Samantha McCaulley, SA, SSM, CSM

Certified Scrum Master SAFe 6 Certified

ad36hp@r.postjobfree.com linkedin.com/in/samanthamccaulley Metro Detroit, MI 48080

Strategic Agile Release Mangement

Experienced Agile Release Manager with a passion for technology business solutions, 10+ years of experience effectively transforming teams to deliver value and with quality. Confidence in ability to plan strategically across all levels of leadership and proven success in cross-functional delivery in complex systems. Committed to continuous improvement and impacting team success.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Lean Mindset

Delivery Management

Agile Release/Program Management

Large Programs

Data Driven Decision-Making

Defect Tracking

Global Implentations/Teams

Strategic Planning

Stakeholder Engagement

Team Building & Leadership

Research & Analysis

Scrum & Kanban Methodologies

Issue Tracking

Relationship Building

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication & Influencing

Continuous Improvement

Risk Management

Metrics and Data Analysis

Change Management

Software Development Initiatives

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

• Led the successful launch of multiple large and complex products across multiple business lines.

• Coordinated direction for company-wide strategic planning for Agile best practices across multiple areas.

• Built strong teams of Agile Delivery Leads/Product Owners/Scrum Masters who continuously evolved product development process.

• Led Agile transition from a SFDC Legacy Customer Relationship Management to new Salesforce Lightning instance.

EXPERIENCE

H.W. Kaufman Group, IT PMO Delivery Team

Sr Program Manager, 9/2024 to present

• Responsible for facilitating Agile ceremonies such as daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint demo, retrospectives and scrum of scrums.

• Responsible for creating Release Plan across initiatives.

• Collaborate with cross-functional leaders and Delivery Teams to align with business objectives and facilitate seamless execution of strategic initiatives.

•Foster Vender Management relationships.

•Responsible for supporting Change Mangement/End User/Enablement plans and process.

•Run monthly release schedule and/or hot fix, ad-hoc releases as permitted,

•Implement Agile practices using processes and tools to support PMO team and cross-organization.

•Govern and support improvement to Agile/Release management best pratices and recommend improvements.

•Contrubte to Agile and Release Management continus improvement.

•Responsible for budget/forecast within portfolio.

Red Hat, Inc., Enterprise Applications - Digital Transformation Team

Sr Enterprise Release Manager/Program Manager/RTE/Scrum Master, 10/2020 – 5/2023 - Aligns global teams within Enterprise applications to deliver strategic initiatives.

• Collaborated with cross-functional leaders to align Enterprise Applications Team with business objectives and facilitate seamless execution of strategic initiatives.

• Responsible for facilitating Agile ceremonies such as daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint demo, retrospectives and scrum of scrums.

•Supported the creation of a community of practice for agile delivery leads across initiatives and mentored a team of individuals, with a focus on accountability and a culture of direct/timely feedback.

•Developed and implemented agile operating models, enabling delivery teams to enact an aspirational plan while compelling accountability for delivery across the program.

•Defined and conducted Agile assessments and provided actionable feedback to teams to improve performance and delivery outcome.

•Contributed to the development and maintenance of the Agile ways of working playbook for Enterprise Application that defines the standards and guidelines to be utilized across the organization, including the approach for team, program, and leadership coaching.

•Developing strong, effective working relationships with Business Line and key stakeholders to effectively execute initiatives and embed Agile sustainability practices.

Comerica Bank, Data Integration/SOA Development Team, EA Architecture Team

Sr. IT Project Manager/Scrum Master, 1/2015 to 9/2015 & 7/2018 – 9/2019 - Successfully launched MVP1 Real-Time Payments project with the Retail Digital Transformation Domain February 2019. Real-Time Payments (RTP) a new “rail” or inter-bank payment system that will allow consumers and businesses to receive payments instantly, directly to their accounts at Comerica. This new service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

•Supported the Application Development team to enable them to successfully execute project deliverables.

• Set schedules, facilitate discussions, and help ensure roadblocks towards sprint goals are resolved.

• Ensured accurate and timely resource time charges to assigned projects.

• Responsible for following the company’s DevOps processes, standards, and procedures.

• Worked with core project team to develop detailed, project schedules, assigned tasks to team and developed detailed and accurate work schedules, project estimates, and resource plans.

• Responsible for facilitating Agile ceremonies such as daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint demo, retrospectives and scrum of scrums.

• Executed, monitored and controlled technical projects from original concept through final implementation.

• Communicated project accomplishments to stakeholders through required measures and methods.

• Managed and monitors project budgets with high focus on approved technical funding and technical cost containment.

• Managed technical vendor team, and tracked and reviewed vendor deliverables.

