Veena Raman

(***) *** - **** advjkp@r.postjobfree.com

Certified Scrum Master

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY:

Highly skilled professional with over 10+ years of experience managing large-scale traditional Waterfall and Agile projects. Well-versed in leveraging cross-functional Agile to complete project deliverables on time and within budget. Demonstrated success applying scaled Agile environment, technical expertise, and business acumen to consistently achieve targeted results. Communicate effectively with all levels of management. Certified Scrum Master - Scrum Alliance. Hands on experience in supporting the product owner with respect to product grooming and maximizing the value of team’s work. Expertise in removing impediments and fostering self-management.

SPECIALIZED SKILLS:

Experienced in working with clients to map out their existing Business Processes and providing system-based solutions that increase efficiency and reduce operating costs.

Facilitate meetings (daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint demo, and retrospective.

Work collaboratively with the Product Owner to refine the product backlog.

Used innovative techniques for estimation and prioritizing User Stories.

Strong knowledge & experience working in teams implementing Agile Methodologies.

Excellent communication and inter-personal skills, accustomed to working in both large and small team environments.

Coaching and mentoring teams for high performance.

Experience providing program, portfolio, and team level process, mentoring, and coaching to senior leadership, portfolio managers and teams.

Experience providing training, to include Just in Time (JIT) training, to support new projects and team formations.

Knowledge and experience with Agile techniques – Automated Testing, User Stories, Behavior Driven Design, Continuous Integration and Testing.

Act as an enabler for the effective functioning of a software development team using Agile Methodology.

Manage stakeholder expectations by demonstrating and communicating key indicators of improved effectiveness on a periodic basis.

Capacity to work independently, manage and contribute to a matrix organization, resolve issues proactively and meet aggressive timelines.

High sense of accountability and strong problem-solving skills.

Strong interpersonal and leadership skills to influence across the organization.

Capacity to work with cross-functional, co-located teams, accountable for improving business process and providing value to the functions they support.

Solid analytical and problem-solving skills, multi-tasking abilities, with proven experience in utilizing people and process knowledge to assist enterprises in making critical decisions.

SKILLS:

Agile methodologies -Scrum, Kanban, or Lean.

Project management tools - Jira, Trello, or Asana.

Software development methodologies - Waterfall or Agile.

Software development languages - Java, Python, .NET, HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

Database technologies - Oracle, MySQL, and MongoDB.

Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools - Jenkins or Travis CI.

DevOps practices and tools - Ansible or Kubernetes.

Cloud computing platforms - Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure.

Data analysis and use statistical tools - Excel, R, or Python.

Data modelling and visualization tools - ERD diagrams and Tableau.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

JPMorgan Chase, Houston, TX SEP 2021 – Current

Lead Scrum Master

For over years, JPMorgan Chase & Co has provided innovative financial solutions for consumers, small businesses, corporations, governments, and institutions around the world. Today, we're a leading global financial services firm with operations servicing clients in more than countries. Whether we are serving customers, helping small businesses, or putting our skills to work with partners, we strive to identify issues and propose solutions that will propel the future and strengthen both our clients and our communities.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Mentoring the team transitioning from waterfall to Scaled Agile Framework. Acting as a servant leader and coach for two teams.

Collaborating closely with the product owner, Product Architect on backlog grooming, ensuring acceptance criteria are agreed upon and stories are ready for sizing.

Knowledge of Agile techniques such as TDD (Test-Driven Development), FDD (Feature-Driven Development), CI (Continuous Integration), CD (Continuous Delivery).

Provide visibility into the Agile team’s delivery plans and progress against plan to the stakeholders.

Leading “first” cross-functional Scrum Teams (Design, Development, DevOps, DB, QA), including Sprint Zero (3-day, 5-day), and the establishment of additional new Scrum team.

Facilitating the team and cross-team Retrospectives to build good working relationships among agile teams.

Work with Product Owners, Product Managers, and the business units within all business functions to align technology solutions with business strategies.

Creating and managing complex user stories, and requirements definition and decomposition for overall product features.

Plan for long term goals using Jira and Microsoft Project. Created user story road maps to provide deeper understanding into the functionality of the system, so that team can more effectively plan development and releases.

Participate and serve as Scrum Master in Daily Scrums/Standups, structure and facilitate Sprint Reviews for post sprint product demonstrations to the Product Owner and Customer.

