Scrum Master Business Analysis

Summary:

Professional/certified Scrum Master with more than 8+ years of experience in Business Analysis and Coaching and Facilitating Scrum Practices to the team in end-to-end software development life cycle using Waterfall and Agile methodologies

Member of IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis)

Active Member of Project Management Institute (PMI)

Professional Scrum Master with a good understanding of Scrum values and principles.

An Expert in evaluating User Stories from Epics and Refining Backlog lists with the Business Owner and Product Management

Experience in Business Analysis, System Analysis, Data Analysis, and Quality analysis with extensive experience in business products, operations, and information technology

Good practices of user story writing using INVEST and SMART principles

Expert in motivating agile transitioning teams to adopt agile methodologies and self-organizational traits

Expert in doing Root Cause Analysis for identifying and resolving team’s performance hurdles and suggested fool-proof techniques for successful completion of agile sprints; effective utilization of the sprint retrospective meetings

Expertise in conducting Story mapping & Story Boarding practices and illustration of the vision of the project

Expert in using various techniques to refine the product backlog with Business value and Effort estimates by facilitating product refinement meetings

Empowering the team to knock blockers out themselves and build trust to communicate clearly and objectively

Expert in handling time-boxed daily scrum calls with brisk and relevant discussions

Inspection and adaption of the team activities in sprint retrospective meetings

Skillful and experienced in tracking and communicating sprint progress through burn-down charts

Expert in evaluating User Stories from epics and refining Backlog list with the Business owner and Product management

Able to work with multiple projects of high complexity and various stakeholders simultaneously with little guidance

Excellent servant leader skills being able to build strong relationships with coworkers and managers across multiple divisions, including legal, management, research, sales, and trading

Maintain five scrum values of Agile – Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage

SUMMARY OF SKILL-SET

SDLC Methodologies: Waterfall, Agile (Scrum) PSM 1 and PSM 2 certification

Modeling Tools: UML, MS Visio, Erwin, Power Designer, TFS, Balsamic

Reporting Tools: Business Objects, JIRA, Confluence, Version One, and MS Office Suite

Facilitation Skills, Conflict Resolution Skills, Organizational Skills, Strong knowledge of Scrum and Agile, Team Leadership,

Languages: SQL, HTML, XML, UML, ASP, JSP

Databases & OS: MS SQL Server, Oracle 10g, DB2,

DevOps Tools/ repositories: Version One, JIRA, TFS, SharePoint site and Confluence

EDUCATION DETAILS:

BACHELORS IN COMMERCE (B.COM) FROM INDIA

PSM-I, PSM-II

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Client: PNC Bank Aug 2022 – Oct 2023

Agile Scrum Master 3

Responsibilities:

As a Scrum Master, I facilitate Scrum Events such as Sprint Planning, Daily Stand up, Sprint Review and Retrospective, and other needed meetings to help the team

Created Jira and Confluence dashboards to streamline story, and task tracking and enable better transparency within the team

Provided coaching and support and drove Agile/Lean practices to deliver value across the organization

Built 2 self-managing teams capable of achieving release goals and delivery objectives following Scrum principles

Coached 4 teams to develop project characters by identifying key resource needs and complexities required before beginning the new projects

Supported Release Planning and Solution Architecture design as needed

Implemented industry best practices for software engineering, including Agile Methodology, UI/UX design, DevOps, code review, and testing

Tracked sprint metrics and maintained dialogue with scrum teams on performance, challenges, accountability, and recognition

Helped the Scrum Team understand the need for clear and concise Product Backlog items

I Ensured the Product Owner knows how to arrange the Product Backlog to maximize value

Worked with 2 Product Owners to shape the product backlog, and make it ready for the next sprint

Planning Scrum implementations within the organization

I found techniques for effective Product Backlog management and I worked closely with POs, defining the quarterly release deadlines and release dates

I work pro-actively with the product owner to help establish an empirical process for product planning

Causing change that increases the productivity of the Scrum Team and working with other Scrum Masters to increase the effectiveness of the application of Scrum in the organization

I taught the team to create clear and concise Epics/Stories and ensured 100% of scrum activities were tracked, kept up-to-date

