Manager Quality

MIKE AVERS

Frisco, TX / 214-***-**** / adc552@r.postjobfree.com

www.linkedin.com/in/mike-avers

Senior Management Professional with 20+ years of extensive experience in the Information Technology (IT) industry, specializing in the Quality Assurance, Business Analysis, Project Management, Release Management, and Automation Development environments. Obtains a depth & breadth of knowledge and understanding of Business & Testing Requirements (detailed user stories, test plans, cases and automated test scripts) and the Software Development Life Cycle (Waterfall & Agile) as a whole. Successfully created & cultivated IT teams; placing them with the specific, necessary structures/processes needed to become both a successful & integral part of a company. Proven ability to design, deliver, maintain and support innovative, integrated business solutions, as well as successfully plan & manage multimillion-dollar projects that align with business goals and technology solutions to not only drive process improvements, but to also expand competitive advantages and new bottom-line gains. Verifiable track record of translating business needs into technology requirements that support the company’s business objectives and successfully manage all phases of IT projects (needs analysis & requirements definition to vendor selection, implementation, and training). Highly adept in training both local & offshore resources on business tools and release management procedures, as well as in gathering and documenting requirements, developing project plans, managing and tracking project execution, and developing/executing test scenarios.

Core Competencies:

Team Building & Mentoring

SDLC – Agile & Waterfall

Cross Functional Supervision

Client & Vendor Management

Client Presentations

Release Management

Project Management

Business Analysis

Quality Assurance

Automation Development

Enterprise-wide Implementations

System Migrations & Integrations

Scrum/Agile

Business & IT Planning

Custom Software Development

Project Scheduling

Costing & Budgeting

Return on Investment (ROI) Analysis

Requirements Analysis

SQA Testing & Methodologies

Test Plans, Cases & Processes

Scripting & Documentation

Regression & Negative Testing

User Interface (UI) Compatibility Testing

Data Interface & Migration Testing

Performance, Load & Stress Testing

Defect & Bug Tracking

Test Strategies & Coverages

Rollout Support

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Responsible for successfully developing 7,000+ automated scripts within 16-months by effectively managing an offshore vendor.

Responsible for a company-wide transition from Waterfall to Continuous Delivery (Agile) SDLC over a 10-month period.

Maintained a 97% production score over 5+ years by successfully leading testing efforts in an extremely fast-paced and constantly changing environment.

Single handedly reduced the release regression testing time frame of 4 days to 4 hours by automating 65% of repeatable test cases.

Collaborated directly with a CEO to analyze 12+ ticketing systems and worked to consolidate them down to 1 internal ticketing system.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Nourtek

Insurance wrap software for construction companies

Quality Assurance Manager, Irving, TX 1/6/2020 – 3/31/2020

US workforce laid off and replaced with India resources due to COVID-19.

Managed & directed a staff of 9 Quality Assurance Analysts – in office and off-shore.

Ensured the overall quality of everything going to the production environments.

Identified and removed obstacles that kept the entire team from achieving their goals for each sprint.

Put new processes and procedures in place to improve the overall quality of software going to production.

Mentored team members to advance their knowledge and skills.

Stream (Stream Energy)

Committed to providing residential & commercial customers electricity/natural gas services in deregulated energy markets across the country.

Senior Manager of Information Technology (IT) Business Analysis & Quality Assurance, Dallas, TX 6/2012 – 9/2019

Started as the IT-Quality Assurance Lead and was promoted 3 times (within 7+ years) to QA Manager (2014), Quality Analysis (QA)/Business Analysis (BA) Manager (2015), and then Senior Manager of IT, BA & QA (2016).

Managed a staff of 13 Business Analysts, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Automation Developers; including off-shore and near-shore.

Ensured the overall quality of all that went through the Information Technology department and into the production environments such as deliveries of projects/code from requirements to production.

Responsible for coordinating the efforts of multiple business analysts on the BA team to ensure designed processes (planning/organizing of the business analysis efforts across many projects and applications) were followed; including the review of deliverables created by all the BAs on the team for quality and consistency.

Provided supervision, technical guidance, and hands-on approach to the QA Staff in the analysis, design, testing, and deployment of all applications.

Ultimately responsible for assuring that all products were defect free and compliant with technical specifications when released into production environments.

Moved the IT team from a waterfall methodology to a more continuous delivery methodology using Azure Dev Ops and Manage Engine.

Created the Product Backlog for the company and managed the Sprint Backlog and User stories.

Led daily stand-up meetings including sprint planning, daily scrums, backlog grooming, testing updates, retrospectives and sprint reviews.

Helped identify and remove obstacles that would keep the team from achieving their goals for each sprint.

Strengthened risk mitigation techniques and improved process efficiencies while meeting stringent regulatory requirements.

Designed the Release Management process and was responsible for all efforts going through the entire IT team.

Worked with team to develop crucial functional requirement specifications and creating detailed use cases and process flow diagrams to support functional specifications.

Facilitated the testing of user stories for accuracy and compliance to ensure undisputed acceptance and validation of stories.

