Krishna Kasthuri

E-mail: actbnt@r.postjobfree.com

Tel: 713-***-****

Employer Detail:

Name: Murali

Email: actbnt@r.postjobfree.com

Contact: 615-***-****

Professional Summary

Over 8 years of Business Analysis and Project Management experience in the Insurance(Health& Auto) and Manufacturing Industry Domains.

Excellent Management Skills to go along with robust commination and strong documentation skills including creation of BRD’s, FRD’s, Use-case diagrams, Data-Mapping documents, User Interfaces, Wireframes, Mock-ups, and Process flow diagrams.

Advanced ability to perform Schedule analyses, Cost-Benefit analysis, GAP analysis, Process mapping, Business Process Modeling Notation (B.P.M.N), Root-cause analysis, Risk analysis, Dependency Analysis

Excellent Facilitation and strong presentation skills to champion the requirements meetings with business units to determine project Goals, in scope/ out of scope functionality and organizational value addition.

Expertise at S.D.L.C methodologies like Waterfall, Iteration based Agile methodologies like Spiral, Scrumwith in-depth experience at documenting User Stories and organizing them into Sprints

Expertise in performing GAP Analysis of business rules, business and system process flows, user administration, and requirements.

Knowledge of Rational Unified Process (RUP) as an iterative Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) with implementation of all four phases: inception, elaboration, construction and transition.

Exposure to Master Data Management (MDM) while working on its various processes such as data collection, reference data, data storage, data analysis, data transformation.

Proficient in customizing already existing business practices, workflows, activities and deliverables. Preparing graphical depictions of use cases including Sequence diagrams, activity diagrams, use case diagrams including the business workflow.

Experience with Quality analysis and Defect management process for the various testing phases which includes Unit testing, Functional testing and Regression testing and User Acceptance Testing.

Comprehensive knowledge of the testing lifecycle within web, client server

Experience in Data Modeling/Data warehousing concepts like Physical Modeling, Logical Modeling, Relational Modeling, Dimensional Modeling (Star Schema, Snow-Flake, FACT, and Dimensions)

Creative and Aggressive person capable of forming and maintaining positive and productive team environment with integrative thinking skills.

Functioned as the primary point of contact and liaison between the client, management, and the software vendor in the installation, configuration and implementation of the software product, and all the communication throughout the project life cycle.

Excellent Skills in Performance Management to support strategic planning, goal setting, strengthen accountability, enhance decision making, and improve customer service.

Excellent Analytical skills to understand the business process and Functionality requirements and to translate them to system requirement specifications.

Proficient in creating Pivot table and VLOOKUP in MS Excel.

Expertise at using MS Visio, MS Project, MS Excel, PowerPoint, and SharePoint

Skill Set

Project Management (SDLC) Methodologies

Waterfall, Spiral, Scrum, R.U.P.

Schedule Management Tools

Primavera, MS Project

Requirement Gathering

IBM Rational suite, Enterprise Architect, DOORS, Blue Print Requirements Center, MS Visio

User-Interface creation

Dreamweaver

Testing /Defect Tracking

HP Quality Center, Clear Quest, TRAC, Test Link

Databases

Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, MS Access

Database Querying

Experience in SQL, PL/SQL

Insurance Systems Software

GUIDEWIRE policy /billing center, FACETS

Web Technologies

Understanding of HTML,DHTML, CSS, XML

Operating Systems

Windows XP/2003 Server/NT, UNIX

Other

SAP FICO/SD/MM/PP, MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Understanding of Informatica, Business Objects reporting, Crystal Reports,X-Celcius,Data mapping, Concept of Data warehousing, Data mining,

Professional Experience:

Client: Country Financial Services, Bloomington, IL

Duration: Nov 2014- Present

Title: Senior Business Analyst

Project Description: Building a new enhanced self-serve customer portal (for the Auto Insurance) retaining the key features from the core application and including several new/enhanced and streamlined functionalities. A second parallel project was to migrate the underwriting process for the Renters line of Business from the existing Policy writer application to a new Adaptec software.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Adopted a Scrum methodology for the software development life cycle (SDLC)

Provided leadership with developing, implementing, and maintaining analysis, testing and project management tools, methodologies and processes.

