Scrum Master, SAFe certified, Agile Project Manager

Kodandaram

Email: ****.*****@*****.***

Ph: 919-***-****

PMP / CSM / Scaled Agilist / ITIL / ServiceNow

Experienced Project Manager and Scrum Master with a proven record of driving project success in the IT industry. I excel in serving Agile teams, Project Planning, minimizing scope change, and controlling project performance. My commitment to work combined with a servant-leader approach enables me to build cohesive teams that deliver value.

Core Competencies:

Certified Project Management Professional with experience of working directly with Executive Management

Certified Scrum Master with thorough understanding of Iterative Software development, Lean and Agile processes such as Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Kanban.

Experience in diversified fields of the Software Development Life Cycle with expertise in managing end to end lifecycle processes using Waterfall & Agile methodologies.

Well versed in DevOps, Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery.

Experience of working effectively in a Dynamic, Fast-paced development environment coordinating between multiple teams.

Ability to estimate the resource load, prioritize and proactively manage the IT customer expectations.

Manage the day to day project deliverables, including the business requirements, technical specifications and rollout plan needed to bring added value to a growing dynamic organization.

Remarkable knowledge of IT Infrastructure Services and IT Service Management concepts and interactions between key ITIL processes: Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Asset, Knowledge, Event and others.

Conducted the Agile and DevOps workshops at the Organizational level and received accolades from the Executive management.

Efficient Verbal and Written communication, including the ability to effectively interact with all levels of management in an organization.

Excellent team facilitation and Conflict resolution skills including arbitration, negotiation, reasoned discussion or escalation.

Member of Agile COE; Hosts and Actively participate in the agile events.

Technical Skills:

Operating Systems

Windows 98/ 2000 / XP/ Vista / 7 / 8 /10, Z/OS(IBM Mainframe)

Languages

HTML, Visual Basic, JCL, COBOL, JavaScript,

Database

MS-Access, MySQL, IMS, SQL Server, DB2, Oracle 8i/9i

Application

Microsoft Office Applications 2007 & 2010 (Word, Excel, Access, Power Point).

Tools

JIRA, Rally, IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC),IBM Rational Clear Quest, QTP, VMware Service Manager Version 9, SAP Business Objects BI,

HP Quality Centre 9.2, ServiceNow, GIT, UrbanCode Deploy,

Education:

Degree : Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering

Duration: Sept 2004 - May 2008

Certifications:

SAFe Agilist (SA)

PMI - Project Management Professional (PMP)

Scrum Master Certified (CSM)

ServiceNow Certified System Administrator

ITIL Foundation Certified

Project Experience:

Client: United Services Automobile Association

Location: San Antonio, TX

Role: Project Manager / Scrum Master

Date of Employment: October 2016 – Present

Description: "Operating Model" program in the Property &Casualty portfolio has visibility at the Executive management level and is aimed at developing the basis which serve as the foundation for all the efforts under portfolio to be aligned with the Organization's strategy. Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) has been chosen to coordinate the work of all the teams to achieve Enterprise's mission. This program consist of 6 teams working hand in hand producing the required deliverables.

Key Responsibilities:

oThorough understanding of the way project activities contribute to achieving strategic business goals and operational objectives.

oSetting up the project area and multiple team areas using the Agile project management tool.

oManaging the user administration, roles, access permissions and maintain the team dashboards and artifacts.

oWorking closely with cross-functional teams and resources to achieve program and project milestones within established timeframes.

oPartner with key stakeholders and senior leadership in laying the foundation necessary for transforming to a Lean Agile Enterprise.

oAssist the Lean Agile change agents in providing guidance to the teams around developing value-driven culture and adopting Lean Agile practices.

oFacilitate various planning meetings aimed at building the roadmap of development work.

oConduct workshops for the decomposition of product Features into technical User Stories.

oWork with the Executives across various teams such as Portfolio Planning, Change Management, Legal, Risk and others to ensure the project is progressing as planned

oSet up the Agile Release Train Synchronization meeting for all teams to discuss the status of the Program Increment initiatives and resolve any cross-team dependencies

oWork in partnership other Scrum Teams, Agile Release Trains and Value Streams as needed for planning and release management

oCreate dashboards, generate reports for the team and Product Management.

oManage and optimize flow of work through the teams

oFoster a positive work environment that demonstrates commitment and trust amongst the teams and across functions.

oIdentify areas of inefficient processes, counterproductive practices, wasteful activities and work on eliminating them.

Client: United Services Automobile Association

Location: San Antonio, TX

Role: Scrum Master

Date of Employment: Nov 2015 – Sep 2016

Description: " Service Now Implementation" project is responsible for the migration to a new IT Service Management tool. VMware Service Manager is replaced with a new tool from Service Now. Defining the existing organizational processes, optimize the workflows by eliminating the unwanted tasks and leverage the features offered by the new tool.

Key Responsibilities:

oGather detailed Business and Technical requirements from Key Stakeholders

oTransform requirements into User stories that represent actionable development tasks to be added to the Product backlog.

oResponsible for conducting the Agile Scrum Ceremonies - Story writing, Iteration Planning, Backlog grooming, Iteration Demo, Review and Retrospective.

oDiscussion with the process Consultants regarding the scope for Continuous Service Improvement and resolution of any impediments that are hindering the progress.

oParticipate in the "Scrum of Scrums" meeting to discuss potential issues concerning multiple process areas

oPart of the Centralized CORE team handling all ServiceNow processes within the Organization

oProduce and present consolidated reports regularly to all stakeholders.

oPlan Agile-Scrum training for the team members and stake holders as needed.

oEffective handling of the User Administration - Users, Groups and corresponding Roles.

oPreparing Implementation Plan for every release in ServiceNow and provide Walkthrough to the entire team to execute the steps

Client: United Services Automobile Association

Location: San Antonio, TX

Role: Scrum Master / Project Coordinator

Date of Employment: Jan 2015 – Oct 2015

Description: " Enterprise Release Quality Team " is responsible for ensuring the quality of the Enterprise Release by providing all the required support. Coordinate with various Development, Testing, Operation teams in order to resolve any Outages in the Production and Pre-production environments . Run the automated scripts for ensuring the health of various environments.