Coached product owners and business stakeholders regarding Agile roles, routines and responsibilities resulting in a more thorough understanding of Scrum/Agile and a faster start up time to developing and delivering software.

Managed the user acceptance testing (UAT) efforts for all production support releases and all projects.

Provided comprehensive support to all end users and stakeholders through training and documentation.

Assisted in entering and updating Issues (Epics, Features, Stories, Tasks, Bugs) into Azure Dep Ops application.

Served as the application administrator for company systems; HP-ALM, SharePoint, Footprints, and Project Online.

Successfully mentored team members to advance their skills & was able to get several promoted through the years.

Rent-A-Center

Retail organization that offers name-brand furniture, electronics, appliances, computers & smartphones through flexible rental purchase agreements that allow the customer to obtain ownership of the merchandise at the conclusion of an agreed upon rental period, including same-day delivery and early purchase discounts.

Automation Developer & Quality Analysis Process/Governance Lead, Plano, TX 6/2011 – 5/2012

Hired as an Automation Developer to take all repetitive test cases that the QA team had to run on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and turn them into automated scripts that could run overnight with minimal user interaction.

Responsible for monitoring current processes and methodologies that existed in IT and improving them.

Documented current processes and methodologies and presented new approaches and ideas to the entire IT Team – Developers, Project Managers, Business Analysts, Quality Assurance Analysts, Infrastructure.

Responsible for the planning and automating of all applicable test cases using Mercury’s Quick Test Professional automation tool and Quality Center.

Held training classes to all QA/BA in utilizing Quality Center correctly & how to write effective, automation-ready test cases.

Completed the automation of several applications, freeing up valuable time for multiple QA resources to work on other projects.

Lead and managed several projects to completion.

Arbonne International, LLC

Creates personal skincare and wellness products that are crafted with premium botanical ingredients and innovative scientific discovery.

Manager of Quality Assurance & Release Engineering, Addison, TX 8/2008 – 6/2011

Managed & directed a staff of 7-16 Quality Assurance Analysts and 2-4 Release Engineers.

Tested & managed client server/web-based applications; including the official Arbonne website (arbonne.com), an in-house VB application, and a Universe Database to enable consultants the ability to login, create orders, view/maintain orders, and view their up-line and down-line.

Created/implemented the company-wide Release Management process.

Maintained and managed the release management process by regularly meeting with the different teams within the company and running the monthly CRCB (Change Review Control Board) meetings.

Managed the UAT testing efforts for the weekly production support releases and monthly new Change Request releases.

Managed any code, marketing content and data updates that go to the IST (Integrated Systems Testing), UAT (User Acceptance Testing) and Production environments by properly ensuring everything went through the QA team and the Release Engineering team.

Responsible for administrating the Quality Center, Quick Test Pro, and Load Runner for the company.

Wrote and performed necessary maintenance on QuickTest Professional (QTP) automated scripts used for regression testing and production server settings when moving code to production.

Created and executed Load Runner scripts for performance testing on the company website.

Responsible for interviewing and selecting new quality assurance analysts and release engineers, both contract & permanent.

Held training classes for the QA team on QA practices, Quality Center, and Quick Test Pro automated script writing/executing.

Friedman’s Jewelers

Offered luxury jewelry in retail stores across the southern United States and went bankrupt in April 2008.

Manager – Project Management, Business Analysis and Quality Assurance, Addison, TX 8/2007 – 4/2008

Managed a direct staff of three Project Managers, two Business Analysts, and two Quality Assurance Analysts.

Responsible for all aspects of projects going through the IT department with project managers, business analysts, and quality assurance.

Brought in to start/build the first ever QA team for the company.

Developed, put in place, updated, and maintained QA processes for the company.

Built and managed the QA test lab.

Evaluated, recommended and implemented testing tools.

Quality Center Administrator for the company.

Apptricity Corporation

A global enterprise software provider for Supply Chain & Spend Management utilizing IoT, cloud-based solutions; providing a 360-degree visibility into every action & transaction, across organizations, partners, customers and suppliers delivers control and efficiencies never realized before in manpower and money.

Quality Assurance Manager, Las Colinas, TX 12/2006 – 8/2007

Managed and directed a staff of five Quality Assurance Analysts.

Tested & managed both the client server and web-based applications including the company website.

Evaluated, recommended and implemented testing tools.

Worked with and managed highly sensitive, restricted access, government data.

Developed, installed, updated, and maintained QA processes for the company.

Served as the Quality Center Administrator for the company.

Responsible for the planning & automating of all applicable test cases using Mercury’s Quick Test Professional automation tool and Quality Center.

Used SQL to perform data integrity testing.

Managed the testing phase of multiple projects; including writing Detailed Test Plans, lining up available QA resources, keeping the projects on time and in scope, etc.

Presented training classes to all QA/Dev in utilizing Quality Center correctly and how to write effective, automation-ready test cases.

Hired additional resources when needed as business increased.

