CAREER SUMMARY:

• In the most recent role as Scrum Master @ IBM, managed three cross - site teams of 20+ people across multiple Sprints and Releases. Supported the PO and coached & empowered the team, removing impediments, coaching on Scrum framework and mindset.
• Facilitated meetings, planning sessions, daily stand ups and retrospectives - during which helped Team/PO in User Story elaboration, relative sizing, tasking, release & spring planning and sprint execution.
• In an earlier role as Technical Project Manager @Confidential, piloted the first transformation from waterfall to agile, amongst IS teams. Increased CSAT score from internal client within 2 releases.
• Played a key role in reducing the cycle time on various process legs and thus increasing efficiency.
• Won “Dear Boss” award for my support and coaching to the team.
• Started my career as a programmer and went on to lead a team and there on grew into Project management role - have been hands-on technically through my career.
• Worked on Waterfall Projects, Waterfall to Agile Transformation projects and on Scrum features.
• Experience on various domains like Telecommunication projects, Employee Management application development, Total Outsourcing and Tax Provisioning and Planning etc.

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Project Management Tools: MS Project, MS Visio

MS Office Suite: Excel, Word, Power Point

Technologies: Java, J2EE, JavaScript, SQL, Oracle, ASP, HTML, VB Script, .NET

Domains: Corporate Tax Solution Platform, HR Employee Management, and Total Hardware Outsourcing and Telecommunication

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Scrum Master / Agile Coach

Middletown, NJ.

Responsibilities:

• Facilitated multiple teams as Scrum Master, after they transitioned from waterfall to Agile, working with a couple of offshore teams as well
• Focused primarily on training the teams & PO 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 most of all coaching teams to work collaboratively.
• Brought in Agile best practices such as working collaboratively, time-boxing, code/design reviews, transparency, accountability, tracking using Rally-ALM Tool, product visioning, defect reduction, technical debt reduction, empowerment and role training resulting in realized velocity improvement of more than 100%
• Executed change management during the process of backlog prioritization and addition of tasks to the prioritized Product backlog. By locking down the scope of every Sprint, enabled the team to efficiently optimize and manage their work and effort.
• As a Scrum Master for three products and three separate cross-site teams (5-6 member teams), identified process changes required to accelerate development and remove major impediments. In eight weeks, reduced time to ship by approximately 30%. To achieve these results, updated group’s processes to conform to Agile Scrum standards
• Facilitated Agile ceremonies like Daily Scrum calls, Self-assessment, Retrospectives etc.
• As a Scrum Master in an Agile Release Train team, facilitated cross-team interactions, periodic synchronization meetings
• Facilitated team PI Objectives with Program PI Objectives and published them for visibility and transparency
• Collaborated between Scrum teams, System and Solution Architects, Product Management and Release Management and supported related activities in the larger Program and Enterprise context.
• Facilitated System Demos and Solution Demos
• Coached teams, Leaders, Product Owners and other Scrum Masters in Agile practices, Rally tool usage and mindsets.

Scrum Master / QA Analyst Level II

Berwyn, PA, USA

Responsibilities:

• Started on the Scrum Team as QA Analyst Level II and took over as Scrum Master due to my prior Project Management experience.
• Was nominated to formally receive the Certified Scrum Master in order to help in my role.
• Facilitated sprint planning, daily stand ups, retrospectives, stakeholder meetings, and software demonstrations.
• Protected scrum team from outside distractions, impediments or team conflicts, and maintain focus on product backlog and timeline. 
• Worked closely with Agile Coach/SME & PO, from defining the initial Product Backlog to Release planning and actual sprint execution aligning with of quarterly releases.
• Worked with the team on consecutive 2-week sprints, coaching and guiding them on various activities like user story refining, planning, story slicing & sizing, tasking, done-ness, etc.
• Devised the “Agile Thinking” campaign in order to get the team and key stakeholders aligned and focused on scrum framework.
• Empowered the team, to self-organize, voice their thoughts and feelings during planning meetings & retrospectives, coached them to come up with strategies to resolve issues, mitigate risks etc.
• Strived to make the team think towards the bigger goal rather than individual goals.

TECHNICAL PROJECT MANAGER

Responsibilities:

• Managed the Development and QA teams totaling 6 members.
• Main focus on understanding & identifying business processes (of Total Outsourcing Division) to be automated where it was earlier manual.
• Designed and implemented various applications like the Balance Score Card, Asset Deployment Request Automatic Data Loading & Report Generation from SAP etc, which reducing human errors by 75% and reduced the workflow cycle by almost 80% and thus allowing the teams to take on more business and thus increase revenue.
• Streamlined the earlier waterfall delivery model and went on to pilot the first 2 teams transitioning to Scrum framework, which resulted in increased CSAT ratings from the client, within 2 releases.
• Presented a quarterly vision-for-the-next and status report to the General Manager, Information Systems.
• Coached the teams on Agile Principles, and supported the team through the transition, on both soft issues, risks and technical aspects wherever required.
• Engaged with the Client, making the process more transparent, and bringing in Scrum methods to keep it flexible while still quickly delivering their highest priorities with high quality features.
• Monitored team’s progress, organized training sessions based on needs, evaluated performances and provided inputs to higher management for the teams career planning.
• Conducted interviews to hire new members for both my teams as well as for external teams.
• Won Wipro’s “Dear Boss” award from my team, for my support & coaching during the Agile transformation.

PROJECT LEAD / Sr. PROGRAMMER ANALYST 

Responsibilities:

• Created and Maintained web applications wrt HR Intranet, used by over 100,000 employees.
• Programmed the enhancements on critical applications like Attendance, Leave, Survey, Effort Management and internal job openings - using Java, J2EE, JavaScript & SQL / ASP, VBScript & Oracle.
• Designed and Developed code for front end and back end.
• Supported & troubleshot technical issues on same.
• Conducted Document and Code Reviews for peers.
• Successfully deployed code, updated VSS and maintained required documents on time, while tracking and taking defects to closure and reporting to Lead.
• Involved in Unit testing, Integration, Regression and Functionality testing before handing over for User Acceptance Testing.
• Lead of team of 5 programmers.
• Trained team members and reviewed their work.
• Prepared project plans and allocated tasks- tracked them to closure.
• Interfaced with internal client to understand upcoming needs and priorities, signed off quarterly.
• Identified and Implemented best practices within my team as a Project Lead.
• Systematized an on-boarding program for new members on our team, training them based on their new roles as either Programmer Analyst or Test Analyst.
• Provided timely status report to the Project Manager on progress and risks.

PROGRAMMER ANALYST 

Responsibilities:

• Programmed tones for Korean Market using Nortel’s proprietary coding language PROTEL.
• Was involved in customer meeting right from the Functional Specs reviews and conducted code reviews for peers, developed code based on designs provided. Prepared all relevant documentation as required including traceability matrix, Test Plans, Test Cases & UAT cases.
• Black Box Testing on Nortel Telecom Switch for which team was developing Network Tones
• Defect reporting and tracking on tool, bug fixes, re-testing and closing the defects.