• Ensured support areas are engaged to drive effective training and turnover of technical solutions.

• Adhered to all government, corporate and department standards, policies and procedures in all technical artifacts, tasks and decisions across the technical team.

• Worked directly with the PMO office, following policies and procedures and supported process improvement.

Ally Financial, Dealer Financial Services/Commercial Lending

IT Project Manager/Scrum Master, 9/2015 to 12/2017 - Lead Manager on the CRM / Salesforce project developing a solution to support an online GAP refund process where the company would refund customers their account early that had active GAP Insurance policies. This process was streamlined using Salesforce and DocuSign to automate the process so the dealers would receive notifications via email instead of USPS, making the process more time and cost effective. After a successful launch on-time and within budget, about 17,000 notifications were sent out to Dealers.

• Defined and executed communication plan to keep both IT and business stakeholders fully informed.

• Responsible for developing and maintaining strong working relationships with key Business and integrated vendor partners.

• Supported the Application Development team to enable them to successfully execute project deliverables

• Worked with Product Development and Application Development staff to investigate and resolve project issues.

•Responsible for facilitating Agile ceremonies such as daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint demo, retrospectives and scrum of scrums.

• Mitigated risks and issues by providing improved project visibility to senior management and effectively leading project closure.

• Created governance artifacts for tollgates/change requests and followed PMO guidelines & procedures and SDLC methodology, worked directly with PMO to help improve and implement process/standards.

• Supported the business in defining scope to ensure organizations acceptance of the solution.

• Mentored project team and staff as needed on Agile, Jira, PFMA, Clarity, VersionOne, Onboarded new PM’s and BA’s on project management processes.

• Managed financials diligently to stay within the planned project budget and provide monthly updates to actuals and future forecasts.

PVS Chemicals

Sr. IT Project Manager, 7/2013 to 3/2014 - Managed responsibilities for all aspects of the delivery for one or more projects to include producing, monitoring, and reporting project status against a project work plan as well as managing a project budget, issues and risks, established regular reporting expectations to ensure projects remain on-scope, on-budget, and on-schedule, Identified roles and responsibilities for project team members and secure project

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

Business Readiness Project Manager, 11/2012 to 4/2013 - Drove change management to establish business readiness processes for the launch of the new requirements for healthcare portal. Validated audit and compliance progress including management of business changes.

HP

Project Manager, 12/2010 to 1/2011 - Served as an interim lead to implement Discovery and Dependency Mapping Inventory (DDMI) across the organization. Implemented required systems across the Midwest region, including assigned resources, management of reported budgets and timelines.

Lucid Business Strategies

Sr. Project Manager (Freelance), 7/2010 to 11/2010 - Independent contractor managing the full project life cycle, from initiation through implementation; including (but not limited to) requirements gathering and prioritization, defining scope and schedule, obtaining approvals, managed development and testing tasks and troubleshooting.

EMC2 / Dell

Sr. IT Project Manager, 3/2005 to 2/2007 - Spearheaded the transition and delivery of the infrastructure team, managed the life cycle of all projects, supported SAN/NAS Centera, Legato (EX/DX, Networker, Autostart, Replistor) implementation teams managing the life cycle of data storage/backup solution systems from architectural design through to customer sign off monitored the status of on-going projects, including assignment of appropriate delivery resources, availability of resources, and prompt accurate completion of assigned projects, supported PMO with upholding process and procedures within projects and supported improving processes, worked cross-functionally to launch projects, gather information from customers.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Program/Product/Project and Release Management, SAFe/Agile/Scrum/Waterfall Methodologies, Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-Ups, Sprint Reviews, Retrospectives, Scrum of Scrums, Jira / Confluence, VersionOne, Clarity / CA PPM, SharePoint, Release Planning, PMO, Tollgates, Governance/Compliance, /CICD, SDLC, SOA, DevOps, Data Integration, Software/Hardware, Data Warehouse, Data Center / Infrastructure, Mobile Applications, APIs, Blockchain, NFTs, Crypto, CRM/CPQ/CLM/SFDC Salesforce, Training / Mentoring / Coaching, Project Team Management, Resource Planning, Vendor Management, Business Development, Executive Presentations, Customer/Vendor Relationship Management, Cost/Budget Planning, Change Management, Quality Assurance, Strong Analytical Problem-solving Skills, Strategic Program Development, Automotive, IT, Finance, MS Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Project, Visio, Google Suite.

CERTIFICATIONS

Leading SAFe® 6.0 Certification - SA

Scrum Master SAFe® 6.0 Certification - SSM

Scrum Master Certification - CSM

Scrum Fundamentals Certified

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