As the Technical Project Manager, I oversaw IT-managed projects from conception to completion within budget and scheduling constraints. My responsibilities included planning project timelines, utilizing standard tools for project management, defining scope and deliverables, communicating progress to stakeholders, collaborating across teams, managing changes and conflicts, setting success criteria, and managing resources and budgets. Through effective communication, organizational prowess, and leadership skills, I maximized IT system investments and ensured projects successes while educating teams on Agile principles and values.

As the Scrum Master/Delivery Lead for Wellmark's first agile product team, I facilitated agile ceremonies (daily stand-up, backlog refinement, demos, retrospectives, planning) and managed dependencies/impediments, ensuring teams met delivery expectations and stayed accountable. Our product vision was to help providers and members reduce the total cost of care. I supported and coached teams in application development and platform configuration, empowering them with lean and agile methods for planning and delivering solutions. I collaborated with cross-value stream teams on SSO integrations, led virtual/hybrid meetings, including large groups for PI planning, and coached leads, stakeholders, and teams on requirements gathering, backlog refinement, and prioritization, maintaining focus on high-priority tasks.I also drove the team to define objectives and key results, measured performance, and provided visibility into delivery targets and progress through status reports and communication plans. I tracked and managed project tasks using Jira/Jira Align/Confluence, identified areas for improvement through metrics, and facilitated continuous improvement. Additionally, I fostered a healthy team culture through team-building activities, retrospectives, and celebrating successes while ensuring a safe environment.

Responsible for managing a group working across all levels of the organization to increase Agile acumen, develop and enhance intellectual property, and standardize and implement processes and best practices to ensure successful adoption of Agile principles, values and techniques. Collaborated and guided teams to drive the adoption and optimization of Agile practices. Mentored and coached Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Management and Project Managers to correlate learnings to principles and practices with supporting, relevant, real-world examples. Conducted performance management and development, and staffing and disciplinary actions.Educated individuals and leaders on how to create empowered, self-organized, high performing teams that work to improve independently.

As a Scrum Master, I managed Scaled Agile portfolios, aligning them with organizational goals. Specifically, I created real-time risk solutions for the Annuity Risk product, aiding traders in managing various annuities. I facilitated cross-functional scrum processes for projects, non-projects, and maintenance tasks, ensuring teams adhered to Agile practices, prioritized effectively, and maintained sprint commitments.In addition, I served as an Agile Coach, enhancing team performance by guiding Scrum Masters, assessing team maturity, optimizing velocity, and identifying improvement areas. I addressed systemic impediments promptly, collaborated with managers on governance, refined backlogs with Product Owners, led Scrum ceremonies, and trained peers, fostering Scrum adoption across the organization. Lastly, I liaised with stakeholders to communicate milestones, mitigate risks, and fostered team development for higher effectiveness.

As an Agile Coach for GVL's Veterinary Platform, I led teams in developing an intelligent online regulatory compliance system for animal health management, improving compliance accuracy, and reducing administrative time. I played a key role in fostering leadership, team development, and Scrum processes across all products and four scrum teams. My efforts included ensuring adherence to software engineering principles, facilitating self-organizing teams, and coaching on successful team performance and interactions. I also maintained data quality, supported business process engineering, resolved production issues, and coordinated inter-team projects. Additionally, I continuously enhanced my Agile and Scrum knowledge through training and networking, while also training and mentoring new employees in Scrum methodology.

As a Product Owner for the Healthcare Platform, I spearheaded the development of a solution that enabled HIPAA data sharing between the EPIC system at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) and the UICA Blackbaud system. This achievement significantly improved communication with potential donors and fundraisers, enhancing their ability to contribute to UIHC initiatives. In my role, I acted as a liaison among internal stakeholders to analyze, document, and validate business and system requirements. I also collaborated with vendor partners to design optimal integration solutions and continuously monitored data quality and integrity.Furthermore, I created and maintained workflows, approval processes, and validation rules based on stakeholder requirements. I defined and documented user interfaces, support systems, and data requirements, proactively communicating and collaborating with both internal and external customers to deliver needed artifacts. I facilitated requirements flow between user communities and the software development team, collaborated with developers and subject matter experts to establish technical vision, and served as a conduit between business units, technology teams, and support teams. Additionally, I contributed to quality assurance efforts, defined testing strategies and risks, and reviewed and edited requirements and specifications related to proposed solutions.

