Project Management Scrum Master
Resume:
Ashish Dahal
Middletown, DE **709
***********@*****.***
SUMMARIZED PROFILE:
• Proficiency in Project Management i.e., Project Scoping, Planning, Estimating, Scheduling, Organizing, Directing, Controlling, Budgeting and Drafting Remedy Procedures.
• Expert in waterfall and Agile project management methodologies. Able to manage large project teams and known for high-quality deliverables that meet or exceed timeline and budgetary targets.
• Delivery Lead/Kanban Lead/Scrum Master for ECVT Portfolio Execution organization- responsible for planning, coordinating, and delivery of defined deliverables for a larger program which requires engagement from teams across multiple organizations.
• RTE/PM/ Scrum Master for Alternative Investment (AI) cross -functional & distributed agile teams at Merrill Lynch at Hopewell, Pennington location.
• Strongly contributing/leading to agile transformation (Waterfall to Agile) in AI/ECVT LOBs in BOA/ML.
• Established and communicated the Iterations and Program Increments (PIs) cadence with the Business Roadmap by using tools to manage and improve flow of value through the ART.
• Facilitating/ Leading Scrum ceremonies by conducting effective Sprint Planning
(estimation), Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meetings.
• Leading refinement sessions (Backlog and Sprint) in collaboration with Application POs and BAs respectively for continuous maintenance of healthy backlogs.
• Conducting SOS (Scrum of Scrums) in a regular cadence to identify and mitigate areas of overlap and integration and higher up escalations, if needed.
• Coaching other personnel on agile methodologies and presented training to general staff on frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, Scrum-ban, TDD, and SAFE to improve productivity.
• Mentoring Managers to utilize Scrum framework and Agile methods- also involved in Setup
/maintain physical Scrum board (JIRA/Rally)
• Continuously focusing on inspect and adapt technique to enhance team’s productivity.
• Leading weekly project health check meetings (status, risks, Recent Prod Events / stability, Release Updates, Project/Resource Roadmaps, Environment updates) with the cross impacted apps and teams along with the LOBs.
• Leading/conducting change control Impact assessments on a need to basis.
• Excel in liaising between business and technical areas (distributed team setting) to achieve on time, on budget and on spec project completions. Able to merge customer and user needs with business requirements, budgetary restrictions, and logistical considerations to meet project deliverables.
• Strong experience using Agile/Scrum method to gather requirements and well versed in writing user stories/Acceptance Criteria
• Business strategist: plan and manage multimillion-dollar projects aligning business goals with technology solutions to drive process improvements, competitive advantage, and bottom-line gains.
• Proven leader oriented with strong technical, organizational, analytical, problem solving, communication, and relationship management skills/teamwork skills.
• Demonstrated success leading and mentoring cross functional teams in on site / offshore environments to maximize productivity & cost benefits.
• Leading Deployment sessions
Certifications: Certified Scrum Master (Scrum Alliance), SAFE Release Train Engineer (RTE) through BAC
SKILLS: Release Train Engineer, Release Management, Risk Management, Vendor Management, Budget Planning, Communication and coordination, Work Breakdown Structure, Leadership, Team management, Negotiation, Personal organization, Project Scheduling, Reviewing SOW, Change Requests, Cost Control, Contract Management, Critical Thinking, Project Recovery, Coaching, Quality Management, Business Case Writing, Meetings Management, Problem Solving Skills
Job History
Project Manager/Delivery Lead /Kanban Lead
Bank of America October 2020 - Present Newark, Delaware
• Coordinate and facilitate routines to support delivery (for example, kick-offs, status reviews, stakeholder meetings, change controls, tollgates, and so on).
• Plan and coordinate delivery and dependencies across multiple teams.
• Facilitate dependency management/risk management/impediment removal for the defined deliverables.
• Promote/facilitate communication and collaboration across organizations to support the deliverable completion and timeline.
• Gather/facilitate status updates for the deliverables to stakeholders and leadership pertaining to delivery, risks/issues, and schedule.