Work as servant-leader within self-organizing Scum Teams to improve team collaboration and team’s Average Velocity, responsible for producing Burndown, Velocity, and QA progress reports.

Proficiency in software development languages and tools such as, JavaScript, or SQL. Java, .NET, Python.

Familiarity with cloud computing platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.

Experience in designing and developing microservices-based architectures using containers and container orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.

Strong knowledge of RESTful API design principles and implementation.

Experience in implementing DevOps practices such as continuous integration, continuous delivery, and automated testing using tools such as Jenkins, Git, and Selenium.

Understanding of data modeling and database design principles, as well as experience in using relational and non-relational databases such as Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra.

Familiarity with front-end development frameworks and libraries such as Angular, React, or Vue.js.

Proficiency in using collaboration tools such as Slack, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams for remote team communication and collaboration.

Experience in using monitoring and observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK stack to track and analyze system performance.

Understanding of security best practices and experience in implementing security measures such as encryption, authentication, and access control in a software application.

Environment: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, Angular, React, Vue.js, Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Jenkins, Git, Selenium, RESTful API, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, Java, .NET, Python.

Avaya Inc., New Jersey JUN 2017 – AUG 2021

Senior Scrum Master

Avaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, contact centres, networking, and related services to companies of all sizes around the world.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Enabled Agile team to increase its throughput by 15% through use of swarming around features and other high-collaboration approaches, such as paired programming

Facilitated test-driven development on all projects increasing quality by 17% (benchmarked against historical data)

Administered all Agile/Scrum processes including sprint planning, daily scrums, sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives, coached team members and clients on Agile process

Mentored a cross-functional team and conduct scrum ceremonies (grooming, sprint planning, retrospectives, daily stand ups)

Led the team in implementation and adaptation of JIRA which reduced the time to create and manage tickets

Protected development team from outside distractions, impediments and maintained focus on product backlog and project timeline

Ensured user stories were 100% ordered, defined, and ready to be worked on by the team

Acted as servant leader and coached the team ensuring effective use of Agile Framework

Doubled team velocity, throughput, burndown, and cumulative flow of 4 cross-functional teams

Resolve various conflicts that might arise of distributed teams working on the application

Coaching and empowering teams to be self – organized, ensuring all team members are adhering to scrum values and agile best practices

Attended PI planning workshops and facilitated system demo, inspect, and adapt workshops for future PIs and Release Management meetings

Worked closely with the Release Train Engineer for the ART in coordinating dependencies between various scrum teams.

Helped the team in deciding the sprint backlog for every sprint.

Helped the team to write and split User stories, breakdown Epics.

Used JIRA to maintain product backlog and sprint backlog and to create and track user stories, Sprint planning, tracking, and managing sprints, created Scrum and Kanban boards, status reports and burn down charts.

Perform sprint retrospectives to capture lessons learned and what can be improved in next sprint.

Worked on SAFe framework with other scrum teams, attended Scrum of Scrums to coordinate dependencies across various other scrum teams in Agile Release train, worked with Release Train Engineer, System Architects and System Team for Infrastructure requirements and to support integration testing.

Understanding of Agile metrics and reporting, such as velocity, throughput, burndown, and cumulative flow, to monitor progress and identify areas for improvement.

Responsible for Solution and Complexity Estimation.

Ensured timely availability of dependent deliverables such as config data, test data for different scenarios, de-identified production data.

Knowledge of test-driven development (TDD) to improve the quality of code and reduce defects.

Experience in facilitating sprint planning, daily scrums, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.

Expertise in creating and managing product backlogs, sprint backlogs, and user stories.

Understanding of DevOps practices and tools for continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD).

Knowledge of networking technologies, such as LAN, WAN, VLAN, and VPN.

Experience with unified communications and contact Centre solutions, including Avaya's products and services.

Environment: Agile methodology, Scrum framework, Test-driven development (TDD), JIRA, SAFe framework, Kanban boards, Infrastructure requirements, Integration testing, Version control systems, Git, Jenkins, JUnit, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Java, Python, Node.js.

