PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Confidential

Release Manager

Responsibilities:

• Maintains, audits and continually improves ITSM change management processes to assure coordinated multi - service provider, change management processes including: Create and process a Request for Change (RFC), Assess and evaluate change, Coordinate change with stakeholders, test change prior to release, authorize and schedule change implementation, implement change, and review and close change record.
• Working knowledge of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and Agile delivery methods.
• Partnered effectively with outside vendors, technology, and the business to manage risk and minimize solution impact.
• Accountable for strategic change and release planning for multiple, simultaneous deployments, rollout/rollback processes, appropriate classification of all changes, change and release schedules and allocation of implementation Resources.
• Provided leadership, coaching and oversight to Project teams with expertise, direction, motivation and encouragement with demonstrated flexibility and adaptability to changes in roles and responsibilities .
• Evaluate all requests proposing change to established and supported platforms, identifying, analyzing and documenting potential risks or issues.
• Conducted routine Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings to review upcoming changes, confirm required approvals have been obtained, and to ensure production change requests were updated correctly post deployment.
• Monitor compliance to existing change management process; ensure correct approval process is followed for both regular and emergency changes, follow- up non-compliant changes made outside the change management process.
• Proactively highlight opportunities to improve performance in all areas of operations including productivity, financial management, execution of processes and procedures, achievement of service levels and high levels of customer satisfaction.

Confidential

Release Manager

Responsibilities:

• Accountable for strategic change and release planning for multiple, simultaneous deployments, rollout/rollback processes, appropriate classification of all changes, change and release schedules and allocation of implementation resources.
• Drove cross-functional activities as part of the release process (worked with Senior Management, Product Management, Development, Technical Support, etc.) to ensure releases were conducted efficiently and all angles of a release were covered Communicated with the development, operations and test teams there were no conflicts in scheduling or environment usage.
• Analyzed opportunity of improvement in the release and change management process to reduce risk of implementing changes.
• Coordinate all release activities across cross functional teams, business, engineering, PMO, and training in successfully driving the release strategy and roadmaps
• Coordinated communication, training, support structure and scheduling to ensure deployments to production environment have met success, verification and sign off criteria.
• Translated requirements from project managers into technical tasks and worked with technical teams to implement environment changes within development and testing environment.
• Maintained release processes, working with IT and business teams to identify and implement process improvements and changes.
• Developed, coordinated, and implemented overall Release Management policy and processes based on ITIL Methodology in coordination with functional/operational teams.
• Exhibited excellent interpersonal and listening/negotiation skills; ability to work with cross-functional teams as a strong team player with a demonstrated track record of working in fast-paced, quickly changing environments with strong client focus.

Confidential

Lead System Analyst Consultant

Responsibilities:

• Trained new staff (Systems Analysts) to perform area responsibilities, included performance tracking, and providing leadership in all assigned tasks.
• Troubleshoot and resolved requests for software and hardware assistance, primarily coming in the form of e-mail, phone calls, Incident Monitor help tickets.
• Participated in the analysis, design, testing and implementation of new systems, and/or major enhancements to existing systems to ensure the effective application of computer resources to satisfy business needs.
• Performed management functions as required; provided ongoing support for analyzing, designing, and implementing modifications to production systems.
• Exhibited excellent interpersonal and listening/negotiation skills; ability to work with cross-functional teams as a strong team player with a demonstrated track record of working in fast-paced, quickly changing environments with strong client focus.
• Provide leadership, motivation and recognition and encouragement to positively impact overall team morale and performance.
• Report system outages to the director and management team. Open ticket with help desk and assist with resolving issue.
• Analyzed situations involving customers being escalated from mistreatment during service to evaluate how to retain and resolve the problem at hand.
• Set and executed strategy, and ensured the department's objectives were successfully met.

