Kapur Chand Birdy (B.Sc.)
*** ********* *******, *******, *********, HA9 8RF.
Mob: 077********, e-mail: acd070@r.postjobfree.com
PERSONAL PROFILE:
Self-Motivated, highly flexible and experienced IT/Telecom integration and
Quality Assurance/ Senior Test Manager, Quality Manager with a proven track
record of delivering projects within agreed timescale and budget, in
telecommunications, B2B & commercial market sectors.
Strong leadership, Excellent project planning & technology development
experience.
Results oriented, client & profit-focused with engineering project planning
skills.
Experience of analyzing complex situations, strategic man management, cost
saving & efficiency initiatives, project integration & testing planning,
with strong verbal & written communication & comprehensive IT skills.
KEY SKILLS
. Project planning (project management techniques).
. Effective communication & presentation skills.
. Team leadership & motivation techniques, Coaching & Mentoring. Managed
teams of 17+ staff.
. Over 22 years of extensive product quality assurance, software, systems &
products integration, verification validation and full lifecycle testing
experience:
- Using structured test procedures, black, white and grey box test
techniques.
- Carrying out functional, non-functional, interoperability, formal and
informal testing at all project stages e.g. system testing,
integration testing, end-to-end testing, security testing, stress
testing, performance testing, upgrade testing, disaster recovery
testing, deployment (roll out) testing, user acceptance testing, Data
Migration/backup/Restore and ETL testing.
. Over 10 years' experience as Test Manager, Quality Assurance Manager and
Quality Manager.
. Developing integration and testing strategies, cases, specifications &
plans to standards e.g. IEEE 829, IEEE 1008, BS 7925 and developing
quality plans (QA) to BS5750 and ISO 9001:2000 standards and Capability
Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) framework.
. Test Automation: Microsoft Test Manager, WinRunner, Test Director, QTP
and FitNesse. Developed UNIX and C language based test scripts to
simulate interfaces/messages and missing links/stubs. Also experience of
test automation tools specific for Telecommunication sector.
. Methodologies: RAD, V model, Waterfall model, Use Case & RUP and Agile
(SCRUM).
. Mobile systems and services including GSM, GPRS, WAP, UMTS (3G), and m-
Commerce.
. Systems: Telecom & Digital switching, billing & pricing engines, e-
commerce, Sharepoint, SSRS, Customer Relationship Management, network and
service management, and trading platforms.
. Software skills include C, Oracle, SQL, MySQL, UNIX, Linux, PHP, Java,
J2EE, Apache and .net.
. MS Windows, Word, Excel, Access, Project, Outlook, Explorer skills and
Visual Studio.
. Configuration and fault management tools: Team Foundation Server (TFS)
SureTrack & Perforce.
. Various in-house & external training programs, Health & Safety.
KEY CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS INCLUDE:
. Successfully planned & delivered projects valued at several M to
challenging time & cost targets.
. Managed Integration and test activities on multi delivery-focused
projects based on different sites.
. Developed and implemented integration, testing, delivery, trial and
support infrastructures.
. Built teams from scratch and implemented team wide training requirement
and plan.
. Developed disaster recovery strategies for a number of projects for
commercial and legal reasons.
. Launched UK's first WAP over GPRS, always on mobile web portal, using
state of the art technology thus maintaining company image and lead.
. Managed trials e.g. trial of U.K.'s first e-commerce trial involving BT's
5 key global customers. Improved efficiency, customer satisfaction by
reducing procurement time and improved service visibility for SLA
monitoring and maintenance. Co-ordinated mobile trials.
. Provided 1st and 2nd line support to BT's 5 VIP multinational trial
customers. Trained customers.
. Commended by VIP customers for promptly progressing and resolving
customer specific issues.
. Commended for achieving zero defects during external quality audits -
first time achievement in Mycom's quality history.
. Provided client single point of contact for technical, commercial &
project matters.
. Developed & implemented monitoring systems for tracking required project
information.
. Managed Quality system and processes. Developed performance improvement
processes.