As a Scrum Master, I successfully developed service themes and epics, ensuring the integrity of services across all ACT educational assessment products. I engaged stakeholders to identify cross-functional product features and assess their impact on current processes, operations, and platforms. By bundling service backlog items into implementable initiatives at both Scrum and Sprint backlog levels, I supported Product Owners and Scrum teams in understanding initiative contents while maintaining a user/customer focus. I also created detailed technical service requirements, business requirements scope, use cases, and user stories to ensure successful implementation and collaborated with Product Owners to prioritize work through Scrum work-streams. Additionally, I facilitated meetings involving cross-functional teams from strategy to implementation, presented foundational processes and roadmaps to promote learning and LEAN process practices, generated and maintained requirements traceability matrices, and ensured a user-friendly and successful online Customer Experience.

Partnered with EGS colleagues around the globe to gain an understanding of their business needs, identified and built solutions which met those needs.Supported executive leadership by organizing the departmental tools and data conventions.Worked in a virtual environment across multi-functional global team members.Developed, designed and implemented EGS - Strategy SharePoint Site while maintaining the Wells Fargo Communications Universal Requirements.Shaped and expanded the use of basic standardized metrics in order to gain more transparency into the enterprise projects that were in developmentOrganized, tracked and present the EGS-Strategy Follow the Sun in Service Campaign across all time zones and 3 countries.

In my role as a Scrum Master in the Wells Fargo home mortgage industry, I excelled as a liaison between client areas and technical teams, resolving complex business problems with automated solutions. I provided cost-effective technical assistance, facilitated training, and recommended process improvements that led to significant return on investment. My leadership resulted in receiving Team Excellence Recognition for achievements with the STEPS Program, showcasing my ability to drive successful initiatives and adapt to shifting priorities while meeting demanding deadlines.

As a Product Owner, I successfully managed the vision, definition, build, and launch of new products for both domestic and global markets in the user verification industry. I introduced and implemented Agile methodology best practices, ensuring a fast and successful release schedule. I defined and managed critical paths, obtaining buy-in from key stakeholders across multiple locations. Additionally, I collaborated with executive-level stakeholders, cross-functional teams, and customers to execute strategic business objectives. In leading product teams as an Agile Scrum Master, I strengthened team skills and knowledge, identified implementation needs for stakeholder coordination and accountability, applied strong product management practices, and proactively managed risks through insightful reporting to stakeholders.

As a Project Manager for Safari Books Online, I collaborated on strategic business objectives and operational decisions, leading cross-functional global teams to meet executive business roadmap milestones. I also served as an Agile Scrum Master, managing team members to ensure fast release date commitments were met. I maintained product development schedules, resolved conflicting priorities, and identified implementation needs to coordinate project teams effectively. Additionally, I defined and managed critical program paths, engaged stakeholders from various departments, and conducted market research to drive strategic product direction and improve customer experiences. Using metrics, I monitored product development progress, identified areas for improvement, and optimized functionality, design, and technology to maximize ROI across the organization.