Gathered requirements for enhancing the Payment system for the Claims process and also streamlined the portal for member/ provider data interchange.

Adopted the scrum methodology to organize the project into 12 sprints and drove the project on all fronts from design to testing to ensure the creation of a working functionalities at the end of each sprint

Demonstrated excellent technical writing skills by developing Business Requirements Document (BRD) and Functional Specifications Document (FSD which included UI screen Mockups, Process Flows, Business Logic and Traceability Matrix.

Responsible in Scoping and created the Project Initiation Document (PID).

Developed use cases models and workflows based on business requirement documentation in Microsoft Visio.

Acted, as a facilitator in JAD sessions to analyze and prioritize competing business needs.

Created User stories and organized them logically into appropriate sprints in order to deliver the connected functionalities in the same sprint

Coordinated work plan between project manager and client with Microsoft Project; implemented and managed migration process& developer fixes; retested fixes; scheduled and tracked progress for team members of project through completion.

Conducted Sprint planning meeting to setup sprint goal and help development team to identify sprint backlog with product owner based on product backlog items.

Facilitate product owner, Development team and designated delegates in sprint review meeting after the end of each sprint and get the feedback from the development team and product owner to get form batter team during sprint retrospective meetings

Followed standards and methodologies; ensures that all end products are inspected; participates in inspections; ensures completeness and consistency within and across projects.

Identified issues and works independently to resolve them.

Facilitated business process/analysis sessions, develops/contributes to the development of investigation reports, identifies alternatives and impacts to systems and prepared user specifications

Designed & developed Narrative Use Cases, Use Case diagrams, Activity diagrams, Business Flow Diagrams in UML methodology using MS Visio.

Assisted in developing the test scenarios, test plan, test conditions and test cases to be used in testing based on business requirements, technical specifications and/or product knowledge.

Developed marketing plan to expand brand awareness and market penetration of fixed income products with the help of SWOT Analysis.

Developed a detailed test plan in Microsoft Excel. Wrote test cases for regression, end-to-end, positive, negative, functional and performance testing.

Perform data analysis (Data warehousing that includes data cleansing, data volume assessment, data transformation etc and data mining) with Business Intelligence (BI) and various ETL tools and technologies.

Responsible in Creation Implementation Plan and involved in Production Validation

Presided over the completion of the Unit/ Integration/ Systems testing and coordinated the troubleshooting exercise to address the defects to ensure optimal progress of the Testing phase.

Analyzed and evaluated the performance of the application from various dimensions and conducted User Acceptance Test (UAT) for successful implementation making sure that all the requirements were met.

Environment: Scrum Methodology, MS Visio, Adaptec, Policy Writer, Quality Center, SQL, JAVA

Client: New Jersey Manufacturers insurance, Trenton, NJ

Duration: Nov 2013- Nov2014

Title: Senior Business Analyst

Project Description: Migration of New Business and Renewing Policies from Legacy Systems over to the GUIDEWIRE policy/billing center and generate reports for analysis by the General Accounting team and higher management

Roles & Responsibilities:

Adopted a Waterfall methodology for the software development life cycle (SDLC)

Spearheadedthe analyst team that gathered Requirements for Reports Generation from Guidewire Policy/Billing center for analysis by the General Accounting Team

Lead the efforts for the creation of RSD (Requirements Specification Document) which includes defining Business, User, functional and non-functional requirements needed for approval by Business and for use by Design, Development and Testing teams.

Engaged with the creation of Requirements Management Plan (RMP) for complex projects and may create RMP for less complex projects, to define, organize and schedule requirements management and development activities.

Gathered requirements for enhancing the Payment system for the Claims process and also streamlined the portal for member/ provider data interchange.

