SUMMARY

• Agile Coach/Scrum Master with 17+ years of solid Software Delivery experience organizing, training, and coaching teams in the delivery of high - value, scalable and reliable business solutions. Believes in a pragmatic, methodology agnostic, learn-by-doing approach to cultural agility and improvements in an organization.
• 3+ years’ experience as an Agile Coach
• 5+ years’ experience in the Agile world
• Scaled Agile Framework Program Consultant with SPC4 Certification, CSP Certification (Certified Scrum Professional), CSM Certification (Certified Scrum Master) and Project Manager with PMP Certification (Project Management Professional)
• Presenter and Facilitator of 2-day Agile Boot Camp / Training sessions
• Proven ability to work with diverse clients in many industries.
• Train/Mentor/Coach Executives on all aspects of Agile
• Ability to quickly establish collaborative partnerships with key stakeholders and team members to help them on their journey of adopting Agile
• Able to establish and maintain strong relationships, establish credibility, build consensus, and achieve goals through influence
• Have faced difficult challenges, group dynamics, organizational impediments, and have become a coach to teams, managers and others
• Prepared and delivered effective communication of progress including the use of agile metrics and maturity assessments
• Strong project management skills, including the ability to prioritize work and meet deadlines
• Excellent working knowledge of Agile, Lean, SCRUM, KANBAN and other AGILE process frameworks with the ability to transition organizations from Waterfall to Agile at the Portfolio, Program & Team level
• Have worked in multiple roles with Fortune 500 & Government clients with business, functional and technical teams. Commended for promoting Agile principles at the grass-root level and eventually leading to better Agile environment in multiple organizations
• Expert in all Phases of SDLC with Waterfall & Agile
• Written several papers on how to transition from Waterfall to Agile
• An expert in Rally and JIRA, Coached & supported the enterprise toolset adoption for Enterprise Portfolio Planning and Management, including various plugins (HipChat, Confluence, GitHub…)
• Deep skills in estimation, story slicing, grooming, and other Agile techniques
• Solid experience leading Scrum events: Planning, Daily Scrums, Reviews / Demos, and Retrospectives
• Striving for Continual improvement - always on the look for growing ones craft learning new tools and techniques to manage oneself and a team
• Well versed in working in Matrix & Functional organizations
• Experienced in Web based, Java, J2EE, JavaScript, .NET, VBScript, Mainframe & PeopleSoft applications with functional proficiency in Banking, Finance, Insurance, Inventory Systems & Healthcare domains
• Self-starter able to work well in new and undefined environments
• Outstanding organizational and time-management skills
• Outstanding communication, facilitation, organization, and coaching skills
• Ability to productively converse with business stakeholders and engineers alike
• Excellent leadership and project management skills
• Ability to work independently at a high level with minimal direction
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and presentation skills (including executive audiences)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Confidential

Agile Coach/Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

• Coaching and Training at the Business, Program and Team levels
• Able to Coach Multiple Scrum Masters/ATFs and their teams in Lean Agile principles and Scrum / Kanban practices to optimize benefits of being Agile
• Fostering a culture of unity amongst the Scrum Master, PO and the Engineering teams
• Facilitating 2-day PI planning event across different timezones and different programs
• Conducted ‘The Big Room’ meeting for Release Planning amongst multiple Agile teams
• Act as an enterprise evangelist of agile ceremonies, practices and values.
• Regularly assisting teams on how to extract value out of Agile ceremonies - Sprint Planning, Backlog Refinement, Demo, Retrospectives
• Working with individuals in the teams to alleviate their apprehension towards being Agile
• Presenter and Facilitator of 2-day Agile Boot camps / training sessions held enterprise-wide by the Agile Transformation Office
• Helping support the enterprise Agile toolset adoption (Rally, JIRA - HipChat, Confluence…)
• Enabling a culture of continuous improvement
• Partnered to develop and transition plans, including ongoing success measures to sustain the change
• Effective communication with managers, peers and business partners on deliverables, timelines and support needed from them
• Helping teams in defining their Value Stream Map
• Coaching Kanban teams on the Kanban core principles and helping them gain value
• Hi-touch Coaching for five to six teams simultaneously in implementing and practicing Agile Principles
• Coaching Scrum and Kanban teams in parallel
• Creating & Tracking Milestones for multiple teams
• Promoting collaboration between multiple self-organizing, cross-functional development teams
• Mentoring the team members to be truly Agile, including ownership, self-management and empowerment
• Engage multiple roles and stakeholders in critical discussions and consensus building
• Working closely with management for the overall portfolio Theme, Initiative and MVPs of the organization focusing on the big picture
• Helping to identify and minimize external dependencies in feature/product development
• Create a collaborative environment which allows the team and clients to interact closely
• Fostering a culture of open communication while actively contributing to the Agile community and to the evolution of the company’s agile practices, processes and tools.