I facilitated discussions, decision-making, and conflict resolution across the team and I removed team obstacles and managed risks to enable team efficiency and effectiveness

I worked with the dev team, and the Product Owner to negotiate the minimum viable product for delivery

Instructed and modeled core Agile principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability, and visibility; ensured the consistent application of scrum methodologies across the enterprise

Worked with external team members to identify cross-team dependencies and manage inter-team tasks

Mentored and empowered teams towards making appropriate commitments through story selection, establishing Acceptance Criteria, Story slicing/sizing, and adding tasks

Empowered teams to self-organize and grow cross-functionality. Identify and remove any impediments that may be preventing the team from delivering value

I was responsible for ensuring that there was clear communication between the team, the Product Owner, and any other stakeholders also I ensure that the team's progress is transparent to all stakeholders, including maintaining a healthy product backlog and burn-down chart

Protect team from over-commitment, manage backlog, prioritize resolution of defects, bugs as evidenced by the on-time delivery

Worked with external team members to identify cross-team dependencies, and manage inter-team tasks

Provided a vision and strategy for Agile practices and enabled a culture of continuous improvement

Client: Wells Fargo Advisors, St. Louis, MO May 2019 – Apr 2021

Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

As a Scrum Master, I handled two different scrum teams and facilitated the transformation to Agile (Scrum) from Waterfall

In a SAFe agile, was assisting RTE with SoS meetings and PI planning preparation

During PI Planning, used to support my teams in break-out sessions, high-level grooming for quarterly planning

Steer the team to stick to short answers to the three questions; steer them away from discussing problems or details during the daily scrum

Monitor and track progress, prepare status reports, resolve issues, and coordinate tasks, and activities directed toward completing the project goals

Proactively worked with 2 Product Owners and the scrum team to refine stories in advance of each sprint to ensure we have a healthy backlog

Ensures User Stories were ordered, defined, and ready to be worked on by the team

Monitored backlog every day and ensure it accurately reflects the current state of the sprint

Mentor team members, Product Owners, business owners, and partners

Work with the team to formulate a plan for demos before meeting time. Create an Agenda for Sprint Review/Demo Meetings

Protect the team from external interruptions

Track and communicate sprint status with management and other stakeholders as needed

Help team with proper story sizing, and estimation process and set a cap limit on the estimations if needed

Assisted team with making appropriate commitments through story selection, sizing, and task definition using the Jira tool

Helped and taught the team to create clear and concise stories using the Jira tool

Migrated from Version One to the Jira tool and trained team members

Bring ideas from professional facilitation, coaching, and conflict management to help the team become a high-performance team

Empowered the team to make system and process improvements captured in Retrospective meetings

Remove obstacles for the dev team – developers, and testers

Using key scrum metrics like burn-down, burn-up charts, scorecards, and average historic velocity graph reports to help deliver the committed work

Manage all scrum boards physical and virtual

Coordinate all scrum ceremonies including Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Retrospectives, Demos, PBR, and Release Planning

Facilitates Governance meetings between co-related teams to identify the dependencies and set up a Product Roadmap, and Vision

Works with both team’s Product Owners to define Project Scope and Objectives

Ensuring that goals, scope, and product domain are understood by everyone on the Scrum Team as well as possible

Client: Bank of New York (BNY MELLON), New York, NY Nov 2017 – May 2019

Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

As a Scrum Master, I handled two sprint teams and facilitated the transformation to Agile (Scrum) from Waterfall

Scheduled, and facilitated Sprint planning, Daily-stand up, sprint retrospectives, stakeholder meetings, and Sprint demonstrations

Shielding the scrum (development) team from outside distractions, impediments, or team conflicts and maintaining focus on the product backlog, and project timelines

Engaged in agile program management, and created product concepts based on the company strategy to align with various scrum teams

Involved in breaking down the concepts into epics and in turn user stories and streamlined the daily delegation of incoming issues using an Issue tracking system for the scrum team

Work closely with the Product Owner in backlog management, and continuous delivery of business value in scrum projects

Actively contributed, and engaged the team throughout the scrum/agile process in daily stand-ups, product backlog refinements, Sprint planning, Sprint review, and Sprint retrospective sessions