Gathered Requirements and documented the process flows/changes required to facilitate the entire migration of the Policy Billing administration from Mainframes to the Guidewire system.

Presided over sessions to identify the triggers and the subsequent actions that need to be taken by the system

Identified management protocols that need to be taken in scenarios where data is managed in both systems periodically while the migration takes place

Designed & developed Narrative Use Cases, Use Case diagrams, Activity diagrams, Business Flow Diagrams in UML methodology using MS Visio.

Assisted in developing the test scenarios, test plan, test conditions and test cases to be used in testing based on business requirements, technical specifications and/or product knowledge.

Developed marketing plan to expand brand awareness and market penetration of fixed income products with the help of SWOT Analysis.

Developed a detailed test plan in Microsoft Excel. Wrote test cases for regression, end-to-end, positive, negative, functional and performance testing.

Perform data analysis (Data warehousing that includes data cleansing, data volume assessment, data transformation etc. and data mining) with Business Intelligence (BI) and various ETL tools and technologies.

Responsible in Creation Implementation Plan and involved in Production Validation

Presided over the completion of the Unit/ Integration/ Systems testing and coordinated the troubleshooting exercise to address the defects to ensure optimal progress of the Testing phase.

Analyzed and evaluated the performance of the application from various dimensions and conducted User Acceptance Test (UAT) for successful implementation making sure that all the requirements were met.

Environment: Waterfall Methodology, Guidewire Policy Center/Billing Center, Doors, Mainframe

Client: State Farm Insurance, Bloomington, IL

Duration: Feb 2012- Nov 2013

Title: Senior Business Analyst/Project coordinator

Project Description: Migration of Life Quote Calculation (LQC) and Policy Number Assignment (PNA) over to the Integrated Customer Platform (ICP) with the intent of enhancing customer experience.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Adopted a Waterfall methodology for the software development life cycle (SDLC)

Provided a single point of contact for cross project coordination and communication with business users

Facilitated sessions to assess Design feasibility and proposed alternatives to address roadblocks.

Identifiedchanges in scope& managed the requirements change control process and represented the team at the Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings.

Worked closely with the project manager on Status Reporting activities and also with the Project Team, on identifying RISKS, ISSUES, and DEPENDENCIES while collaboratively identifying Mitigation Strategies and Resolution approach

Created and maintained project schedules by developing project plans and specifications, estimated time requirements, established deadlines, monitored milestone completion, tracked all phases of the project product/service lifecycle, provided timely reporting of issues that impact project progress, coordinated actions, and resolved conflicts using MS Project.

Coordinated with the Security Analyst for setting up credentials and inter-platform authentication

Coordinated with the Implementation analysts to facilitate the Implementation process.

Worked with the umbrella Project Managers and Release Project Managers to coordinate Project Tasks and Activitiesand also to remove obstacles as they are identified

Worked to ensured that the Project methodology documents are created and complete.

Designed & developed Narrative Use Cases, Use Case diagrams, Activity diagrams, Business Flow Diagrams in UML methodology using MS Visio.

Assisted in developing the test scenarios, test plan, test conditions and test cases to be used in testing based on business requirements, technical specifications and/or product knowledge.

Presided over the completion of the Unit/ Integration/ Systems testing and coordinated the troubleshooting exercise to address the defects to ensure optimal progress of the Testing phase.

Analyzed and evaluated the performance of the application from various dimensions and conducted User Acceptance Test (UAT) for successful implementation making sure that all the requirements were met.

Environment: Waterfall Methodology, MS Visio, Primavera, Trac Defect management, Test Link,

Client: CareFirst of Maryland, Baltimore, MD

Duration: July 2011- Feb 2012

Title: Senior Business Analyst

Project Description: The project was to automate the FACETS Benefits Configuration Process in order to streamline the manual, Time consuming and a very laborious process for Benefits Configuration. The Project also necessitated a Value Stream Analysis in order to identify the non-value adding steps and streamlining the overall process before proposing recommendations for automation and subsequently charting out a Project Map for implementing the recommendation

Roles & Responsibilities:

Adopted a Waterfall methodology for the software development life cycle (SDLC)

Served as a liaison between the internal/external business community and the IT organization in order to help facilitate the development of project business, user and functional/non-functional requirements.