Confidential

Agile Coach/Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

• Coaching and mentoring teams on being self-organized.
• Focused to address Cost of Delay in the value chain.
• Maintaining focus on the Architectural Runway.
• Aligning PI and Sprint Cadence between multiple teams in the train.
• Continuous Integration at the Team level.
• Instrumental in the Train Level Release Planning across 50+ geographically dispersed team members.
• Developing on Cadence, Releasing on Demand.
• Helping as a Release Train Engineer (RTE) in the Scaled Agile Framework.
• Helping build Strategic Themes of the organization.
• As a Scrum Master, coached two to three teams in implementing and practicing Agile Principles.
• Servant Leader who is able to garner respect from team and willing to get my hands dirty to get the job done.
• Promoting the concepts of TDD.
• Test Automation Pyramid promotion by suggesting spending greatest effort on Unit, then Service & lastly on UI automation.
• An expert at Managing Scrum Team Dependencies by succeeding to perform Rolling look ahead planning.
• Cultivating an environment of Collective Ownership.
• Encouraging the team members to do Continuous Integration.
• Pair Programming was successfully implemented within the group.
• Periodic evaluation of how much Agile is working in the organization by tweaking the Comparative Agility (CA) assessment to fit the needs of the organization.
• Creating & Tracking Milestones for multiple teams.
• Guide management on effective Agile Portfolio / Program management.
• Partner with Product Management to achieve maximum project return on investment and meet project objectives.
• Promotes collaboration between many self-organizing, cross-functional development teams.
• Act as an enterprise evangelist of agile ceremonies, practices and values.
• Mediate, arbitrate, mitigate and facilitates impediments with the team members and the organizational hierarchy.
• Foster a culture of open communication while actively contributing to the Agile community and to the evolution of the company’s agile practices, processes and tools.
• Identify and manage cross-team dependencies through Scrum of Scrums.
• Conducted ‘The Big Room’ meeting for Release Planning amongst multiple Scrum teams.
• Worked Incrementally & Iteratively to meet product goals.
• Progressively refined plans with the team.
• Part of communities of practice called the Agile Task Force (ATF) in the organization.
• Generating meaningful results out of Confidential Agile CoE (PMO) by assisting People, Projects & Process.
• Ensures Timebox is followed on all Agile Ceremonies.
• Mentoring the team members to be truly Agile, including ownership, self-management and empowerment.
• Sprint Planning using various techniques and guiding the team to get better at planning.
• Extracts meaningful results out of Sprint Retrospectives.
• Engage multiple roles and stakeholders in critical discussions and consensus building.
• Coach and support continuous improvement within the team.
• Conducts Sprint Planning meeting for multiple teams to identify, estimate, prioritize & allocate the Sprint Backlog & Product Backlog.
• Works closely with management for the overall portfolio Theme, Initiative and Features of the organization focusing on the big picture.
• Create a collaborative environment which allows the team and clients to interact closely.
• Coordinate with other Scrum Masters and their teams on deliverables.
• Help identify and mitigate any external dependency risks in feature/product development.

