Product Owner Systems Analyst

KARI ALVAREZ

815-***-**** **********@*****.*** https://www.linkedin.com/in/kari-alvarez-csm-cspo-kmp-safe SUMMARY

A driven and accomplished product owner/systems analyst with 10+ years of success in Agile methodologies, program management, product planning, healthcare analytics, data-driven decision-making, reporting, continuous improvement, system administration, and change management. Proficient in leveraging healthcare data to uncover insights, support CMS compliance, and improve strategic outcomes. Experienced in leading successful teams and projects, implementing innovative problem solving, coaching, and developing staff, and collaborating cross-functionally. Proven aptitude for providing strategies and solutions to drive efficiency, ensure quality, and achieve exceptional results.

SKILLS

Stakeholder Relationships IT Strategy Product Management Product Vision Road mapping QA Testing People Development Business Intelligence Budget Management Business Process System Administration Technical Solution Design PI Planning SQL Legal Technology Process Improvement Business Development TeraData JIRA JIRA Align JIRA Structure Confluence SSIS/DTS NextGen EMR Salesforce Field Service Lightning CMS Audit Readiness CMS Program/Validation Audit Health Reporting Analytics Medicare Medicaid Healthcare Claims FACETS QNXT AWS Service Now Clarity PPM Agile Methodologies SAFe Frameworks Data Modeling Data Analysis Data Visualization KPI Design Dashboards Power BI Data-Driven Strategy Data Governance ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Led development of a new software application that provided scalability in data management for CMS reporting, resulting in 30% reduction in total cost of operations and increased technology simplification.

• Improved and streamlined product backlog for work deliverables with team, establishing regular delivery cadence on releases and working at 90% capacity.

• Collaborated with internal and external stakeholders on the transition of 2.2M members from internal systems to external systems.

• Held accountability for coaching twenty teams in Agile processes.

• Led team in the transition of 20 applications to new platform to support migration of Medicare business to new owner.

• Collaborated with multiple business teams to perform the transition and migration of Claims business to new technology.

• Led integration of analytics into backlog prioritization process, resulting in a 20% increase in alignment between business goals and feature delivery.

EXPERIENCE

CIGNA, Remote

Agile Product Owner Senior Advisor, 2021-2025

Collaborated with internal business and technology product owners / stakeholders to initiate new government business initiatives and support development of program specifications, including product vision and value statement. Provided technology financial requirements and estimates for CMS Universes. Managed and serviced product backlog to maximize value of products created by Scrum teams. Implementing SAFe framework for Compliance Technology team (12 week PIs).

• Led engagement from multiple stakeholders, ensuring prompt and quality deliverables.

• Translated business knowledge into goals, objectives, problems, and opportunities that facilitated the desired outcome.

• Collaborated with stakeholders to define product road maps, maintaining a backlog of prioritized features and ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer needs.

• Utilized SQL and TeraData to generate insights for CMS Universe submissions and audit readiness reporting.

• Partnered with analytics and compliance teams to design dashboards tracking data quality and regulatory metrics.

• Drove prioritization using backlog insights and historical performance metrics to align delivery with business value. CIGNA, Chicago, Illinois

Application Development Senior Manager, 2020-2021

Kari Alvarez, Page 2

Oversaw team that supported applications for medical records management and provider scheduling. Assisted in transition of IT and business under new area, transitioning and creating plan to migrate and integrate supported applications. Built and executed successful plan for transition.

• Led engagement from multiple stakeholders, ensuring prompt and quality deliverables.

• Bridged the gap between vision and execution by breaking down complex goals into strategic phases.

• Transformed vague business challenges into actionable strategic roadmaps. HCSC / BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD, Chicago, Illinois

Senior Manager, Resource Development and Agile Center of Excellence Lead, 2017-2020 Coordinated schedule of resources (employee and contractor) to ensure clarity around priorities and goals to meet business needs. Worked cross-functionally with peers and stakeholders to ensure collaboration for shared goals. Led Agile COE, providing team coaching, enterprise-level coaching, Kanban, and Scrum. Held primary responsibility for management of Agile COE product backlog, managed team of 90 (primarily offshore) Scrum Masters. Interacted with senior management for reporting, strategy development, and execution planning.

• Two Agile coaching clinics opened in Texas and Chicago.

• Participated in OCM workstream to initiate organizational change to embrace Lean / Six Sigma and CI framework.

• Collaborated with executive sponsor to create roadmap, prioritize backlog, and define release plans.

• Collaborated with team to remain focused on overall objective (vision) and release/sprint goals.

• Led use of agile metrics (velocity, burndown, team health) to inform continuous improvement across 90 Scrum Masters.

• Designed and tracked KPIs for Agile maturity across departments using custom dashboards. HCSC / BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD, Chicago, Illinois

Scrum Master II, 2016-2017

Directed four Scrum teams in developing solutions using Agile practices while maintaining accountability for software build activities. Orchestrated Scrum events such as backlog creation / grooming, prioritization, standup meetings, estimation, showcase, and retrospectives. Collaborated with product manager to plan roadmap execution based on estimates and capacity and identified risks to plan. Conducted change management by participating in and leading Scrum adoption practices organization wide.

• Served as Scrum Master for large implementation of new retail application system for two retail services work streams.

• Led team that supported Retail Markets for health insurance.

• Collaborated with team to win Silver Award.

• Recognized with Five Star Silver Award for effort to support teams HCSC / BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD, Chicago, Illinois

Supervisor Application, 2015-2016

Directed multiple development projects / groups and application support functions for retail business segment. Led 13-member team of onshore / offshore developers responsible for collecting and disseminating new enrollment data originating from CMS (Center for Medicaid and Medicare).

• Negotiated and managed all release activities and tracked progress to ensure on-budget and on-time application releases.

• Communicated key project plans, commitments, and changes, including requirements, QA plans, schedule, and scope. ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE

NETSMART TECHNOLOGIES, Lisle, Illinois, Consulting Delivery Manager, 2006-2015. Hired to lead a multi-disciplined team and functioned as a primary customer-facing individual. Navigated challenging customer relationships and escalations to ensure satisfaction. Designed systems and documents and executed large-scale data migrations (3M records). Led the software application development team for the Total Integrated Electronic Record (TIER) throughout several project phases, ensuring execution of translation and development of business requirements with EMR software. Raised accuracy of development 50% by drafting a new technical design document template.

EDUCATION

DEPAUL UNIVERSITY, Chicago, Illinois

Kari Alvarez, Page 3

Bachelor of Arts, Political Science

CERTIFICATIONS

Certified Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Certified SAFe 6 Product Owner, Certified Paralegal

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