Confidential

Release Manager

Responsibilities:

• Collaborated with cross functional teams to analyze, investigate and diagnosis root cause of problems, and completion of corrective actions; engaged in discussions to evaluate solutions, and publish Root Cause Analysis (RCA) reports.
• Utilized HP Service Manager to track configuration items, requests for changes, and required approvals, to communicate with functional and technical stakeholders, and to schedule system integration testing and production deployment date.
• Integrated Release and Change Management procedures with various project work streams related to the development of a new system along with Operational procedures after system implementation.
• Worked closely with Process Owner, Developer and Network Engineers to incorporate the company and customer needs for improvements on existing and new processes using ITIL guidelines.
• Provisioned access and adhered to the Quality Policy, including items assigned to position in accordance with ISO policies, procedures, and work instructions.
• Conducted routine Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings to review upcoming changes, confirm required approvals have been obtained, and to ensure production change requests were updated correctly post deployment.
• Collaborated with support and development teams to create and author "Production Readiness" process and documentation Decreasing implementation issues / errors, reducing application and system downtime, and increasing resolution capability.
• Employed RACI Model from ITIL for evaluating production software/hardware changes and managing system release aspects of multiple projects of high complexity; ensured business requirement issues were tested and received documentation following CCB Policy Guidelines and procedures.
• Provided routine incident and change notifications (planned and unplanned) to impacted lines of business and senior managers with appropriate data, including business impact, application affected and relevant details regarding incident resolution.
• Assisted Application Support team with testing script in QA and UAT prior to being released in production.
• Provided Change Management and application training for staff and clients in classroom environments, via phone, and remotely via WebEx Change Management with ITSM Remedy Tool.
• Created and maintained ITSM Change Management database for tracking statistical information .
• Audited failed and cancelled changes to identify cause for failure or cancellation to ensure no outstanding issues existed requiring additional attention, and that issues were resolved / addressed by appropriate individuals.
• Incident Management Lifecycle: Incident Tracking, Detection, Classification and Initial support, Incident Ownership.
• Exhibited excellent interpersonal and listening/negotiation skills; ability to work with cross-functional teams as a strong team player with a demonstrated track record of working in fast-paced, quickly changing environments with strong client focus.
• Conducted weekly meetings facilitating discussions and evaluation of proposed changes. Maintained online change calendar and coordinated events with enterprise business calendar; ensured communication with all business units .
• Excellent oral and written communication skills Self-starter; motivated to learn and operate independently.
• Accustomed to working in fast-paced environments with the ability to think quickly and successfully handle difficult clients.

Confidential

Helpdesk Support / EDI Analyst

Responsibilities:

• Routinely exceeded call-handling goals, closing an average of 80 calls daily with a 95% first-call resolution ratio and an average talk-time of 5.5 minutes -- well below 7-minute goal.
• Led company in attaining the highest customer service ratings (as determined by external auditors) -- earned 100% marks in all categories including communication skills, listening skills, problem resolution and politeness.
• Assisted in creation of a Knowledge Base system, which allowed teams to provide quicker SLA, FCR and lower response time from 10-5minutes.
• Recruited, trained and supervised staff of 5 Customer Service Representatives on regulatory documentation.
• Operated call center and addressed employee issues to maintain company integrity and reliability toward customers; coached CSR's, and issued disciplinary and praise actions, on behalf of performance.
• Worked closely to drive communication with pertinent staff and managers; ensured interdependencies between departments, and identified and addressed problems and resolutions.
• Created and Managed Executive Report and Desk Weekly Performance Reports; evaluated Desk’s performance around the following: general FCR and by analyst, Desk and analyst call volume, percentage of calls logged vs. closed, length of open calls and on hold, speed to answer and average length of call by analyst.
• Handled calls dealing with unsatisfied employees or customers to tie up loose ends and resolve issues on a positive note.
• Partnered with Tier III help desks in US, India and Brazil to resolve complex problems that required escalation; provided detailed descriptions of issues in trouble ticket system and followed up diligently to ensure swift resolutions.
• Created and modified user accounts and granted access for Broker, Member and Provider portal of the Confidential BCBSNJ Corporate website using Active Directory, UCSW, RCOE.