Key Responsibilities:

oCreate and maintain the project area in Rational team concert.

oSet-up the Scrum ceremonies such as sprint planning, demo, retrospective and others.

oProvide guidance to the team on the Agile principles and reaping the benefits of Scrum

oCoordinate the Outages raised in the Pre-Prod environments and engage all the necessary teams for resolution.

oRun the automated scripts on a daily and needed basis to ensure the health of Environments.

oIdentify the scope of improvements with the processes and drive the initiative to completion.

o24*7 support with regards to the production outages and perform the change impact analysis in fixing the issue.

oCommunicate the availability of the Test environments to different teams

oGather metrics on the outages to be presented to the Executive management.

oPerform the analysis and identify the root cause of outages that occur frequently. Work with the respective teams to get the issue fixed.

oCreate scripts to be executed for any new application or new workflow.

oPerform script maintenance on a regular basis to ensure they are consistent with the application flows and modify as needed.

Client: United Services Automobile Association

Location: San Antonio, TX

Role: Change, Configuration & Release Manager.

Date of Employment: Sep 2013 – Dec 2014

Description: "DevOps Services" is the team responsible for providing centralized support and coordination for managing IT changes and to improve the quality of Enterprise Releases. The team also manages all activities related to Change Advisory Board. Interacts will all the Development and Quality Assurance teams in educating and guiding them through the organization standards and policies to ensure a smooth and successful deployment to the production environments.

Key Responsibilities:

oOversee enterprise releases and changes to the existing production baselines using SDLC methodology.

oCoordinate with cross functional IT project teams including QA, UAT, Development and project managers to successfully deliver weekly, minor and major releases.

oManage, review and prioritize all RFC’s (Request for Change) according to release management processes, policies and procedures using IT Service Management tools - VMware Service Manager.

oEvaluate and interpret all changes to determine and understand their impact on Business and IT services.

oLead and organize walk through meetings with IT project teams and stakeholders, to review project roadmaps such as Go/No-Go readiness assessments, task dependencies, review of back out plans, identifying risks and reviewing of test plans ensuring that all initiatives adhere to the release process and procedures.

oOrganize and host the daily CAB (Change Advisory Board) meetings to review any critical changes and approve them after assessing the potential business impact.

oAct as a bridge moderator when outages occur. Analyze the severity level and closely monitor the issue and ensure that the problem is escalated to the appropriate department if needed.

oPrepare metrics using SAP Business Objects Reporting tool and providing demo to the Management on the overall release performance.

oRegular review of the release management documents such as software release policies, procedures, processes & standards to ensure they are all up to date.

oCreation of various Organizational Reports and Dashboards using the SAP Business Objects BI Tool

Client: United Services Automobile Association

Location: Hyderabad, India

Role: Problem & Incident Manager

Date of Employment: Jan 2013 – Aug 2013

Description: "Problem & Incident Management" team is part of the Availability Command Centre, which is the most crucial department of Organization, whose mission is to facilitate 100% system availability for our Members and the Member Service Representatives through best-in-class Return to Service and IT Maintenance & Production Processes. Responsible for working with IT SMEs in identifying and resolving the root cause of service interruptions which impact our customers.

Key Responsibilities:

oIdentify the Major Incidents and ensure that they are properly diagnosed.

oCo-ordinate with Service Desk, IT staff and Customers to ensure that the problems are resolved within the given SLA.

oManagement of the Major Incident process and ensure strict adherence to it.

oCall and chair Post Mortem Review meetings following Major Incidents; issue a written Post Mortem report to IT management; ensure Post Mortem actions are completed in a timely manner;

oProduce trend analysis of recurring Problems/Incidents; extract trends on Incident types, Customer types, key problem areas, departments, hardware types etc; hold regular meetings with IT support groups to review recurring Problems and press for final resolutions.

oProduce 'Escalation Reports' on recurring issues and issues not being resolved.

oDelivering & managing high standard communications across Customers and IT to ensure that problems are dealt with by priority and customer need.

oProvide a practical representation of the Customer view within IT and the Service Centre.

oAttend customer meetings, review SLA performance and take part in new project discussion and present the Service Centre viewpoint.

Client: Bank of America

Location: Hyderabad, India

Role: Technical Analyst

Date of Employment: Feb 2009 – Dec 2012

Description: The overall goal of the project " Batch Strategic & Services " is to maintain the stability of the production environment for Cards applications, perform the impact analysis, design, develop, test and deploy enhancements, and Document the system architecture. Other tasks that are also included in the goal which are Root cause analysis, Performance tuning and process improvements, Knowledge repository maintenance of tickets and issues, Vendor Upgrades and Release, Compliance / Regulatory related audits and reporting.

Key Responsibilities:

oAnalysis of the requirements and develop new JCL, PROC's, PARM's and CA7 as requested by applications team.

oCreation / Implementation of NDM & FTP processes.

oUpdate and verify JCL from developers for new releases, independent initiatives, SIT, Retro-fits, based on received requests.

oFile fixes

oJCL moves & Special overrides

oRun Time Improvement/Automation

oCA7 Scheduling Exceptions

oExecuting the scripts and updating Quality centre.

oUpdate JCL, PROC’s and Parms for abend resolution

oRaising defects, Generating QC summary report and defect status report.

oContention Resolution & Performance improvements

References:

Available on request.

Contact this candidate