steps to achieve functionality.
• Prepared and analyzed UML diagrams like Process Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams and Activity Diagrams using MS Visio to analyze and design structure, behavior and interactions in the system.
• Conducted User Story Writing Sessions to decompose BRD into User Stories and determine Acceptance Criteria for Potentially Shippable Product Output.
• Assisted the product owner in prioritizing and estimating Product Backlog Items (PBIs) to pick Sprint tasks by incorporating suggestions from cross-functional IT teams.
• Helped developers in enhancing Graphical User Interface by AJAX programming.
• Wrote SQL queries for accurate comprisal of the data from various data sources.
• Assisted creation of Test Cases, Test Plans, Test Scenarios and created forward and backward Traceability Matrices. Conducted User Acceptance Training (UAT) and actively participated and facilitated testing of the system during Smoke Testing, Black Box Testing and Regression Testing.
• Created Data Models using Logical and Conceptual Entity Relationship diagrams.
• Strong knowledge of client side validation and server side validation and assisted in writing verbiage for client side validation using Java Script and Ajax.
• Used Web Services using SOAP API to communicate with other banking systems.
• Logged and tracked the defects using HP Quality Center and created an error repository to support QA team in testing, tracking defects and systematically manage defects and bugs.
• Facilitated DA in Creating Staging Area, Source, Target Databases for ETL and mappings within LMA, ACBS and collateral accounts using Informatica.
• Created Deployment Flowchart in conjunction with the development, infrastructure, and network teams containing instructions for maintaining the application.
• Created training scripts, training module and training curriculum.

ENVIRONMENT: Waterfall-Scrum Hybrid, MS Visio, JIRA 5.2, MS Office 2007 (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint), Wireframes, HP QC 11.0, MsSQL Server 2012, UML, Oracle 11.2, JAVA, JavaScript, AJAX, ETL, MS Project, HTML, Web Services, SOA, XML, Version One, jQuery, Angular JS.

Confidential, CINCINNATI, OH

SR. BUSINESS SYSTEMS ANALYST/ SCRUM MASTER

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Assisted PM in creating work breakdown structure and project charter using MS Project.
• Elicited requirements involving vast set of interactions with various stakeholders using JAD Sessions, Structured Interviews, Process Analysis and Business Rules Analysis.
• Managed and mentored the team through forming, storming, norming and performing phases. Created an environment for self organization throughout the project.
• Analyzed feasibility of business requirements and defined scope by interacting with Management Business Analysts, other Subject Matter Experts, Product Owner, Project Manager and Technical Lead.
• Created a Macro Document incorporating components of Business Requirement Document and System Requirement Specification incorporating business, functional, non-functional, data and GUI requirements which would in turn serve as the centerpiece of the project.
• Created Use Case Diagrams and Use Case Narratives and incorporated them in Macro Document.
• Created User Stories and led the Planning Poker game to estimate them in Sprint Planning and Backlog Grooming meetings. Also, helped PO to prioritize user stories based on business value.
• Helped product owner in prioritization of Product Backlog Items (PBIs) including the process of breaking down EPICS into user stories using INVEST criteria.
• Facilitated and time-boxed Scrum ceremonies. Helped negotiating commitments and assured parallel understanding of requirements and deliverables amongst all stakeholders in Sprint Planning Meetings.
• Timely assured development team has necessary resources to perform up to potential, tracked and removed impediments i.e. Programming in pair for a new Jr. Developer.
• Handled requirement churn during the project by performing Impact Analysis by checking the feasibility in maintaining the triple constraint and discussing them in daily Scrum.
• At the end of each sprint conducted Sprint Retrospective meetings creating the environment for each stakeholder to freely express their opinions and suggest improvement measures.
• Used JIRA for allotting tasks, user story writing, backlog management, issue tracking, user story management and forward and backward requirement traceability.
• Defined Acceptance Criteria for User Stories to perform User Acceptance Testing. Designed Test Cases, Test Plans and Test Scenarios to perform Functional Testing, Smoke Testing and Regression Testing and logged down defects and systematically managed them in JIRA.
• Performed extensive prototyping using Mock-Up Screens and Tableau.
• Created Spotfire Visualization and dashboards using Spotfire Professional.
• Used SSIS to map the data in central data repository and created Data Marts for enhanced Data Management. Used SSRS for generating reports.
• Created SQL Queries for Portfolio Drill Downs to pull necessary data from data sources.
• Created environment for self organization and organized team engagement activities.
• Worked on service oriented architecture (SOA), REST, SOAP, XML, API.
• Created training curriculum and wrote training scripts.

ENVIRONMENT: Waterfall-Scrum Hybrid, MS Visio, Mock-Up Screens, MS Office (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint), JIRA, MorningStar, Bloomberg B-Pipe, Thompson Reuters Elektron, MsSQL Server 2012, .Net, SSIS, MS Project, QuickBooks, SSIS, SSRS, SSAS, AJAX, HTML, Web Services.

