Scrum Master Continuous Improvement

NEERJA KALRA

Mobile: +1-201-***-**** • Email: ***********@*****.***

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Certified Scrum Master (PSM) with 9+ years driving Agile transformation and delivery across public sector, banking, and fintech. Adept at building high-performing teams, scaling Agile frameworks, and coaching toward continuous improvement. Known for stakeholder alignment, increased delivery velocity, and optimizing enterprise outcomes through Agile best practices. Passionate about integrating AI into Agile workflows to enhance decision-making, automate routine tasks, and enable data-driven innovation.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Frameworks & Practices: Scrum, SAFe, Kanban, Lean, Agile Coaching, Agile Playbooks

Tools: Azure DevOps, Jira, Jira Portfolio, Confluence, MS Office Suite

AI Workflow Tools: ChatGPT, Power BI, Tableau, CoPilot, Gemini, Numerous.ai,

Agile Ceremonies: PI Planning, Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Retrospectives, Backlog Grooming

Leadership & Strategy: Stakeholder Engagement, Team Building, Servant Leadership, Conflict Resolution

Domains: Government & Taxation, Banking, ERP Systems, Compliance Projects, Digital Transformation

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

RSI Solutions Inc. — Senior Scrum Master New Jersey Jun 2022 – Mar 2025

Led Agile transformation of a $90M program for the NJ Department of Taxation across 4 Scrum teams (46+ developers & testers).

Authored Agile playbook, implemented Agile practices from scratch, and coached teams through Agile adoption.

Restructured workflow in Azure DevOps to manage 176+ features, reducing admin time by 35%.

Boosted teams’ velocity by 40% through improved backlog grooming and Agile maturity coaching.

Delivered 128 functional and 22 interface features in Phase 1 on time, within quality targets.

Acted as servant leader for cross-functional Agile teams, ensuring alignment with Scrum principles and best practices.

Facilitated Scrum ceremonies (planning, daily stand-ups, reviews, retrospectives) to drive alignment, reduce blockers, and deliver sprint goals within planned timelines.

Partnered with Product Owners on backlog refinement and forecasting, improving delivery accuracy by 20%.

Proactively removed impediments and mitigated risks by identifying cross-team dependencies and escalating blockers.

Promoted continuous improvement via data-driven retrospectives, yielding measurable gains in velocity, collaboration, and quality.

Built Agile performance dashboards in Jira & Azure DevOps (velocity, progress, defects, cycle time, release readiness) to enable real-time stakeholder visibility.

Mentored team members, resolved conflicts, and facilitated cross-functional alignment that improved engagement scores.

Secure Cloud (formerly 8K Miles) — Scrum Master New Jersey Apr 2016 – May 2022

Coached two cross-functional Scrum teams (FE/BE/QA/DevOps) to consistently hit 90–100% sprint goal attainment, improving delivery predictability and stakeholder trust.

Cut average cycle time ~25% by tightening WIP limits, implementing Kanban flow for unplanned work, and introducing Definition of Ready/Done across teams.

Partnered with Product Owners to stand up outcome-based roadmaps and OKRs, increasing alignment and reducing priority churn; backlog health (age, clarity, readiness) improved quarter-over-quarter.

Led PI planning and cross-team dependency mapping in Jira/Azure DevOps; introduced a program risk board (ROAM) that reduced late blockers and carried-over stories by double digits.

Implemented metric tracking (lead time, deployment frequency, change fail rate) with dashboards in Azure DevOps enabling fact-based retros and executive visibility.

Introduced story-splitting workshops and estimation guardrails (relative sizing, reference stories), which improved velocity stability and forecast accuracy across quarters.

Facilitated risk-based testing (accessibility, performance, security checks), raising first-pass acceptance and lowering defect leakage to downstream environments.

For banking & hospitality products, ensured teams worked within PCI-DSS/SOC 2 constraints; embedded lightweight security gates (OWASP checks, secrets scanning) into the flow without slowing delivery.

Ran customer-journey–driven discovery with SMEs (banking ops, property management), tightening feedback loops via rapid demos and A/B pilots; NPS/CSAT trends improved on targeted journeys.

Mentored junior Scrum Masters and tech leads on servant leadership, facilitation, and conflict resolution, lifting team engagement scores and reducing escalation frequency.

Orchestrated cross-vendor collaboration (design, data, infra) and standardized change-management playbooks, accelerating onboarding and cutting handoff delays.

Championed continuous improvement via quarterly Kaizen themes (flow efficiency, quality, automation), turning retro insights into measurable experiments and tracked wins.

Built executive dashboards (burn-up, velocity, forecast vs. actuals, defect trends) for portfolio reviews, enabling data-driven scope trade-offs and release decisions.

Fannie Mae (Contractor) — Scrum Master Reston, VA Aug 2015 – Mar 2016

Introduced Agile and Scrum frameworks to newly formed teams, accelerating Agile adoption and reducing ramp-up time by 30%.

Partnered with leadership to define and implement an Agile delivery roadmap aligning team capacity with product strategy.

Facilitated release planning and cross-team coordination, ensuring dependencies were managed across squads and deliverables met timelines.

Maintained Agile artifacts (product/sprint backlogs, release burndown) to provide transparency and predictability.

Coached junior Scrum Masters and team members on Agile principles and collaboration, raising Agile maturity.

Collaborated with QA and DevOps to implement CI and automated testing pipelines, reducing defect leakage by 18%.

Drove stakeholder engagement through demos, progress reports, and prioritization sessions, improving satisfaction.

Piloted Kanban practices alongside Scrum, improving throughput and reducing average cycle time.

Brooks Brothers — IT Business Manager New York, NY Mar 2014 – Jun 2015

Implemented EDI/ASN with Tier-1 suppliers and 3PLs; reduced receiving discrepancies and improved dock-to-stock time by ~20%.

Developed cross-functional dashboards (sell-through, margin, aging inventory) enabling faster allocation/markdown decisions and improved category profitability.

Led UAT, release planning, and change management for seasonal drops and ERP upgrades, lowering P1 post-release defects and improving adoption across business teams.

Brooks Brothers — Global Operations Manager — Supply Chain (Luxury Apparel & Accessories) New York, NY May 2013 – March 2014

Managed end-to-end PO lifecycle and global vendor portfolio across North America, Europe and Asia; improved on-time-in-full (OTIF) performance by ~10–15%.

Negotiated MOQ and lead-time reductions with European/Asian mills and factories, cutting average lead time by ~2 weeks and lowering working capital tied up in WIP.

Launched a regular S&OP process across merch, planning, and DC ops to keep core items in stock and cut seasonal overstock/markdowns.”

Piloted RFID/advanced carton labeling and standardized vendor scorecards, increasing inventory accuracy and accelerating cycle counts at DCs and flagship stores.

Reduced PO release time from weeks to 24 hours by automating approval workflows and harmonizing Incoterms and vendor terms.

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS

• Master’s in Business Management

• PSM — Certified Scrum Master (Scrum.org)

• Trained SAFe Advanced Scrum Master

• Certified AI Generalist

Contact this candidate