Monitored pricing, online products and marketing on 3rd party and competitor sites.Identified best practices in e-commerce industry and held to strict government and industry standards.Leveraged site functionality to highlight relevant products that aligned with goals to maximize conversionBuilt, executed and maintained the company development roadmap for strategic executive management leadership decisioning.Grew user base and revenue by 60% within a 9-month time frame through the addition of new e-commerce traffic streams, affiliate management programs, SEO, advance innovative product functionality and key marketing strategies.Maintained product development, project schedules and growth opportunities across the organization.Facilitated cross-functional and corporate organizational meetings to define clear company vision and innovation ideas.Introduced insightful reporting and documentation to assist key leadership stakeholders in advancing the start-up company.Applied strong project management practices which best suited the needs of the product development whether it be Waterfall, Agile or RUP methodologies to drive the successful execution and implementation of release deliverables.

Managed $500K annual professional services budgetAdministered $3M annual software development budgetMaintained product development schedules working with cross-departmental producers, business systems architects, lead software engineers and executive level management teams.Leveraged site functionality to highlight relevant products that align with goals and maximum conversions.Managed a direct reported software development teams that supported 5 external and 2 internal products. Direct reports were composed of 30 software development resources, 5 subject matter experts, 5 business analysts and 15 quality assurance analysts.Achieved recognition from Los Angeles Community School District (largest school district in the United States) for providing an innovative solution for interim assessment testing which were mapped to the California State Educational Department.Lead contractual initiatives to the successful delivery of an excellent online user assessment experience.Applied strong project management practices which best suited the needs of the product development whether it be Waterfall, Agile or RUP methodologies to drive the successful execution and implementation of release deliverables.

New York Department of Education Assessment products: Nyseslat & NycellConnecticut State Educational Assessment productsLead cross-functional teams for the development of educational assessment testing forUtilized RUP and Waterfall methodology for the successful management of custom built state educational assessment publications consisting of 5 common core standard assessments across 6 educational levels.Wrote / Authored Language Arts assessment items for New York English Language Learners (ESL) and Connecticut State Standards.Maintained a 20 - 25% margin on customized contractsConducted large attendance conferences for Bias Reviews, Item Reviews and Universal Design.Identified, documented and mitigated numerous scope changes across multiple concurrent publishing schedules without jeopardizing the contractual release date.Facilitated planning and coordination activities between content/item development, editing department, statistical analysis department, manufacturing, production, scoring and assessment delivery.

New York State Education Department Assessment products (NCLB and NY Regents)Project Managed and lead 2 major customized contract projects in a matrixes environment while maintaining a 30% margin for the program.Forecasted, planned and justified expenses for a budget over $6m.Responded to state government request for proposals (RFP), which resulted in winning 2 key educational assessment contracts of over $7M.Defined and managed to the programs critical path and obtained the participation of key stakeholders across multifunctional departments.Applied the use of strong project management practices: Development and management of project goals and plansProactively identified and tracked potential road blocks and risksResolved and mitigated project issues without jeopardizing schedule, team member efforts and corporate goalsProvided insightful reporting to stakeholders to create a transparent picture of the project health

Project managed the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) was a standardized test to assess the academic skills of students in public schools. The results of the TAAS were used to measure school and district performance, identify areas for improvement, and inform educational policies and practices. I successfully led this high profile major customized contract in a matrixed environment, maintaining a 20% margin for the program. I forecasted, planned, and justified expenses for a budget exceeding $6 million, responding to state government request for proposals (RFP) and securing two key educational assessment contracts worth over $7 million. I defined and managed the programs' critical path, obtaining the participation of key stakeholders across multifunctional departments. Utilizing strong project management practices, I developed and managed project goals and plans, proactively identified and tracked potential roadblocks and risks, resolved and mitigated project issues, and provided insightful reporting to stakeholders to ensure transparency and project health.

I was a Secondary High School English Teacher who taught journalism, American literature, and grammar. Skilled in designing engaging lessons that promote student growth and achievement while fostering a positive learning environment. I also coached swimming and freshman football teams, developing effective training programs, and promoting teamwork and sportsmanship.I leveraged my teaching expertise and coaching experience to inspire students academically and athletically. Committed to creating a supportive and inclusive learning environment that fosters student success and personal growth both in the classroom and on the field.