Confidential

Sr. Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

• As a Scrum Master, coached a cross-functional team in implementing and practicing Agile Principles.
• Worked closely with Product Owners to ensure backlog items are properly and fully defined prior to acceptance into an iteration/sprint.
• Created and maintained release burn downs, velocity projections and project forecasts in order to create project visibility and enable timely project adjustments.
• Deciphering team Burn down charts.
• Commended for a hybrid approach with traditional Project Management along with Agile Scrum.
• Invented the User Story scale - INVEST. INVEST scale published in ScrumAlliance.org.
• Plan the team's meetings like Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-up, Sprint Review and Retrospective.
• Work in cross-functional project teams that include Development, Product Management, Business Analysts, UI, and Quality Assurance.
• Help the team identify its strengths and weaknesses.
• Ensure high throughput of development teams by identifying potential issues and roadblocks and working on preventing or eliminating them.
• Conducted Sprint Planning meeting to identify, estimate, prioritize & allocate the Sprint Backlog & Product Backlog.
• Develop, implement and manage team metrics, evaluate team metrics and make recommendations to teams and management for improvements.
• Organized and facilitated project planning, daily stand-up meetings, reviews, retrospectives & sprint planning.
• As part of Transition to Hybrid Waterfall Scrum, developed the Project Charter, Preliminary scope statement, initial project management plan, WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), project scheduling using MS Project and Project workflow based on PPM system.
• Coordinated between various teams using Share point.
• Applying the principles of Scrum for achieving project goals.
• Mentor Product Owners to write effective User Stories.
• Helped the team to achieve Sprint goals.
• Solved impediments on a regular basis.

Confidential

Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

• As a Scrum Master, was responsible for the first pilot team to try out Scrum.
• Commended for introducing & sustaining Agile in a government agency with ERP PeopleSoft development environment.
• Promoted and educated the entire organization to understand AGILE principles.
• Facilitated the team's daily work including all the scheduled meetings.
• Facilitated issue resolution within the team.
• Conduct training to upper level management & peers on Scrum.
• Handled tough questions from non-Agile stakeholders who try to derail Agile initiative.
• Presented periodic Status Reports to upper level Management.

Confidential

Project Manager

Responsibilities:

• Created the Project Management Plan using MPP from start to finish.
• Created the Work Breakdown Structure WBS as part of Scope Planning.
• Managed & Coordinated project tasks with Functional & Technical teams.
• Estimated Activity Resource & Duration for MLA (Manual Leave Adjustment) module.
• Ensuring Activity completion according to Project Plan.
• Directly involved in managing the project execution.
• Helped the QA team in Project Quality Management for better organizing & executing QA activities.
• Planned and coordinated tasks for various dependent teams.
• Analyzed Project Risks during execution phase & took corrective actions based on the Mitigation plan.
• Maintaining Schedules & Activities using MS Project.
• Created impressive PowerPoint presentations for internal & external Stakeholders.
• Perform Effort Estimation for Project Scheduling.
• Helped in the creation of Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM).
• Managed, Lead & Supervised consultants & employees in PeopleSoft HRMS / HCM 9.
• Created complex functional SQL queries using TOAD & SQL Server.
• Backend SQL validation of complex functional results.
• Possess Functional and Technical knowledge on various modules of PeopleSoft HCM Solutions.
• Good Knowledge of Application Designer, People Code, SQR, Application Engine, PS Query, Crystal.
• Fully responsible for Performance Management & Longevity Increment projects.
• Produce & co-ordinate Production go-live day Runbook.
• Used various Management tools for Development & QA monitoring & controlling like IBM Suite of products-Rational Test Manager & ClearQuest, HP Quality Center 9.2.
• Analyzing the Business Requirements of the City Agencies.
• Conducting Walkthroughs to gain approvals of the Work Product Deliverables.
• Analyzing the Business Requirements of the City Agencies.
• Presented periodic Status Reports to upper level Management.
• Top Management Status Reporting.

Confidential

Technical Lead for Onsite & Offshore

Responsibilities:

• Onsite Technical Lead Coordinator of the team managing 8 engineers.
• Created the Project Plan with approval from the client.
• Responsible for monitoring & controlling of Development, System testing & UA testing.
• Responsible for ‘Go or No Go’ decisions.
• Efficiently managed multiple products with the available resources along with monitoring the life cycle of the products.
• Involved in Scope Planning & Scope Definition.
• Created Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) with the help of Project Charter.
• Coaching & mentoring offshore teams on product functionality & technicalities.
• Worked with Project Stakeholders and Developers to ensure that all aspects of the system have proper system reliability, performance and quality.
• Responsible for Build & Deployment using JRun and ANT.
• Leading the Functional Testing team for PeopleSoft HRMS GP 8.40 & 8.80.
• Used DML (insert, update, delete Sql queries) to help in creating Test Data.
• Helped in performing Database Cross-Platform Testing in Sql, Db2 & Oracle.
• Performed SQL statement walkthroughs to insure code integrity.
• Backend complex SQL validations.
• Directly responsible for Project Execution.
• Phase-wise Status reporting & periodic progress Reporting.
• Upper Management Error Reporting &Test Status Reporting.