Candidates About

Amar Kaur

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Innovative, results oriented Senior Project manager / Scrum master with over ten years of experience with skills managing Account, in delivery of cost-effective, high-performance technology solutions with budget responsibilities up to $2-5 MM annually and a passion for building relationships and exceeding client and management expectations. Proven success in the areas of project management, operations, software and new product implementations, and e-business solutions. Strong skills in team building, communication and presentation, as well as inter-department and executive client relations and account management. Excellent track record of leading high performance, culturally diverse international teams of experienced technical architects, project managers and individual contributors. Extensive experience in managing multi phased IT projects and multiple projects at a time.

• Highly knowledgeable, versatile and result oriented professional with over 12+ years of experience in Agile digital marketing, Financials with Trade and Derivatives, E-commerce, Digital TV, Software development systems integration.
• Manage E-Commerce portfolio with expertise in Homepage & Navigation, Search, YMAL, Browse & Shop, Path to Purchase, Payment, Account vendors to allow credit card processing by all agile methodologies for the end to end shopping experience.
• Expertise with progressive levels of responsibility spanning engagement leadership, program and project management, process re-engineering and systems analysis.
• Expertise in coaching the team in Scrum project management practices through: Building Organic, self-organizing agile teams and integrating them into the enterprise
•  Create a guiding, shared team vision, project vision, and product vision, implement simple, adaptable methodology rules to deliver business value rapidly and reliably, Creating open flow and exchange of information among project team members and external groups
• Maintain a light touch by supporting team autonomy, flexibility and customer value focus without sacrificing control and Tracking and monitoring the project for timely and relevant feedback while instituting systemic learning and adaptation
• Expertise in collaboration and facilitate Scrum collaborations through: Release Planning Sessions to determine what a Release should include and when it should be delivered, Iteration Planning Sessions by elaboration, estimation and prioritization on highest-value product deliverables for the next iteration
• Manage Daily Standup Meetings to rapidly take the pulse of the project, address challenges, and coordinate activities of the team and with the Product Owner management of RACI and RAID, Iteration Review / Demo Sessions to demonstrate completed functionality to interested stakeholders and users to show progress and gain important feedback, Iteration Retrospective Sessions that reflect on project and process issues and take action as appropriate and Continuous collaboration and process improvement
• Proven cross-organizational leadership to facilitate the Agile transformation.
• Expert knowledge of the practices, concepts and procedures related to coaching and facilitating development teams in the adoption and practice of agile principles.

EXPERTISE:

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Viacom - Sr. Digital Agile Project Manager/Scrum Master, NY                                                         February 2015 – Present

Projects: SSO Implementation, CRM/Salesforce Enhancements, Monetization – ads analytics

