RASHMI RANJAN SAMANTARA
Highly seasoned and experienced Product owner with exceptional skills in all areas of software construction and programming. Adept at troubleshooting and ensuring quality control at every stage of management process. Motivated and forward-thinking Product owner with 5 years of experience in agile environment. Around 8 years of total IT experience including Agile methodologies, software requirement analysis, estimation, functional/technical design, development, testing and implementation with good experience in multiple tools and utilities.
Summary of Experience:
• Having around 5 years of experience working as a Product Owner, with expertise in eliciting, analyzing, and assuring quality of business requirements. I am adept at envisioning and translating the product vision from the business area to software development, making critical contributions.
• My skills also include extensive work in Business Analysis, specifically Functional Analysis, Requirements Elicitation, Analysis and Documentation, Data Integration Analysis, Gap Analysis, and Requirements Traceability Matrix. Additionally, I possess a strong understanding of Software Development lifecycle and methodologies, such as Waterfall and Agile.
• Strong knowledge of Software Development lifecycle and methodologies like Waterfall and Agile methodology.
• I have driven the delivery of critical business initiatives, managing all aspects of the project from planning to implementation, and monitoring the process. I have implemented agile analysis by working with stakeholders, data architects, and development teams to provide direct feedback.
• Good experience in implementing agile analysis, including communicating with stakeholders, working with data architects and development teams and providing direct feedback to teams.
• Create and maintain solution vision, roadmap, and backlog of work through the project’s life cycle.
• Develop a clear roadmap and prioritize tasks to meet market and customer needs in a timely manner.
• Lead and coordinate all stages of agile project delivery, including analyzing customer data and creating user stories to validate new features.
• Take ownership of ongoing development and prioritize user stories with agile teams.
• Possess strong communication and technical skills, quickly understanding technical concepts.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and good experience in working with senior level management, business associates and developers across multiple disciplines.
• Managing the Program Schedule which identifies the Milestone and High-level dependencies for all the projects within the program and establishes project plans.
• Collaborated with stakeholder to discuss Requirements, Pain Points, Use Cases, Workflow Dependencies, Scalability, and Unified Mapping Processes.
• Ensured team utilized Agile Scrum methodologies efficiently by collaborating with project team using Slack as a communication tool to collaborate with lead developer and Scrum master to quickly eliminate Roadblocks, discuss work agreements, identify Definition of Done (DoD) and set quantifiable team goals.
• Experienced with XML, JSON, WSDL, HTML, AJAX, API, SOAP, and RESTful Web Services, as well as SOA, Micro-Service Architectures.
• Working knowledge of databases such as Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server for Data Processing, Data Mapping, Data Modeling, Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL), Data Standardization, Cleansing, Scrubbing, Deduplication, and Normalization and Data Visualization and reporting applications such as Tableau and SQL Server reporting services (SSRS). Technical Skills:
SDLC Processes Agile Scrum, Agile SAFe, Waterfall
Analytical GAP Analysis, System Impact Analysis, Opportunity Analysis, Business Rule Analysis and Development
Documentation: Requirement elicitation and its management, data dictionary, user stories, subtasks, use case, product backlog, functional & technical specs, test scenarios, and traceability matrices Office Applications MS-Office 97/2007/2010/2013, Excel Operating Systems Windows Server 2012/2008/2003, Windows 10/8/7 Higher Education:
• Pace University, New York – Masters of Business Administration – May 2023 Professional Experience:
Client: State of NY, (Remote) Mar 2022 - Present
Role: Technical Product Owner/Scrum Master
Responsibilities:
• Serve as Product owner to manage the product backlog and feature creation.
• Partnered with business and technology teams to define product strategy and roadmap.
• Identify all dependent and relevant stakeholders and ensure they are consulted and communicated in a timely manner. Think from Product mindset.
• Establish successful reporting for both the technology and business teams to ensure work is on track, teams are working on the right priorities and risks/blockers are quickly communicated and mitigated.
• Participate in Program Incremental (PI) planning, product release plan and set expectations for delivery of new functionalities.
• Owning Product Backlog grooming, feature refinements, grooming sessions, Daily Standups, and other Sprint planning initiatives and making sure team is having a healthy backlog to work on.
• Participate in Sprint ceremony and retrospective to analyze the project failure / success.
• Close coordination with other teams working on similar work solutions to avoid any confusion or duplicate efforts.
• Provide an active role in mitigating impediments impacting successful team completion of release/iteration goals.
• Provide vision and directions to the agile development team and stakeholders throughout the product and create new/ future requirements.
• Understand team capacity and monitor velocity. Report resourcing risk as and when needed.
• Provide product roadmap and functional designs to technology teams.
• Attend product demos and support testing as needed to ensure teams have met expectations. Helping team to complete UAT testing.
• Owned Production promotion and help team in perform checkouts and making sure that after production prometon, applications are showing changes and working properly.