• Ensure that execution is aligned with deliverable requirements by working with the sponsor/stakeholders.
• Ensure deliverables comply with Enterprise Change Management standards.
• Support resource planning for delivery/execution.
• Establish the target outcomes in partnership with the stakeholders and leaders.
• Establish and build relationships with business and technology leaders across multiple organizations, as well as Compliance and Risk.
• Facilitate dependency management/risk management/impediment removal.
• Responsible to provide status updates to stakeholders and leadership pertaining to the target outcomes, delivery, risks/issues, and schedule.
• Ensure that execution is aligned with target outcomes by working with the sponsor/stakeholders.
• Ensure the work delivered complies with Enterprise Change Management standards.
• Track the success metrics and review performance with stakeholders and leadership.
• Manage the financials and assist with resource planning for the program.
• Provide input to define/improve the Change Management process for the Portfolio. RTE/Project Manager/ Scrum Master
Merrill Lynch August 2018 - September 2020 Hopewell, NJ
• Took full ownership of changes (team and program level) and able to identify risks and challenges, create strategies to resolve, as well as identify opportunities to foster operational excellence.
• Drove end to end execution of key strategic initiatives across Alternative Investments
(AI) space.
• Guide and coach the teams on the Agile Release Train on Scrum practices and develop their understanding of Agile principles.
• Help define norms/agreements for the ART and enforce the agreements.
• Coordinate and facilitate ART ceremonies (for example, Backlog Refinement, Program Increment (PI) Planning, ART Sync or PO Sync, Scrum of Scrums), System Demos, and Retrospective.
• In collaboration with the Product Manager, ensure the program has a healthy product/program backlog.
• Facilitate dependency management/risk management/impediment removal for the ART.
• Promote/facilitate communication and collaboration within the ART to support value delivery and PI commitments.
• Responsible for providing status updates and reporting pertaining to ART plans/delivery/timelines/impediments to stakeholders and leadership.
• Ensure Enterprise Change Management and other policy requirements for technology solutions are met for the epics/features delivered by the ART.
• Measure ART delivery, maturity, and performance and review the metrics with the ART to identify improvement opportunities.
• Capture data to help determine/track product funding and resource acquisition needs.
• Mentor more junior Scrum Masters.
• Coordinated and facilitated ART ceremonies- Backlog refinement, Pre-PI and PI (Program increment) sessions across AI train, ART Sync, System demos and Epic level Retrospectives.
• Collaborated with Technology, Operations and Marketing teams and other lines of business to design and implement process change with credibility and impact, removing roadblocks that may impact the initiative’s execution
• Created and delivered executive presentations (Functional and technical requirements, HLS, LLS etc as needed) and effectively interacted with a diverse set of stakeholders, identified their needs, and developed plans to support them.
• Communicated risks and trade-offs associated with decisions and actions to and ensured all controls are in place to sustain risk mitigation. Knowledge and use of industry- standard project methods, tools, and techniques (Kanban, velocity charts, control charts, burn-down metrics etc)
• Managed the relationship with Product Managers, the Lean Portfolio Manager and other leaders to refine program backlogs and support the Product Owner and/or Project/Program Manager to manage the backlog and guide the team while facilitating a healthy intra-team dynamic with respect to priorities and scope
• Facilitated the agile processes at the program level, including planning periodic reviews and planning sessions with team and product stakeholders, such as ART Synch, Release Planning, System Demos & Solution Demos, the Inspect & Adapt Workshops, and the Scrum of Scrum
• Established and communicated the Iterations and Program Increments (PIs) cadence with the Business Roadmap by using tools to manage and improve flow of value through the ART.
• Knowledge of the agile process and Bank of America project management methodologies and tools
• Met aggressive deadlines while managing multiple responsibilities, changing deadlines, and competing priorities
• Ability to work with all levels of management and to work in cross functional teams
• Worked closely with the development partners and line of business partners on change requests, conducting product demos and understanding the strategic value and business benefit for changes, ensuring quality and timely delivery.