Flagstar Bank, NJ APR 2014 TO MAY 2017

Scrum Master

Flagstar Bank is a subsidiary of Flagstar Bancorp, and is headquartered in Troy, Michigan, is a full-service bank and is one of the nation's top 10 largest savings banks. Flagstar is also a leading mortgage lender and a national leader in the wholesale mortgage business.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Plan Agile best practices and encourage team cohesion, overcoming impediments and hurdles to increase productivity

Facilitate Scrum processes – sprint planning, backlog refinement, daily scrum, sprint review and sprint retrospectives.

Protect the sprint backlog from scope creep during execution of the PI, remove impediments for the team and raise larger issues to the Release Train Engineer

Share metrics with the team and upper management and drive improvement using metrics

Observe team dynamics, recognized strengths and weaknesses of individual team member’s contributions and coach the team to improve

Scheduling and allocating work, providing advice and guidance, and resolving problems to meet technical performance and financial objectives

Coordinate all Scrum Ceremonies including Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Sprint Retrospectives, Sprint Demos, Story Grooming, and Release Planning

Coaching and mentoring other ScrumMaster on our program team. Partnering to ensure that our ways of working are consistent across teams

Assist in defining and deploying new product development processes and in facilitating the continuous improvement of existing processes

Coaching and mentoring other Scrum Masters on our program team. Partnering to ensure that our ways of working are consistent across teams

Liaising between developers and project stakeholders; fostering quality communication

Ability to troubleshoot technical issues and work collaboratively with developers and other technical teams.

Understanding of cybersecurity principles and practices.

Familiarity with software development practices such as Pair Programming, Swarming, and Test Automation.

Knowledge of software architecture and design principles.

Helping the team to identify and address technical debt and other impediments to their ability to deliver high-quality, functioning software

Encouraging a culture of experimentation and innovation, and promoting the use of data and metrics to drive decision-making.

Project management tools such as Jira, Trello, or Asana: Administered Jira for Agile/Scrum processes, maintained product backlog and sprint backlog, created Scrum and Kanban boards, status reports, and burn down charts.

Database technologies (e.g., Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB): Worked with database technologies such as Oracle, MySQL, and MongoDB to store and manage data.

Lumina Datamatics Ltd. MAY 2010 – MAR 2012

Business Analyst

Project at Lumina Datamatics involved developing a new e-commerce platform for a client in the retail industry. The project involved gathering requirements from the client's business and technical teams, collaborating with a cross-functional development team to design and build the platform, and conducting user acceptance testing to ensure that the platform met the client's business needs and technical requirements. The Business Analyst also supported the client in transitioning to the new platform and provided ongoing support as needed.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Collaborated with business users, stakeholders, and technical teams to gather and document requirements for various software development projects, utilizing project management tools such as Jira, Trello.

Analyzed business processes and identified areas for improvement and optimization, using data analysis and statistical tools such as Excel, R.

Created detailed functional specifications, user stories, and use cases to guide development teams, using understanding of software development languages and technologies such as Java, Python, .NET, HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

Conducted feasibility studies and cost-benefit analysis for proposed solutions, utilizing knowledge of database technologies such as Oracle, MySQL, and MongoDB.

Ensured that project requirements aligned with overall business objectives and strategy, using ability to write and execute SQL queries to extract data and conduct analysis.

Led the planning and execution of user acceptance testing (UAT) to ensure that delivered solutions met business needs, using understanding of process mapping and workflow diagramming tools such as Visio and Lucid chart.

Created and maintained project documentation, including requirements, use cases, user manuals, and training materials, utilizing knowledge of data modeling and visualization tools such as ERD diagrams and Tableau.

Worked closely with project managers and technical leads to ensure that project timelines and budgets were met, utilizing knowledge of cloud computing platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure.

Assisted with change management and communication efforts to ensure smooth adoption of new solutions, utilizing familiarity with DevOps practices and tools such as Ansible or Kubernetes.

Conducted post-implementation reviews and analysis to identify opportunities for future improvement, utilizing knowledge of SDLC processes and methodologies.

Environment: Jira, Trello, Oracle, MySQL, and MongoDB, Java, Python, .NET, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, ERD diagrams and Tableau, Visio, Lucid chart, Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes, Excel, R, Python

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS:

MBA in Marketing - Vellore Institute of Technology 2001

Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration – Valliammal College for Women 1998.

PG diploma in Sales and Marketing from NIS

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