• Implement the CI/CD pipeline using Azure DevOps and maintained pipelines. Environment: JIRA, Confluence, Microsoft .NET, Oracle, Azure DevOps, SharePoint, Mule Soft, Service Now, Miro, Agile-Scrum Ceremonies
Client: Hashedin/Deloitte, India Jan 2018 – Dec 2021 Role: Product Owner/Delivery Ops Master/Specialist Responsibilities:
• Collaborated with stakeholders, including customers, development teams, and business analysts, to define product vision, roadmap, and prioritized features.
• Conducted market research and competitor analysis to identify customer needs and market trends, ensuring the product meets user requirements and stays ahead of the competition.
• Created and maintained the product backlog, including user stories, acceptance criteria, and prioritization, to effectively communicate product requirements to the development team.
• Acted as a liaison between the business and development teams, facilitating clear communication and shared understanding of product goals and requirements.
• Conducted regular grooming sessions to refine and prioritize the product backlog, ensuring it is up to date, properly estimated, and aligned with business objectives.
• Collaborated closely with the development team in sprint planning, backlog refinement, and daily stand-up meetings to ensure timely delivery of high-quality product increments.
• Provided clear and concise user stories, acceptance criteria, and other necessary documentation to guide the development team during the implementation phase.
• Actively participated in sprint reviews and retrospectives to gather feedback, assess product increments, and drive continuous improvement in collaboration with the development team.
• Made informed decisions on scope, feature prioritization, and trade-offs, considering customer needs, business value, technical feasibility, and time constraints.
• Conducted user acceptance testing and validation to ensure the delivered product meets the defined acceptance criteria and fulfils customer expectations.
• Acted as the subject matter expert for the product, providing guidance and support to stakeholders, including sales, marketing, and customer support teams.
• Monitored product metrics, user feedback, and market trends to identify areas for improvement and opportunities to enhance the product's value proposition.
• Stayed up to date with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in product management, continuously enhancing knowledge and skills.
• Developed and executed a comprehensive user acquisition strategy that resulted in a significant customer base of over 40,000 active users for the electric car-pooling application
• Perform requirements analysis and documentation.
• Implemented effective marketing campaigns, user targeting techniques, and growth hacking strategies to drive customer acquisition and adoption.
• Spearheaded the development and implementation of a robust coupon and referral engine within the electric car-pooling application.
• Collaborated closely with engineering and marketing teams to devise a seamless system that incentivized user engagement, increased customer retention, and facilitated organic growth through referrals.
• Played a pivotal role in improving the overall user experience of the electric car-pooling application.
• Leveraged customer feedback, market research, and data analysis to identify pain points and opportunities for optimization
• Implemented user-centric features and enhancements that led to increased customer satisfaction, higher engagement rates, and improved retention.
• Acted as a key liaison between various departments, including engineering, marketing, and design teams, to ensure alignment and seamless execution of product initiatives.
• Facilitated effective communication, prioritized tasks, and coordinated efforts to meet project timelines and objectives.
• Utilized data analytics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to inform product decisions and drive continuous improvement.
• Regularly conducted data analysis to monitor user behavior, identify trends, and make data-backed recommendations for feature enhancements, product updates, and marketing strategies.
• Conducted peer reviews to solicit feedback on materials created.
• Guided the development teams to break down large and complex user stories into simplified versions for execution.
Environment: Jira, Confluence, Figma, Snowflake
Project 2: HDFC Credila, India
Role: Business System Analyst
Responsibilities:
• Assisted the project managers in developing project plan that included Project Schedules, Milestones tracking, and Meeting minutes using MS Project.
• Created Business Process Workflow diagrams of Current and Expected System, using MS Visio and makes sure that both business and technical teams understand the process.
• Elicited business requirements by conducting JAD sessions, Interviews, Focus Groups and Brain Storming sessions.
• Drafted and Managed Business Requirement Document (BRD) and Functional Requirement Specifications (FRS) in Share Point Enterprise 2016and led the Requirement Workshops where the specifications get converted into User Stories.
• Created and maintained Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM) correlating the system requirements to functional- nonfunctional requirements and then to test cases.
• Worked closely with Data Analyst Team and assisted in assuring the integrity of the collected data.
• Requirements gathering from Subject Matter Experts, project stakeholders and Business users to obtain maximum details of requirements and involved in documenting Business Requirement Documents.
• Liaison between the Business needs (business users and sponsor) and the technical team
(development and testing staff), ensuring technical solutions satisfied business requirements.
• Conducted JAD sessions involving the management, development, and user teams for clarifying requirements and facilitating better communication.
• Careful documentation of business requirements ensured that they are aligned with UI from the initial stage itself.
• Experience in Medicare advantage and dual advantage.
• Participated daily standup meetings with the Developers.
• Facilitated user interviews and workshops to gather requirements.
• Involved in GAP Analysis and Technical Feasibility study with the technical leads and other SMEs.
• Created process flow diagrams in MS Visio.
• Worked with other team members for requirement analysis and clarifications and recommending changes for the gaps identified.
Environment: Waterfall, MS Visio, MS Office Suite, MS Access, SQL version, PL SQL, Teradata, Rational Rose, HP Quality Center, MS Project, MS Visio, MS Office (MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint), HTML, CSS, React.JS.