Gathered requirements for enhancing the Payment system for the Claims process and also streamlined the portal for member/ provider data interchange.

Analyzed, define and interpret business needs and issues by gathering, analyzing, documenting and validating the Business area(s) and user(s) technical requirements

Designed and developed Use Cases, Activity Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams using UML, Enterprise Architect and Rational Tools

Worked with a cross functional and diverse team of business users and developers to enable accurate communication of requirements and ensure consensus.

Facilitated JAD Sessions and managed meeting sessions with committee of Systems Architects from various businesses.

Performed task decomposition, delegated tasks and monitored project milestones using MS Project.

Environment: Waterfall Methodology, Blue Print Requirement Center, Enterprise Architect

Client: Blue Shield of California, SFO, CA

Duration: May 2010 – July 2011

Title: Business Analyst

Project’s Description:

Asset Management: Customer Operations Installation and Membership: Manages eligibility, enrollment, new member services supporting timely access to care and billing to maximize BSC's revenue.The Project was to provide a stable environment that can support business reporting needs Have the ability to access and report on required data, at desired timings, with required performance.

Asset Management: Managed Medicare Finance: The Medicare Finance Department needs to store member level capitation data (eligible members and capitation payments) in a structure accessible across BSC.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Adopted the Agile methodology (SDLC) to iteratively develop a product at the end of every Sprint cycle.

Identified the Product backlog to successively accommodate them into the following Sprint Backlogs.

Gathered requirements for enhancing the Payment system for the Claims process and also streamlined the portal for member/ provider data interchange.

Performed GAP analysis by understanding existing process flows for the Installation and Membership and Claims adjudication and identified opportunities for streamlining the process

Based upon inferences drafted revised process flows and championed the efforts for translating the new requirements to functional specifications.

Engaged in gathered the data requirements for the migration from the Legacy systems to the current Medicare Systems

Interacted with the Data architects and the Data Analysts for proposing the needs for the new Medicare Platform

Prepared Business Requirements Document (BRD) and then converted business requirements into Functional Requirements Specification (FRS).

Environment: R.U.P Methodology, Rational Requisite Pro, MS Visio, Quality Center, Clear Quest

Business Systems Analyst at Manali Petrochemicals, Chennai, India. (2006-2008)

Project Description: Manali Petrochemicals, located in Chennai India is a monopoly primarily focused with the manufacturing of Propylene Glycol, propylene Oxide and Polyol.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Presided over J.A.D sessions with the Sales & Marketing Department for the product and usability specification requirements for the Elastomeric, Flexible and Rigid grade of the Polyol and documented the requirements.

Collaborative sessions with the technical service to zero in on the Process and the associated Parameters and Raw Material requirements for the products.

Supervised the operation of the Polyol Plant and was also involved in problem solving activities and also to assessed company performance and identify opportunities for improvement across the sales, marketing,

Documented the Batch’s progress and also reported the Plant’s daily operations to Manager of Operations& Works and also documented the technical findings at a high level.

Internship Experience:

Business Analyst Intern at Beta soft Systems Inc. (Jan 2010- Mar 2010)

Performed Business and Data Analysis for the payroll operations using Extraction, Transformation, and Loading Tools like Informatica and also Querying languages like SQL, PL/SQL to query Databases

Designed, developed and prepared business reports, including use of slice and dice, drilling methodology.

Education:

Master’s in Engineering Management –Information Systems at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA- Year of Graduation2010

Specialization in Lean Management, Project Management- Database Management

Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering at Anna University, India- Year of Graduation- 2006 Specialization in Chemical Processes/ Management- Engineering Economics

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