Chad Ryan Email & Phone Number

Henderson, Nv, Us

Las Vegas, Nevada, Us

Recruited by the Senior Vice President of Game Development and Quality, primary responsibility was to build a new department, define its charter, evaluate future staffing and resource needs, and implement the changes necessary to create an effective organization focused on best practices for Requirements Management.• Defined the charter to focus the group on delivering detailed technical requirements for projects to support the Games Product Roadmap ensuring that all regulatory, customer, market, and internal product constraints are met. Identified responsibilities that were in and out of scope to support the charter and worked with external teams to identify responsible groups for those areas deemed out of scope.• Evangelized the purpose, function, and goals of the new department throughout organizational leadership including Product Management, Game Studio heads, Compliance, and Engineering and Technology teams. Demonstrated the issues currently pervasive in the “business as usual” approach and how the function of this new organization was intended to address those issues, improve expected outcomes, and improve on-time delivery of product to customers.• Worked with the Human Resources Compensation team to define new job descriptions for the roles needed to staff the department. Recruited and hired staff with appropriate skills applicable to the roles needed within the department.• Partnered with the Quality Engineering team to evaluate, select, and implement a new integrated Requirements and Test Case Management solution (Perforce Helix ALM) for the organization. Acted as the primary contact with the vendor during the evaluation and implementation period, administered the tool, defined the requirements management workflows, and worked with the QE team to define shared processes.• Collaborated with internal teams in Game, Platform, and Systems Development to define and implement processes for providing requirements inputs to their teams for implementation.

• Conducted review of various gaming products against regulatory requirements and industry standards for their intended release markets.• Provided gap analysis of an embedded system platform and gaming operating system against regulatory and customer requirements for future implementation and use in additional gaming markets.• Suggested process improvements in product development and SQA for a client company to improve team effectiveness and enable future growth.• Worked with a client to adapt existing mobile gaming applications to physical point of sale platforms to allow online casino games powered by live horse racing results to be made available in nontraditional gaming markets and venues.

Reno, Us

• Responsible for the complete testing and verification of the top two performing cabinets and platforms delivered to the leading operator in the Montana VGM route market.• Implemented a lightweight test case management tool (TestPad) to move existing test case management in Excel into a more versatile, modern, and cost effective platform that provides better visibility into project SQA metrics in real time.• Improved standards for bug reporting within existing Issue Management tools (Bugzilla).• Collaborated with game design and software development to define and standardize expected behaviors on each cabinet and platform to provide a consistent interface to players across all games within the multigame products released.

Las Vegas, Nv, Us

Primary responsibilities include managing the day-to-day operations of all North America based Software Quality Assurance groups responsible for SG/WMS/Bally EGM and ETG platforms, and acting as the main point of contact for all systems interoperability testing with third party manufacturers and customers.• Managed the internal and external testing of all projects in the SQA Systems Interoperability, OS Platform, and ETG groups. Previously managed the WAP/LAP System testing group. Directly supervised the activities of up to 4 managers, up to 30 engineers domestically, and coordinated the project activities of US based platform SQA groups with international SQA teams.• Projects included maintaining compatibility with SAS casino systems, validating compatibility with new lottery systems implementing the G2S protocol in Canada, Greece, and the US, validating Class II products implementing the SAS and S2S protocols, validating compatibility of WMS Network Gaming systems with third party gaming machines, validating WMS adaptive gaming systems with operator casino systems, developing test sets for Australian gaming markets including the X-Series and QCOM protocols, and validating modifications to WMS wide area progressive systems products.• Lead the effort to standardize the test practices, tools, and test sets among global SQA platform teams following mergers.• Define and assess test practices, standards, tools (including HP Quality Center, JIRA, qTest, Team Track), processes, and metrics within SQA.• Drive continuous process improvement within SQA to reduce test durations, improve test coverage, and reduce escaped defects.• Review and provide feedback on product requirements for active and proposed projects.• Propose risk mitigation strategies balancing the business drivers and quality risks while meeting the business needs.• Oversee SQA labs, third party loaned equipment, and WMS owned equipment loaned to third party labs for interoperability testing.

Las Vegas, Nv, Us

Us

Primary responsibility was to work with the business and technology teams to develop technical product requirements and product strategies for new and existing business.• Developed the product roadmap for the PlayerVisionTM product family with executive management, engineering, and business development teams.• Defined the product requirements for projects associated with the product roadmap and communicate these in detail to the engineering team for implementation.• Presented new product concepts to regulatory agencies for conceptual approval early in the development cycle.• Identified, evaluated, and recommended third party development teams and vendors to assist with product implementation. Negotiate external development agreements in concert with engineering management and legal counsel.• Primary technical contact for sales and marketing teams to resolve technical questions and issues arising from customers.• Worked with the Vice President of Intellectual Property to protect new product concepts developed internally and to review third party intellectual property to identify potential acquisition candidates that complement current and future LVGI products and strengthen the company IP portfolio.• Aided engineering, purchasing, sales administration, and customer service departments in the definition of processes for identifying and qualifying external vendors, releasing parts for sale, configuration management, and installation planning.

Us

Las Vegas, Nv, Us

Spent over 11 years progressing through many roles of increasing responsibility in both individual contributor and management positions. Highlights included:• Hired as the first engineer testing the Video Casino product line. Built the team from the ground up to eventually manage 14 engineers directing all SQA activities for the group.• Led several large projects including the initial development and rollout of WMS Ticket In/Ticket Out products, the design, development, and delivery of custom firmware and hardware products to a customer for deployment to 17 locations across Europe and the Far East, a redesign and overhaul of the accounting system in WMS video products to address key regulator concerns, development of an automated test regression platform with a third party vendor, and analysis and definition of market requirements for new sales opportunities delivered to the development teams for implementation via technical specifications.• Started the Systems Engineering group to define and develop complete system requirements for all new internal and external engineering development. Responsible for developing product requirement specifications for the majority of the critical system features implemented in the WMS Bluebird cabinets and CPU-NXT family of products, primary technical contact for third party development teams, responsible for presenting concepts for next generation WMS platforms to regulatory agencies during the development process to proactively address issues affecting the regulatory acceptance and approvals necessary for a successful product launch, and responsible for evaluating and providing the engineering response to new jurisdictional regulations and lab proposals pertaining to technical issues affecting slot machines.