• With proven experience of working in Agile development environment, groomed, prioritized product backlog, working in collaboration with line of business partners and scrum team, ensuring features, stories and tasks are well understood by all sides. Project Manager III/Scrum Master
Bank of America (Contract Position) September 2016 - March 2018 Newark, Delaware
• Managing complex budget and tracked schedule. Performed change management by collaborating with appropriate project team members. Monitor, track, and report Scrum team velocity and led sprint plans.
• Work collaboratively with all necessary internal/external stakeholders to assist in the scope, review, and development accurate estimates, recommend revisions to the final design. Assure timely, fact-based feedback to stakeholder questions and issues; documenting and communicating any deficiencies/risks that would preclude meeting objectives, schedules, budget or warranted specifications
• Develop, maintain schedules and milestones using Microsoft Project
• Consistently collaborating with product owners, cross-functional technical teams, and with executives in supporting development and application delivery. Organized dependencies between teams with other Scrum Masters.
• Organizing and facilitating daily stand-up meetings, reviews, retrospectives, sprint and release plan, demos and all Scrum associated meetings. Collaborated with resource managers to manage and determine Scrum team capacity.
• Eliminating impediments in driving projects to successful delivery.
• Facilitating daily stand-ups and ensured the integrity of the agile process - capturing velocity.
• Measure and monitor progress to ensure application releases are delivered on time and within budget, and that they meet or exceed expectations
• Coordinate release content and effort based on the service request backlog, pending service requests, third party applications, or operating system updates
• Communicate all key project plans, commitments, and changes including requirements, QA plans, schedule, and scope changes
• Manage relationships and coordinate work between different teams at different locations
• Conduct Release Readiness reviews, Milestone Reviews, and Business Go/No-Go reviews
• Communicate release details and schedules to the Business as required
• Negotiate, plan, and manage all release activities
• Work with release engineers to understand impacts of branches and code merges
• Maintains the release schedule for all core services and ensure alignment across key partners and vendors.
• Maintains a release repository and manages key information such as build and release procedures, dependencies, and notification lists
• Aiding the Product Owner in user story creation, prioritization product Backlog grooming through requirement gathering whilst sustaining total organizational goals. Utilized SharePoint collaboration features to keep team engaged.
• Ensuring Scrum teams worked efficiently toward Sprint objectives. Tutored the project team and stakeholders on how to utilize Agile-Scrum procedures. Experience utilizing Microsoft Team foundation Server Agile and Scrum templates.
• Guaranteed the development teams are committed to the core agile values of collaboration, prioritization, responsibility, and visibility. Suggested enhancement as well as aided in changes to best practice.
• Recognizing hooks into external and internal organizations to define project scope, developed project schedules, coordinated critical path dependencies, managed, and tracked project expenditures, tracked, and drove issues and risks to resolution.
• Identifying requirements and plan project lifecycle deployment including resources and scheduling for project implementation.
BA/Project Manager
Freddie Mac (Contract Position) May 2014 - August 2016 Mclean, VA
• Led a talented team of 8+ resources across Software Development (Java and Microsoft Technologies), Quality Assurance (Testing), Business/System Analyst and Database Administration.
• Assessed business implications for each project phase and monitored progress to meet deadlines, standards, and cost targets.
• Implemented Agile Scrum Methodology throughout the organization to improve communications between Engineering, Product Management, and Business; to provide more transparency across the 3 departments; and to obtain great business value with short turnarounds.
• Facilitated build requirements log (product backlog) with cost estimates and priority. Used HP Quality Center/ALM for Defect management, Requirements module, Test Design, and execution.
• Conducted Scrum Daily standup, Product backlog, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review & Sprint Retrospective meetings.
• Performed weekly/month end financial analysis and prepared performance index that contribute to the weekly Program Dashboard and participated in review before distribution to executives and external stakeholders.
• Planning the roll out and launch of products and releases and managing the cross- functional implementation of the roll-out plan
• Gathering market intelligence. Expert on how customers use the product in their processes; understand the competitive environment, and how customers make product usage decisions
• Facilitated mid-project debriefs to identify team issues and provide corrective action, improving team performance.
