SUMMARY:

• Certified Scrum Master (CSM) with 10+ years in the role of a Scrum Master and have a core expertise in managing large enterprise software development projects and experience in QA Manual, Automation, Database and Mainframes Testing.
• Led strategic Release Planning and tactical Iteration Planning sessions and presented weekly updates to stakeholders and program managers.
• Conducted daily stand - ups in two-week Iterations, facilitated sprint reviews , retrospectives , and sprint planning .
• Focused primarily on training the teams to write good user stories , prioritize the work based on business value and handling of the tasks by the team.
• Placed substantial efforts on team member role training, time-boxing, and providing strong metrics for all players.
• Brought in Agile best practices such as time-boxing , continuous integration , code/design reviews, transparency , accountability, rally tracking , product visioning, technical debt reduction, self-management, empowerment and role training resulting in realized velocity improvement of more than 100%.
• As a Scrum Master helped the teams to establish goals and set actions to achieve them.
• Have extensive experience working with testing tools like Selenium, WorkSoft Certify, Win Runner, Mercury/HP QuickTest Professional (QTP)/HP Unified Functional Testing (UFT), Mercury/HP Quality Center Administration and Test Director along with experience in database testing using SQL Server 2005/2008/2012 .
• Experience includes working with Taxation, Finance, Insurance, Healthcare and Banking clients/domains.
• Extensive experience in testing Web based applications (.NET, Java/J2EE), UNIX and Mainframe Systems.
• Experience in using bug tracking tools HP (ALM), Atlassian JIRA, Confluence and other Agile Project Management tools on Linux/Unix and Windows environments.
• Managed users, workflow, groups, and projects in JIRA Software, also reported bugs and tracked defects using JIRA Software.
• Hands-On Team Leader with strong focus on documentation, communication, process, and constant improvements.
• Shown Flexibility, quick learner, proactive attitude, and an amazing team player.
• Excellent coach, facilitator, problem solver with the ability to achieve broadly communicated objectives under a minimal amount of supervision.
• Highly efficient in Complex, Agile, Dynamic, Onshore, Offshore project environments.
• Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master, CSM

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Automated Tools: Win Runner 8.0, Test Director 7.0, Mercury/HP QuickTest Professional (QTP) 9.2/11.0, WorkSoft Certify, HP Unified Functional Testing (UFT), HP ALM, Selenium

Databases: SQL Server 2012/2008/2005 , MS-Access, JIRA Query Language (JQL)

Defect Management Tools: Mercury/HP Quality Center 9.2/10.0, Mercury Interactive, TeamTrack, IBM Rational ClearQuest 7.0, IBM Rational ClearCase 8.0, Bugzilla

Project Management Tools/Methodologies: Atlassian JIRA Software &Confluence, Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Lean Management, Scrumban, SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Planner

Frameworks: Scrum, XP (Extreme Programming), Lean Kanban, Agile Project Management

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Confidential, ATLANTA, GA

Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

• Confidential is a software product development company. They built processes with an eye toward helping organizations thrive. The company provides computer programming services, software development, cyber security services, and other related services.
• Serving as a Scrum Master for 3 cross-functional teams, coaching and facilitating the teams in their transformation/transitioning from Waterfall to Agile.
• Oversee the day-to-day progress of projects to guide release initiatives regarding time, scope, budget, and quality directives.
• Identified and assigned Agile roles and responsibilities, trained all team members on the Agile process.
• Worked with Business (PO) and Business Analyst on creating user stories, populating a comprehensive Product Backlog, and trained them to identify a minimal set of high priority items that can be released.
• Served as the company's Scrum Master, facilitating the ceremonies of Agile, sprint planning (as well as Release Planning), daily Stand-ups, demonstrations, Sprint Reviews, and retrospectives.
• Delivered hands-on coaching to tech leads, developers, and testers on how to estimate story points, break down stories into tasks and keep track of their hours.
• Publicized team's progress and successes to make sure they are highly visible to product owner / stakeholders utilizing burndown charts.
• Thorough understanding of software development methodologies such as Agile, Waterfall, RUP Iterative System Development Life Cycle process and Agile/Scrum iterative development and Hybrid Model.
• Professional expertise in working with multiple teams on different levels of Scaled Agile Frameworks.
• Facilitated all scrum ceremonies for Scrum and Kanban teams, where ceremonies include such as Product Backlog meeting, Daily Scrum meeting, Stand-up, Sprint Planning meeting, Sprint Review meeting, Release Planning and Retrospective meeting.
• Enforced Kanban principles as a Scrum Master that resulted in reduction of Cycle time by 20% thus increasing team is throughout in less than 8 weeks.
• Extensive knowledge in maintaining Product backlog, Burn down charts and Team Velocity.
• Collaborated closely with Product Owner on backlog grooming to keep product backlog relevant and prioritized, ensuring acceptance criteria are agreed upon and stories are ready for sizing.
• Effectively track team’s progress, including burn down, velocity and release forecasting.
• Eliminated Impediments that stops to achieve the objectives / Sprint Goal .
• Based on Priorities and scope, supported the Product Owner on his efforts.
• Used Agile Project Management tools like Atlassian JIRA and Confluence.
• Developed all custom project processes, workflows, and schemes within JIRA to accommodate the organization's needs.
• Integrated JIRA and Confluence as trusted applications.
• Facilitated Scrum of Scrums ( SoS ) for onshore/offshore teams in India.
• Experience in working with Scrum & Kanban as an Agile Practitioner .
• Experience with tools including JIRA Software, Confluence, Kanban, Lean Management, Rally, HP-ALM, GIT and Jenkins to implement the User Stories and User Requirements.
• Facilitated Scrum events, ceremonies, and act as an excellent Servant Leader .