Capital One Auto Finance

A diversified banking company focused primarily on consumer & commercial lending and deposit origination with its principal business segments being both Local Banking and National Lending.

Quality Assurance Analyst & Automation Lead (Contract) – Auto Finance, Plano, TX 6/2006 – 12/2006

Responsible for the planning and automating of all applicable test cases using Mercury’s Quick Test Professional automation tool and Test Director as well as the writing of automated scripts using QTP to test new functionality and regression testing across their website.

Served as the Test Director & Administrator.

Used SQL to perform data integrity testing.

Project manager for several projects; produced project plans, worked with the business, and managed/tracked the project to execution.

Managed the testing phase of multiple projects; wrote detailed test plans, lined up available QA resources, kept projects on time and in scope, etc.

Presented training classes to all QA/BA in utilizing Test Director correctly and how to write effective, automation-ready test cases.

Real Page, Inc.

A leading global provider of software and data analytics for the real estate industry.

Quality Assurance Automation Manager, Addison, TX 8/2004 – 6/2006

Managed a large on-site and offshore staff and extensive writing of automated scripts using QTP to handle 100% of the regression testing of the RealPage website.

Reviewed test summary reports from unit testing to make sure there are test cases that cover all changes along with regression testing.

Lead internal team members and external clients in assessing the client business process, methods, systems and procedures for productivity enhancement and made recommendations for improvement.

Assessed and made adjustments based on the impact of changes across all projects to ensure there were no overlaps or conflicts.

Reviewed statements of work and high-level design documents at the beginning of projects to ensure that the test case development provided full coverage for all scenarios.

Established strong working relationships with all departments that QA worked with in order to better facilitate positive, upward trending results.

Responsible for the planning and automating of all regression test cases using Mercury’s Quick Test Professional automation tool and Test Director.

In 16 months, developed over 7,000 automated scripts by managing an offshore vendor.

Presented a ‘How to Write an Automation-Ready Test Case’ class to all QA/BA in company.

Electronic Data Systems (EDS) – Acquirred by Hewlitt-Packard

An organization that offers high-end electronic data processing management personnel, along with computer hardware, by targeting large corporations and offering long-term contracts in a short-term contract world.

Automation Team Lead, Senior Quality Assurance Analyst & Project Manager, Plano, TX 1/2000 – 8/2004

Hired to contract out a 7-Eleven account in downtown Dallas where I started as a Senior QA but ended up holding down several roles; including automating a vast majority of regression test cases and new functionality, along with managing projects.

Automation team lead responsible for scripting over 2000 test cases, as well as maintaining existing regression scripts.

Test Director Administrator for the entire 7-Eleven project.

Responsible for all maintenance and new addition aspects including projects, requirements, test cases, test sets, defects, new users, new groups, password resets, etc.

Served as a business analyst; collaborated with management, development, and users in gathering requirements needed for proper documentation that would ensure the full development life cycle is followed.

Designed, wrote, modified, verified, and implemented test plans, test scenarios, and test cases.

Updated existing test plans, scenarios, and cases to catch project modules up to current release levels.

Wrote and tested defects as needed.

Involved in reviewing the Business Requirement Documents and Test Plans.

Managed/Tracked projects to completion. Worked with BA & QA to ensure BRD’s and test plans in order as well as working with the business to keep everyone on the same page and deliver quality.

Spent a great deal of time working and testing with the 7-Eleven POS (Point of Sale) system.

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE

IPS-Sendero Addison, TX

Senior Quality Assurance Analyst 1997 – 2000

Canmax Retail Systems Dallas, TX

Quality Assurance Analyst 1996 – 1997

EDUCATION

Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Degree in Hotel, Restaurant & Institutional Management

-Minor in Business Administration

CERTIFICATES & TRAINING

Conflict Resolution Training – Stream (Stream Energy), 2018

Workplace Harassment training – Stream (Stream Energy), 2018

Security Clearance – Apptricity Corporation, 2007

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Testing & Automation Tools:

HP Application Lifecycle Management (All Versions)

Selenium

Perfecto Mobile

HP Quick Test Pro (All Versions)

HP Load Runner

Rational Robot

Computerware QA Run

Testing Languages:

Test Script Language (TSL)

JavaScript

ASP.Net

Java & Oracle ADF

VB Script

C, C++

Operating Systems:

MS-DOS

UNIX

MAC OS

Microsoft Windows (All Versions)

Browsers:

IE (All Versions)

Mozilla

Firefox

Google Chrome

Safari

Software & Databases:

Microsoft Office Tools

Microsoft Project

SQL Server

MS Access

Oracle

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE, MEMBERSHIPS & AWARDS

Emergency Safety Officer Volunteer – Stream (Stream Energy), 2018 – 2019

Company-Wide MVP Award – Stream (Stream Energy), 2018

Founding Member & Officer – Stream (Stream Energy) Toastmasters Club, 2016 - 2019

Founding Member & Sponsor – Stream (Stream Energy) Events Committee, 2016 - 2019

Company-Wide MVP Award – Stream (Stream Energy), 2013

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