Confidential, EAST HARTFORD, CT

SR. BUSINESS ANALYST

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Understood state of art processes by interacting with stakeholders and documents analysis and performed GAP analysis to assist Product Owner and Project Manager in planning the transition.
• Facilitated JAD sessions as Moderator and conducted interviews with various Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and stakeholders, process reviews and policy & procedure reviews to elicit requirements.
• Prepared Business Requirement Document (BRD/HLD) and assisted preparation of System Requirement Specification (SRS). Analyzed, modified and validated these documents.
• Created Use Cases and built Use Case Diagram and Activity Diagram using MS Visio.
• Managed and tracked requirements using HP ALM through Application Life-Cycle.
• Worked with QA team to design and develop Test Plan and Test Cases to perform User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Functional Testing and Regression Testing.
• Assisted Data modeling process by creating conceptual and logical ER diagrams and designing database schemas to develop an accurate Data Warehouse Structure.
• Integrated various OLTP to the OLAP by using Informatica as an ETL tool and used Tableau as reporting tool. Also maintained the Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball Paradigms.
• Assisted in increasing Data Integrity by performing Data Normalization and adding Data Verification and Validity to maintain accuracy and effectiveness of data,
• Performed Data Mining to find correlation and pattern in existing data and constructed SQL queries.
• Was involved in using Tableau for effective reporting to provide Business Intelligence (BI) to facilitate expenditure tracking using various matrices critical to decision making.
• Involved in implementation by assisting in the preparation of training module. Helped the end users getting accustomed to the system by live demonstrations and system tutorials.
• Timely tracked progress and reported it to Product Owner and Project Manager.

ENVIRONMENT: Waterfall, MS Office (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint), Tableau, Informatica, MS Visio, MS Project, HP ALM, Wireframes, Mock-Up Screens, MsSQL Server, SharePoint, GAP Analysis, UML, UAT testing.

Confidential, LOS ANGELES, CA

SR. BUSINESS ANALYST/ SCRUM MASTER

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Conducted requirements elicitation, analysis and refinement.
• Researched and gained knowledge of Higher Education Opportunity Act, Student Loan Default Prevention Initiative Act, credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, unsystematic risk, operational risk, strategic risk, compliance risk, default risk and sovereign risk.
• Helped Project Manager in project planning by facilitating the creation of Project Charter.
• Analyzed and gathered requirements for preparation of Business Requirement Document (BRD), Functional Requirement Document (FRD) and System Requirement Specification (SRS).
• Dealt with Offshore Testing Team for Test Planning and creation of Test Strategy.
• Acted as a liaison between management and technical team.
• Performed extensive data analysis using MS Excel and IBM Cognos to find co-relation between variables to establish Risk Baseline and provide Business Intelligence (BI).
• Conducted User Story Writing workshops involving various stakeholders. Actively led, facilitated, time-boxed and moderated Scrum Ceremonies throughout the project.
• Created Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) ensuring requirements are met in all the phases of the project and testing strategy incorporates a detailed check on all requirements.
• Utilized Informatica for Extraction, Transformation and Loading; IBM Cognos for report generation of the data to be analyzed from the data warehouses and data marts.
• Wrote SQL queries to pull data from various sources for comparison and analysis.
• Used RALLY for requirement and defect management, test analysis and test logging.
• Created Test Cases and logged defects in Rally. Involved in User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Aided the QA team to develop the Test Plans and Test Cases to perform the Black Box Testing, Regression Testing and Smoke Testing.

ENVIRONMENT: Scrum, Risk Management, Mock-Up Screens, RALLY, MS Office (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint), IBM Cognos, Informatica Power Center, UML, Data Modeling, UAT Testing, Experian.

Confidential

BUSINESS ANALYST

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Interacted with the customers and internal stakeholders to gather user requirements and their expectations from the system to create BRD, FRD and SRS.
• Documented, prioritized, managed and facilitated estimation of User Stories.
• Involved in analyzing Business Requirements and developing System Specifications.
• Created UML Diagrams using Rational Rose.
• Tracked and reported timely performance against plans and forecast analyzed gaps and recommended corrective measures to improve productivity.
• Assessed business priorities, and advised business units by performing Risk Analysis.
• Participated in the development and preparation of the Test Plan with the testing team as well as ensuring testability, reliability, usability, maintainability and performance of the application.
• Involved in incident reporting and change management procedures using Clear Case.
• Maintained and shared documents using MS SharePoint.
• Managed test cases and logged defects using HP QC tool.
• Formed a bridge between the Project Manager and different teams with effective presentations.
• Planned and organized team engagement activities to encourage self organization among the team.
• Was involved in interactions with key stakeholders for creation of Service Oriented Architecture.

ENVIRONMENT: Agile, Rational Requisite Pro, Rational Rose, HP QC, MS Project, MS Visio, MsSQL Server, SharePoint, MS Office (MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint).

Confidential

BUSINESS ANALYST

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Worked with the Project Manager in defining the scope and requirements of the project.
• Assisted in creation of Business Requirement Document (BRD) and Functional Requirement Document (FRD) and System Requirement Specification (SRS).
• Defined business rules pertaining to Order Tracking System (OTS).
• Created UML diagrams (Structural, Behavioral and Interactive) and created Information Diagrams, Activity Diagrams and Process Flow Diagrams.
• Creating GUI mock-ups using MS Visio to understand UI and UX requirements.
• Used Web Services to connect Order Tracking System to the existing system with SOAP API.
• Utilized MS Project to create Work Breakdown Structures (WBS), prioritized the tasks and to track the progress of the project and improve efficiency from time to time.
• Coordinated creation of Test Plans, User Acceptance Test (UAT) scripts and Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM).
• Was involved in dealing with Change Requests by performing Impact Analysis.

ENVIRONMENT: Waterfall Methodology, MS Office (MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint), MS Visio, MS Project, Mock-Up Screens, MsSQL Server, UML, UAT Testing.