Confidential, BUFFALO, NY

Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

• Lead daily stand-ups and scrum ceremonies for 2 scrum teams.
• Worked with product owners to groom the backlog and plan sprints.
• Track, escalate and remove impediments.
• Report at daily Scrum of Scrum meetings.
• Track burn down, issues and progress in VersionOne.
• Work with component teams to resolve issues.
• Improved team velocity by incorporating capacity planning into sprint planning sessions.
• Implemented Issues Tracking in VersionOne to effectively track impediments against user stories.
• Coordinated to provide Business Requirements and Functional Requirements.
• Managed full SDLC, from ideation, to discovery, to execution, then to deployment.
• Assessed the Scrum Maturity of the team and coaches the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team.
• Assist with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating information.
• Schedule and facilitate regular team retrospective meetings per the scrum framework.
• Schedules, plans, and facilitates collaboration per the Scrum framework, daily stand-up meetings, regular iteration reviews and planning meetings between the team, Product Owner, and stakeholders.
• Facilitate sprint planning sessions and ensure that teams understand their ability (velocity) to meet sprint commitments.
• Ensures team’s sense of accountability to their commitments and to other team members.
• Ensure that through impediment removal and identification, adherence to agile process, and that an Agile streamlined escalation process is in place for changes that impact iteration completion or that introduces a significant scope/schedule increase.
• Ensure teams embrace the engineering standards, best practices, tools, and reusable assets as defined for the overall engineering department.
• Managed issues and risk management for the teams.
• Raised items appropriately to team and leadership.
• Assisted as needed to help remove impediments and distractions that interfere with the ability of the team to deliver on the Sprint goal.
• Key role in researching, gaining approval for, and then using tools such as Pivotal Tracker and JIRA to successfully support Scrum implementations.
• Data migration/prime for transition to an Agile enterprise level tool, VersionOne.

Confidential, ALBANY, NY

Scrum Master/Lead QA Analyst

Responsibilities:

• Confidential - Department of Taxation and Finance is dedicated in providing world-class customer service, striving to achieve the vision as an agency that provides fair tax administration, offers easy access, responsive service to taxpayers and contributes to the vitality of Confidential 's economy.
• Started off as a Lead QA Analyst then moved into the QA Lead/Scrum Master role after taking Agile and Scrum coaching in the organization, then progressed towards full time Scrum Master role.
• Worked with Senior Management, Business & Release Management to understand the vision of the product, prioritize and develop software release planning.
• Determined the team capacity (velocity) from historical data.
• Created Work Break down structure (user stories) and corresponding activities (tasks).
• Monitored the project progress and radiated the information to stake holders.
• Identified and mitigated team risks and impediments (Blocking Issues, Critical Defects) on daily basis.
• Organized and facilitated Scrum ceremonies/Cadence meetings, Sprint planning, Daily stand-ups, Reviews, Retrospectives, Release planning, Product and sprint backlog grooming and Sprint demos.
• Tracked and communicated team velocity, sprint progress and daily/weekly burn down charts.
• Coached and assisted the team with relative story sizing/estimation, task definition and Acceptance/Doneness criteria.
• Developed and followed Agile Project Management plan (Agile Ceremonies).
• Facilitated build requirements log (product backlog) with cost estimates and priority.
• Worked under Systems Analysis and Testing Bureau (SATB) team, a part of the Enterprise Services (e-Services) and e-MPIRE System (e-Managed Processes for an integrated Revenue Enterprise) which is the most highly visible application at Tax and has the largest impact on the citizenry.
• Extensively involved with On-Line Services (OLS) and Online Tax Center (OTC) applications, a gateway to efficient service and virtual one-stop shop for e-services, continues to gain fans, expand to ease filing and compliance.
• OTC offers individual taxpayers, business tax professionals and payroll service providers a convenient way to handle their tax obligations.
• Developed Use Cases to highlight different requirements from the SRS (Software Requirement Specification) and SDS (Software Design Specification) gathered the business requirements, document and create functional test plans.
• Conducted functional, integration, security, and regression testing.
• Created Test Plan, Test Cases and Test Specification Document for the AUT (Application Under Test) based on corresponding business/user requirements, documents, technical specification, and other operating conditions.
• Tracked, reviewed, analyzed, and compared defects using IBM Rational ClearQuest.
• Performed regression testing for the entire application once the bugs were fixed.
• Led 4 testers throughout all the testing cycles/phases, organized, managed planning, execution of Test Cases, tracking and fixation of the errors/defects using Quality Center 9.2 and IBM Rational ClearQuest.

Confidential, COLUMBUS, GA

Senior Automation Tester/QA Analyst

Responsibilities:

• Load, Execute and modify scripts using WorkSoft Certify automation testing tool.
• Certify is an integrated test repository and automated test execution solution that supports enterprise level Business Process Certification.
• Create and modify data tables using SQL to derive automation.
• Developed, communicated test strategy, software test plans, workflows including software test data requirements to establish test environment criteria within the Agile Development Process.
• Analyzed and Tested Bi-Lingual/Multi-Lingual (English, Spanish) projects.
• Responsible for validating applications on the Mainframe using NBCA, NTRL, NX90 commands.
• Validate Data mapping for client/server applications.
• Used BlueZone which is a Web-to-host and desktop-terminal emulator for IBM mainframes.
• It is highly customized and Windows-Based Terminal Emulation Software.
• Experience in working with SNG application, SNG VIA is a project to provide an associate with a virtualized SmartApp Next Generation (SNG) application which runs locally on a personal laptop or PC.
• The overall objective is to provide a simplistic mechanism in distributing the application while lowering the cost.