Mark Heppler Email & Phone Number

Arlington, Va

I work with government and private sector enterprises to improve their ability to deliver software that gets the results they are looking for. Responsibilities range from scrum master to program coach for scaled programs ranging in size from one to eight teams.• Introduced release planning, affinity sizing, and release burnups to help multiple teams coordinate work and provide longer-term forecasts.• Organized and facilitated a multi-team self-selection activity to empower people to determine their team’s makeup.• Conducted impact mapping with client organization to identify goals and priorities for large new initiatives.• Facilitated cross-team refinement and planning activities, ensuring all teams were aligned across the product backlog and short-term goals. • Facilitated cross-team retrospectives, generating insights into how teams can work more effectively together within a scaled environment.• Collaborated with other coaches to identify opportunities for cross-team improvements• Coached Product Owners through creating and maintaining a product roadmap.• Created information radiators to align the client and teams on the purpose, goals and measurements for major milestones.• Worked to eliminate pre-existing silo of design by integrating designers within scrum teams.• Introduced velocity and sprint burndown charts to provide better visibility into team delivery.• Supported project management in miscellaneous tasks: monthly metrics, release preparedness report, risk registry, knowledge management articles, coordinating go-live activities, and onboarding new team members.Other Activities• Host of DC Scrum User Group (DSCUG)• Facilitator at Games for Agility, Learning, and Engagement (GALE).• Facilitated events within Excella’s internal Agile Community of Practice to demonstrate new techniques and promote continuous learning.• Delivered training and custom workshops to multiple clients

Alexandria, Va

Supported multiple development projects at USPTO. • Scrum master on project developing performance improvements and feature enhancements to CMS for uspto.gov. • Led new agile team in defining scrum processes and artifacts. • Led team in tailoring scrum to meet project needs and team culture. • Coached product owner and development team in grooming user stories. • Developed online help tool for internal trademark processing system.

Lead system engineer on multiple projects, successfully delivering products to internal and external customers. Royal Netherlands Navy -- Delivered the premier training system for The Netherlands Navy Academy. Satisfied customer is now requesting new features and recommending our system to additional customers.• Brought in to help with final phase of our largest project that was significantly over budget and behind schedule. Delivered system without further schedule slip and under revised budget. • Reorganized engineering team, identifying technical leads for each major feature, improving overall team performance through parallel development.• Technical POC for subcontractors, partners to develop and integrate features across multiple subsystems.• Spent eight weeks on site for final install and acceptance testing. VirtualShip version 9 – Scrum Product Owner for product upgrade.• Scrum Product Owner, co-led team in the transition from waterfall to agile. • Defined requirements with SMEs, customer input. • On track to release version upgrade on schedule and under budget.LCS Common Mission Package Trainer -- Enhanced VShip to support additional mission package to system integrator.• Defined requirements with prime contractor, led development effort.• Supported customer in effort to integrate CMPT with other LCS training systems.

Managed software development for VShip product. Responsible for delivering software solutions across multiple projects.• Developed screening process that successfully identified effective candidates that are a great fit to our team culture.• Developed processes for performing labor estimates during proposal process.• Worked extensively with subcontractors, prime contractors, partners on contracts where VShip was one component in a larger integrated system.• Worked with clients, subject matter experts, management to define future of product.• Managed R&D efforts with Navy and University research organizations to introduce new technologies into shiphandling trainers.

Managed multiple customer facing projects based on VirtualShip product from contract award through installation, acceptance and maintenance phases.• Managed development of a VShip based crane simulator for U.S. Army Transportation school.• Developed requirements, system design for custom HW-SW solution for providing multiple crane models in single trainer.Managed development of a web-based financial analysis tool for maintenance of Navy landing craft using ASP.net, SQL Server.• Defined and managed process for incremental development cycles and releases.

Developed multiple components of VirtualShip product through multiple product releases and project deliveries using Unix, Windows, C++.• Redesigned existing commercial product, and ported from Unix to Windows.• Reverse engineered requirements on existing system and defined requirements for new product.• Redesigned architecture to support High Level Architecture (HLA) simulation interface.• Defined CM process and developed tools to manage software baseline.• Improved product delivery process by formalizing software development practices.• Worked extensively with customers and subject matter experts to define system requirements, acceptance testing, installation and training.• Participated in product demonstrations, industry conferences worldwide.• Designed and developed entity simulation subsystem on Windows systems.• Designed and developed real-time 3D visual and network subsystems on Unix systems.

Full lifecycle development on multiple projects using Unix, C, C++.• Worked with multi-national partner companies to deliver mobile command and control system to NATO• Designed and developed GUI front-end applications in client-server architecture.• Relocated to Munich, Germany for ten months to support on-site system integration.• Led a team of five to seven developers maintaining a GUI toolkit, applications and window management tools.• Created GUI standards document for project.• Developed GUI toolkit and manual for use by in-house developers.

Unix kernel and application development.