• Facilitated daily meetings of status to stakeholders and communicated with cross functional teams
• Demonstrated the value of change management to project sponsors and enabled activities that resulted in the smooth transition of new systems through proactive communication and end-user engagement
• Balanced program resources including people, projects schedule, staffing, subcontractors, budget, material, time to optimize program objectives for several projects. Created milestone charts, project schedules; calculate variances, forecast, and met schedules. Developed budget proposals, identified, and prioritized resources.
• Performed Cost Analysis by comparing forecast with actual spent to determine the funds remaining for various vendors.
• Managed project schedules and allocations based on LOE (Level of Effort) inputs received from project and support groups. Performed cost analysis to determine the overall resource allocations and requirements (by role), prepared trend charts as required. Prepared Burndown charts and tracked the project progress on daily basis.
• Identified and monitored program risks, assess impact, and plan / implement mitigation and contingency plans.
• Supported the Program Management Office overseeing a large, high profile transformation consisting of 12 projects
• Excelled in guiding the work of technical teams. Articulated project goals and scope, translated business needs into technical terms, prepared detailed work breakdown structures (WBS) and instilled shared accountability for achieving project milestones.
• Created cost benefit analysis and ROI assessments that were used as the basis for decision-making on proposed IT implementation projects. Analyst (QC UW)
PHH Mortgage May 2012 - Dec 2013 Mt. Laurel, NJ
• Served as a liaison between Mortgage Application’s SMEs and the project team.
• Assisted the PM in setting realistic project expectations and in evaluating the impact of changes on the organization and planned accordingly and conducted project related presentations.
• Responsible for gathering user requirements and specifications for designing a mortgage-based loan system using and documenting the same.
• Extensively involved in maintaining requirements traceability and communicating any changes to these requirements to different business groups and programmers.
• Identified, researched, investigated, analyzed, defined opportunities for business process improvement.
• Led and conducted JAD sessions with stakeholders and system users to collect the Software requirement Specifications (SRS) Studied project planning and business process.
• Prepared and implemented test cases for system testing as well as for User Acceptance testing (UAT).
Determined customers' needs and desires by specifying the research needed to obtain market information.
• Recommended the nature and scope of present and future product lines by reviewing product specifications and requirements, appraising new product ideas and/or product or packaging changes.
• Assessed market competition by comparing the company's product to competitors' products.
• Provided information for management by preparing short-term and long-term product sales forecasts and special reports and analyses, answering questions and requests.
• Facilitated inventory turnover and product availability by reviewing and adjusting inventory levels and production schedules.
• Completed operational requirements by scheduling and assigning employees, following up on work results.
• Maintained product management staff by orienting, and training employees.
• Maintained product management staff job results by counseling and disciplining employees, planning, monitoring, and appraising job results.
• Maintained professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops; reviewing professional publications; establishing personal networks; participating in professional societies.
Contributed to team effort by accomplishing related results as needed.
• Created context and workflow models, information and business rule models, Use Case and Object Models during the analysis using rational tools.
• Designed the system, prepared UML and sequence diagrams using Rational Rose and Visio.
• Used Rational Rose and UML to produce models like use cases, sequence, activity diagrams etc.
• Interviewed business users to gather requirements and analyzed the feasibility of their needs by coordinating with the PM and technical Lead.
• Actively interacted with different business groups to perform Gap analysis to identify the deficiencies in the system by comparing the actual objectives with the system objectives desired.
• Conducted Business Requirements, Functional and Technical meetings with Business groups.
• Used MS Visio for Process modeling and Business Process flow diagrams.
• Extensively involved in regression testing during various phases of the application.
• Prepared test plans wrote test scripts and executed test scripts as the project developed.
• Developed Data Models and generated Database schema Structures and developed data flow diagrams.
• Testing of the application and posting the defects (Change Requests) on Rational Clearquest.
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