Urander Barksdale

**** ********** ******

Rahway, NJ 07065

H: 732-***-**** acchzw@r.postjobfree.com C: 917-***-****

SUMMARY

Senior QA Professional with broad technical knowledge combined with

outstanding leadership ability, testing skills and creative problem solving

skills in both strategic and tactical areas. Over ten years of experience

in providing QA Test Support and QA Management to various applications.

Proven ability in building solid relationships with strategic partners, IT

Systems and business staff at all levels. Managed and lead the

relationships in an environment with on-shore and off-shore teams.

Committed, experienced, and resourceful in delivering Quality Assurance

support to some of the large - scale applications at Morgan Stanley Smith

Barney and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

MORGAN STANLEY SMITH BARNEY (mssb), New York, NY (3

years)

QA Functional Manager (Consultant) (2010 - 2013)

Responsible for the Quality support of QA for new modules implemented and

converted for the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney applications. Obtained

business knowledge from requirements definition, data models, business

process models, use case documentation and technical infrastructure

architectures. Assisted with the test execution of the Client

Correspondence and Conversion projects.

. Managed and lead large (Lift and Shift) cross-platform testing on the

mainframe system, distributed applications (web services) that focus on

the Finance' Client Reporting and Core Processing business.

. Built solid relationships with strategic partners, the Development

teams, vendors, IT resources and business staff at all levels. Managed

the relationships in an environment with on-shore and off-shore teams.

. Involved in Data Validation for all applications related to the mission

critical applications. Created SQL queries to retrieve the data from the

ETL databases of the performance, finance and retail-based applications.

. Lead globally dispersed team of up to 7 in developing appropriate

testing strategies; defining and executing manual test plans and

scripts; documenting testing results; ensuring the entry/resolution of

defects are logged in the bug tracking tool and communicate statuses to

the project team. Provided mentoring and feedback for the staff's annual

performance reviews.

. Managed and reviewed documentation related to STLC guidelines (Test

Plans, Manual Test Scripts, RTM, Test Completions Reports, etc) to

ensure audit readiness for Audit and Senior Management review.

. Increased the test execution activities related to systems management,

software development, documentation development, testing (Smoke,

Functional, Regression, Integration, Automation), training development

and systems delivery using the Waterfall methodology and tools such as

Quality Center and QTP in iWIN, WIN7, XP and IE8.

. Identified key areas of risk in the testing phase and have used this to

manage the risks and to improve the QA process.

Urander Barksdale

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H: 732-***-**** acchzw@r.postjobfree.com C: 917-***-****

Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), New York, NY (25 years)

QA Manager (2008 - 2010)

Responsible for the management, leadership and test support of QA systems

for new modules implemented for the U.S. Treasury Department's accounting

applications. Obtained business knowledge from requirements definition,

data models, business process models, use case documentation and technical

infrastructure architectures. Adhered to the STLC and SDLC methodology.

. Managed and lead technical staff of five QA Support Analysts.

Personally hired staff; defined individual roles and responsibilities;

conducted annual performance reviews; determined merit pay and provided

mentoring. Promoted an IT Support Analyst and mentored staff as

project leaders.

. Increased the test execution activities related to systems management,

software development, documentation development, testing (Functional,

Regression, Integration, UAT), training development, systems delivery

and production support using various methodologies and tools such as

Quality Center and UNIX. Adhered to CMM (Compatibility Maturity

Modeling) guidelines which resulted in successful migration and

minimized risk by reducing errors by 50% - 60%. Managed test

activities.

. Delivered business process excellence projects. Developed a process map

that eliminated duplication and increased efficiency and minimized risk

on the production support of the business applications by 30% and

implemented templates to increase the efficiency of the Change

Management process by 90%.

. Assisted with the test support of the various applications such as

developing the test artifacts (test plan, migration plan, test

completion report, manual test scripts).

. Developed and trained the staff on the automated scripts using QTP v8.0

and v9.0. Executed the test scripts for the various applications and

logged the defects using Quality Center, Quick Test Pro (QTP) v8.0 and

v9.0, Robohelp, AccVerify, Remedy and ClearQuest.

. Communicated with the Stakeholders, Senior Management, peers, direct

reports and IT staffs regarding the test statuses, defect management,

planning and budgeting for the team and the project.

QA Test Lead (2006 - 2008)

Managed and lead an application support staff of five QA Support Analysts

in the testing and maintenance of multiple mission critical business

applications for foreign payment systems within the FRBNY and for the

Government Wide Accounting system with the Department of Treasury. Obtained

business knowledge from requirements definition, data models, business

process models, use case documentation and technical infrastructure

architectures. Adhered to the STLC methodology.

. Lead 5 QA Support Analysts to provide QA support on applications for the

Department of Treasury and Market-based applications at the FRBNY.

Directed daily project execution activities related to STLC and SDLC

guidelines (Test Plans, Test Scripts, RTM, Migration Plans, Test

Completion Reports, etc). Managed all test activities.

. Built and transitioned a QA team of 5 QA Support Analysts to a new

location to ensure a seamless transition of test and production support

to the various customers of the FRBNY and Department of Treasury.

. Provided the knowledge transfer to the QA Analysts in New Jersey and

St. Louis on software maintenance, software use and administration of

the various applications.

. Assisted with the test execution of the various applications (Smoke,

Functional, Integration, Regression, User Acceptance) using Quality

Center.

. Ensured deliverables are met; test artifacts were developed and

completed and the entry/resolution of defects were logged in the bug

tracking tool; Communicated statuses to the project team.

. Detailed knowledge of the Markets: Foreign Exchange (FX) Payment

"trading" applications: Mainframe, FedLine LAN, Mint, CAPS, CBMS using

SWIFT messages.

. Built solid relationships with strategic partners, the Development

teams, vendors, IT resources and business staff at all levels regarding

the test statuses, defect management, planning and budgeting for the

team and the project.

Urander Barksdale

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H: 732-***-**** acchzw@r.postjobfree.com C: 917-***-****

Team Lead (2000 - 2006)

Served as liaison between the IT Systems and business staffs. Responsible

for test and production support of multiple mission critical software

applications for payment transactions and developed automated scripts for

daily monitoring and test execution. Held increasingly responsible

positions as a systems analyst and team leader. Obtained experience with

interface methodologies, including MQ Series.

Operations Support (1984 - 2000)

Served as support between the IT Systems and business staffs. Responsible

for supporting the hardware and software applications maintained by the

business staffs.

EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

B.B.A, Management Information Systems, PACE University, New York, NY

Certified Test Foundation Level, ASTQB

Elements of Leadership, Negotiation Skills, Performance Management,

Information Security

SKILLS

Programming /Software Applications/Operating Systems

. Mercury Quality Center, Mercury Quick Test Professional, Rational Clear

Quest, Remedy, Robohelp, AccVerify, File Transfer Protocol (FTP),

Telnet, SQL, Microsoft Windows XP/2000/NT/95/Vista/XP/iWIN/WIN 7,

Visual Basic, LDAP, ITIL Process, MQ Series, Solaris (UNIX), Connect

Direct, SharePoint

. Microsoft - Project, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer.

. Adobe Viewer; Adobe Acrobat, HTML.

. Web sphere, Visio 2002, WinZip, Lotus 1-2-3, Lotus Notes, PeopleSoft

General Technical Training

. Project Management - Overview, Startup and Planning, Basic Scheduling,

Execution and Close-down.

. Rapid Application Development (RAD) Overview, Overview of Business

Process Excellence (BPeX) and Software Process Improvement, Technical

Writing Skills, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Capability

Maturity Modeling (CMM), Earned Value Management (EVM).

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