. Initiated & delivered numerous technical recommendations, detailed
guidance & advice.
. Championed BT's integration and testing standards, guidelines and
templates based on industry best practice (BSI and IEEE standards).
. Approved tools e.g. development and test automation for inclusion in a BT
approved tools list.
. Prepared & delivered technical presentations & reports for senior
management teams.
. Lead tough negotiations for the delivery of services & equipment from key
3rd parties.
. Refined and rationalized requirements, provided design consultancy thus
delivering the required services whilst saving development and
maintenance costs that would have otherwise occurred.
. Managed change request, problem report, issues and risks register.
. Evaluated and prioritised problems and issues. Tracked and progressed
problems.
EMPLOYMENT DETAILS:
Sep 2008 - Jun 2013 Quality Assurance Manager (Kynetix)
. Developed overall project Test strategy, test plans and test approach for
development testing, system testing, integration testing, resilience and
stress testing, security and performance testing, upgrade testing,
deployment testing i.e. end-2-end roll out testing and UAT. TDD, BDD,
Data migration, Archiving, restoring data onto upgraded system and ETL
processes were also included.
. Planned, managed and assisted in execution of integration and testing of
complex enterprise based solution as used by London Exchanges for
managing trading of metals and commodities.
. Planned and managed testing of Customer relation management solutions for
Finance markets.
. Provided progress reports to my line management (head of operations) and
key stake holders: director, project manager and Business Analyst,
Customer representatives.
. Reported issues/risks, recommended solutions, planned course of actions
to resolve identified issues that I had the authority to mandate
resolution of. Reported test coverage achieved & outstanding against
planned test coverage.
. Assessed risks: rescheduled and re-prioritised testing activities based
on the relative importance of competing technical and product-orientated
issues identified during testing.
. Introduced and improved CMMI, TMMI and ISO9000 based processes to improve
project quality.
. Developed regression test suite based on manual and test automation. Test
automation tools used were FitNesse, Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) and
Visual Studio.
. Test suite included testing of Performance, security, legal i.e. rent and
weight adjustments etc.
. Enterprise system solutions were implemented in windows GUI client-server
architecture using SQL server, SSRS, Web Services, and .net. Development
methodology used was Agile (SCRUM).
. Lead and participated in best practice improvements initiatives.
Key achievements: 1. Enforced UAT requirements into integration & system
testing stages, thus identifying issues important to customers early on in
project. 2. Enforced configuration management at all levels of the project
for improving version management, tracking & traceability. 3. Implemented
collaborative test lab facility to allow key stakeholders from different
organizations access to system under test. This enabled each stakeholder to
early exposure to the system and enabled them to evaluate and map features
key to their business process and business needs. 4. Gained Key
stakeholders confidence in the quality test approach and test process that
I have implemented.
July 2007 - April 2008 Quality Assurance/ Test Lead (Actix.)
. Planned, managed and assisted in execution of integration and testing of
complex enterprise based operational support system (OSS) solutions used
for management of mobile networks.
. Developed overall project test plans and test approach for different test
phases i.e. development testing, system testing, integration testing,
performance testing, upgrade testing, end-2-end testing and user
acceptance testing.
. Estimated and tracked spend and progress against planned budget and
agreed time schedule.
. Provided and presented weekly consolidate development & test progress
reports to key stake holders: directors, project manager, launch &
support managers and development manager.
o Reported test progress e.g. test coverage achieved & outstanding
against planned.
o Reported bug status i.e. number of bug identified/tested/outstanding.
o Reported issues/risks and recommended solutions for their resolution.
. Reviewed with development issues/bugs and agreed course of action for
their resolution.
. Assessed risks: rescheduled and re-prioritised testing activities based
on the relative importance of competing technical and product-orientated
issues identified during testing.
. Introduced new and improved existing test processes used by test teams.
. Developed test automation suite based on PHP scripts. Developed
regression test suite.
. Recruited and trained new staff in building the test team spread in UK
and USA.
