Biography
As a scrum master for the past five years, I help the team bind and work with an agile mindset and with enthusiasm. I ensure that the teams understand the product backlog, assign story points and commit to completing a set of these each sprint. I insure we deliver, and demonstrate what we have achieved. Adopting an Agile and Lean framework is a journey, and I can always improve - one reason I attend events arranged by groups such as Agile Philly (which I recommend). I also embrace modern software development techniques such as peer reviews, continuous integration, continuous testing, and DevOps techniques. I believe that having multi-functional capabilities is important, and I dig in; for example, setting up testing jobs and monitoring software.
Work experience
LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Scrum Master and Project Manager
January 2015 - Present, King of Prussia, PA, US
Scrum Master for a team developing a large data platform. Insured the team, both onshore and offshore are enthusiastic, productive and not blocked on any activities. Work with the Product Owner and Business Analyst to organize the workload into sprints. Insure the sprint goals are met, velocity maintained and scrum ceremonies performed. “Dig in” to fill gaps – creating jobs for performance tests, documenting how the features are used, handling and triaging support issues. The team successfully improved performance and reliability to allow the platform to handle nine client data processing applications.
Managing the move of all systems in the local data center to other data centers. This multi-million dollar project requires that all the components and their interactions are understood, the new systems are configured, qualified, and launched with minimal effect on clients.
Release Manager for all releases and deployments in the local data center. Insure the releases are understood, the dates and times determined, approvals gained and all risks are known and mitigation plans in place. Since implemented, this has virtually eliminated failed deployments and improved the relationship with clients and client-facing personnel.
Divisional liaison with offshore development company. Insured all purchase orders were approved, invoices reconciled, security and training corporate requirements were met and system access was available.
Health Market Science, Inc, Scrum Master
June 2005 - December 2014, King of Prussia, PA, US
Scrum Master for the development of web-based application that allows pharmaceutical companies to track expenditure on health care practitioners for regulatory reporting. Met tight deadlines to launch the product for the initial client. Managed the advance to “big data” technology for fast report production.
Implemented agile practices within the team to insure fast turnaround of high quality features. Managed a team with cross-functional expertise in a team room as well as with offshore members. Monitored backlog of small independent stories and insured team commitment to a group of these each sprint. Spearheaded the completion of automated regression test suite that facilitated regular releases to production once every four weeks.
Manage the implementation of a Master Data Management (MDM) system using “big data”/NoSQL (including Cassandra and Elasticsearch) and RESTful technologies. Worked with business stakeholders to determine the requirements and with the implementation team to determine the work effort, assess risks and insure they are delivered to the planned goals.
GENEX Services, Inc., Manager, PMO; Manager, Applications Support
September 2001 - May 2005, Wayne, PA, United States
Managed the development and support of CRM, data warehousing and corporate reporting applications.
Set up and lead the Project Management Office for the company.