Facilitated effective Sprint Planning sessions with Sprint goals, and Sprint backlog as an outcome

Collaborated with multiple cross-functional teams, and communicated with Business people from various Lob like Marketing, Finance, Supply chain, and other teams

Conducted coaching, and training sessions regarding the Agile development cycle, and encouraged the team to engage in Scrum ceremonies, technical discussions, reviews, and release planning

Helped the product owners to come up with a set of stories for a better understanding of estimation, and development

Met goal of addressing, and resolving issues within the stipulated time, and managing the life cycle of code development, from idealization to sprints to deployment

Communicated with other management, engineers, product managers, and support specialists on product issues

Worked with the dev team, and the Product Owner to negotiate the minimum viable product for delivery

Assisted in defect triaging using Quality Center/ALM, and coordinated with developers to quickly resolve the defects associated with them

Provided support to the offshore, and on-site testing teams in defect triaging, analysing, and helping identify the bugs using Application life cycle Management

Client: Charter Communications, St. Louis, MO Oct 2014 – Oct 2017

Scrum Master

Responsibilities:

Being a servant leader coached the team to improve continuously using agile principles

Organized Product backlog refinement, Sprint planning, Sprint reviews, and Sprint retrospective

Acted as Agile Coach, Scrum Master, and Servant Leader for technical cross-functional teams implementing Scrum

Educated Agile teams on the use of Kanban and flow to optimize the team’s work

Mentored and empowered teams towards making appropriate commitments through story selection, establishing acceptance criteria, story sizing, and task definition

Ensured a faster flow of value to end-users using mechanisms for tighter integration of development and deployment operations (Dev-ops)

Also, I have Facilitated Test-Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI), and Pair programming for robust code development

Educated the team on how to manage an overall release plan, and velocity forecast with agile metrics through standard agile tooling such as JIRA

Protect the scrum team from outside distractions and clear their impediments. Resolves team conflicts and maintains focus on product backlog and project timelines

Using Scaled agile framework (SAFe) delivering Minimum Viable Products to the Business owners from where the consumption got production table

Involved in breaking down the concepts into user stories and streamlining the daily delegation of incoming issues using an Issue-tracking system

Resolved impediments/roadblocks to re-create the focus on accomplishing the sprint goal.

Conducted retrospective meetings to inspect the team’s performance and adapt new changes

Negotiating with the Product Owner in backlog management for scope creeps and continuous delivery

Tracking and Radiating team metrics through burn-down charts to higher executives

Actively contributed throughout the scrum/agile process in daily stand-ups, functional and technical grooming sessions

Steer the team to stick to short answers to the three questions; steer them away from discussing problems or details during the daily stand-up call

Client: Aetna, Hartford, CT Mar 2012 to Sep 2014

Business Analyst

Responsibilities:

Gathering business, system, and functional requirements by conducting detailed meetings with business users, stakeholders, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

Conducting story mapping and story boarding session to elicit high level features and goals from the Product owners

Developing user stories and grooming them with product owners throughout the agile life cycle

Serve as a liaison between product owner and scrum team for communicating well developed user stories

Grooming well developed user stories with user acceptance criteria and mock ups if required for developing a good product backlog

Creating data flow diagrams and business process flow diagrams for better understanding of the business needs by the scrum team

Creating the Gap analysis document by analyzing the as is process and understanding the future need

Negotiating effectively with Product owner on the release priorities and exceptional scope creep

Significant contribution to stories development in product backlog, sprint backlog and release backlog meetings

Active participant in Sprint planning, Sprint retrospective, Sprint review and Product review meetings

Utilizing Sprint retrospective Meetings to understand the impediments and improve the productivity of the team

Involving users actively in User Acceptance Tests (UAT) between development team and the end users from the business team

Participated in daily stand-up meetings and sprint review meetings

Developing Business requirement document and responsibly taking the sign offs at each stage

Documenting functional requirement documents, use cases, mock ups and roles documentation as needed

Checking the integrity of the newly added features and their effect to the existing ones with integrity testing and regression testing

Conducting smoke test, black box test, alpha test and beta test along with Quality Assurance teams

Coordinate development activities by managing the technical requirements in a requirements traceability matrix

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