. Enterprise system solutions were developed using agile development
methodology and implemented in windows GUI client - server architecture
using Oracle, Web Services, PHP and .net. Solutions consisted of
Configuration Management, Performance analysis and Management, Trouble-
ticket, RF planning, Performance engineering for the management of Mobile
systems.
. Tested data authentication, validation, cleansing, storage and extraction
(ETL) features of system.
Key achievements: 1. Enforced UAT requirements into integration & system
testing stages, thus identifying issues important to customers early on in
project. 2. Enforced configuration management at all levels of the project
for improving version management, tracking & traceability.
August 2004 - June 2007 Global Quality Manager (Mycom International.)
. Managed different quality systems, e.g. ISO9001 based, in different parts
of this global company.
. Managed Quality KPI in each of the different departments spread across
different sub-continents.
. Planned and audited teams to ensure quality management system is still
affective and followed.
. Identified issues/potential issues with processes. Agrees plan of action
to resolve issues.
. Provide a quarterly audit report to the company directors and Managing
Director (my line manager) outlining Quality status of the company,
effectiveness of the quality management system, issues identified, plan
of action to resolve them, and provided progress status against agreed
plan in resolving issues identified during audits and day to day
observation.
. Represented company's quality system to customers, managed quality
improvement initiatives.
. Project managed plan for migration from existing quality systems in UK
and France to a common companywide quality management system supporting
both ISO9001 and CMMI.
. Enforced E-2-E product life cycle process for each of the product lines -
ISO9001 requirements.
. Planned and managed testing of multiple and parallel test phases. Co-
ordinated with systems teams to plan, estimate test effort and resource
requirements for different test phases/cycles.
Key achievements: Introduced test automation, test processes to align with
industry best practice.
Jun 2004 - July 2004 Senior Test Planner (Compuware.)
Key achievements: identified risks in project plans and focused testing on
key system and interfaces.
Oct 2001 - May 2004 Network Manager, Project Manager and Test Manager
(ISCWA)
Key achievements: Introduced policies and procedures to implement security,
maintain data backup/ restore, build control and guidelines on UAT for
future installation of IT, voice and electrical installation.
Oct 2000 - Oct 2001 Product Integration Manager and Project (Senior)
Test Manager (O2)
. Data-warehouse (CRM) project: Developed integration & test strategies,
project plans and project wide quality system including configuration
management, document control, and quality gates.
. Built non co-located project quality department: e.g. system integration
team, performance & resilience test team, security test team,
configuration management and support teams.
. Developed strategy to integrate the DW to the core mobile network and
associated IT systems consisting of complex legacy management systems,
databases and multi sourced data feeds.
. Project managed End-2-End customer experience evaluation of mobile
products and services.
Jan 1983 - Sep 2000 Various grades e.g. Test / Deployment / Trial &
Support Manager (BT)
. Test Consultant: Responsible for testing OSS Interconnection (e-Commerce)
Gateways. Managed vendors and offshore e-commerce applications
development teams.
. Support and trial Manager: Planned, set-up, delivered, 1st & 2nd line
support and managed trial of an e-Commerce and CRM system. Liaised with
3rd line support to resolve issues that could not be resolved by my team.
Captured and progressed customers feedback for making improvements.
Planned phased roll out and upgrades to deployed system. Championed, for
whole of BT, its integration & testing standards and managed database of
approved development and test tools. Managed 1st and 2nd line support for
broadband platform management systems.
. Integration and test manager: Managed integration and testing of
Broadband operational support systems (OSS). Managed diverse teams of 17
staff, 13+ offshore contract and development staff.
. Senior software development engineer: Developed software for digital
switching systems.
Planning, forecasting, budgeting and tracking spend was key component of
these roles.
EDUCATION
1980 - BSc. Electronics 1978 - HNC (Electronics).
Engineering.
INTERESTS
. Primarily involved in fund raising activities for and supporting a number
of charities.
. Important posts held in these charities include board member, treasurer
and branch secretary.
. Reading technical journals and circulars such as Computer Weekly.