• Single Sign On across all platforms - Successfully launched SSO across web, mobile and tablet that led to the increase in user acquisition rate by 30K new users weekly. 
• Partner with business groups for new initiatives/projects for user acquisition, engagement and retention.
• Collect healthy customer data and provide reports to the necessary groups.
• Maintain data dictionary for upto date information on all vendors, table name, column name, data type and descriptions.
• Engage with data partners and vendors like eDialog, gigya, Krux, Mail chimp, Experian, Offerpop, Take Five, sizmek, Adobe etc.
• Continuous play across feature implemented all across platforms
• Led digital product strategy for various hybrid/agile teams with daily stand up, sprint planning, sprint review, sprint retrospectives, backlog grooming, story point estimation and release planning 
for on-site and off shore teams.
• Led digital development for design, UX, content, UI development, engineering, and quality assurance for the App redesign project for Playplex project entailing apps including web, mobile web, apps and connected devices like iOS and Android (Phone and Tablet) on the old vs. new app and defined features with product owner.
• Lead teams responsible for crafting meaningful digital experiences varying from the design and build of large scale platforms to shorter cycle, highly creative campaign work across our portfolio of high profile clients.
• Plan & execute various research activities throughout the project lifecycle to help ensure solutions are insight driven and truly user-centric
• Lead cross functional teams to deliver extraordinary outcomes: Producers, UX, Art Directors, Content specialists, Business analysts, Technical architects, UI developers, Application developers, Testers
• Facilitate daily stand-ups, sprint planning, grooming, demo, retrospectives, and other related team and intra-team meetings
• Led Monetization - Ads and products with inhouse and 3rd party ads including Google ads, Freewheel ads for web, mobile and tablets for several brands including MTV, BET, CMT, CC, Viva, NickJr, Nickelodeon, international brands and many more
• Organize and facilitate agile ceremonies - daily stand-up: scrum team meetings, Sprint reviews, sprint and release planning/grooming, demos and other Scrum related meetings
• Identify and work closely with our partners across the Global Consumer Bank to ensure that all appropriate teams so they are represented in the Scrum meetings while practicing the core agile principles of collaboration, prioritization, team accountability.
• Ensure that the team is following the Agile process/framework, look for opportunities to continuously improve quality, delivery and process while removing impediments from their team
• Produce, track and communicate sprint/release and team metrics and performance to appropriate stakeholders.
• Manage scrum master items that include owning Sprint/Release calendar management, sprint planning, helping the team make appropriate commitments through story sizing and task definition, and leading effective retrospectives.
• Prioritize the most impactful work on the team by working with the Product Owner and manage the product backlog to maximize benefits.
• Protect the team from outside interference, removing impediments, and ensure that the work is delivered as a team.
• Create and maintain the backlog, roadmap, book of work and creating best practices for the program

Environment – SalesForce, JIRA, Charles Proxy, VPN, Comscore, Omniture, Demdex, Neilsen, Enterprise Tester, SharePoint, Slack, Confluence/Jira, Hipchat

HBO, NY - Sr. Technical Project Manager                                                                                                       June 2012 -- Jan 2015

Projects – Domestic apps upgrade  - HBO GO + MAX GO + HBO NOW

§ CRM Preference Center Redesign

o    Led Design discovery and design review followed by Development and Backend API integration

o    Launched new preference center for all brands (HBO GO + MAX GO + HBO NOW) supporting mobile, tablet and web.

o    Implemented features like Sign up, Sign in and Log in to your account and view content

o    Omniture and Tealium integration on all pages

§ ESP Migration: Email service provider migration from Exact Target to Experian recommendation Engines

o    Managed Implementation of predictive models in Scala Machine Learning Framework

o    Implementation and automation of Feature Engineering for predictive customer churn models

o    Managed Implementation of Analytical reports in Mode analytics for EDA

§ SVOD - Launched Gifting feature of H-Vault and LMC app on ROKU

o    Work with Vendors like Stripe for payment, Avalara for taxation and Card Compliant for Compliance.

o    Partnered with Stripe for all payments transactions and refunds

§ Maintained relationship with many data partners like KRUX, SayMedia, Vision Critical and others.

§ Email collectors – on all show landing pages and on web pages to acquire new user email addresses.

§ Launched Schedule pages – across all sites.   

§ Launched various Surveys and Sweepstakes on show pages:

o    Partner with survey vendors for API integration

o    Work with UX and UI teams to get design comps

o    Get approved content from the content teams

o    Work with the Dev and QA teams for all dev work and obtain stakeholder approvals.

o    API Integration with various partners to collect data that would help marketing teams with user engagement and acquisition campaigns.

o    Worked with Marketing teams to setup various email marketing campaigns

o    Static and Dynamic email marketing campaigns

• Effectively managed all aspects of Digital project management - scoping, estimation, budgeting, invoicing, scope management, team management and client relationship led requirement-gathering sessions for various Digital, Video, Video subscription and TV guides, Setup box, Cross browser, Mobile and Tablet based projects.

• Worked with PMO resources ( Executive level business, Product Owners, Development / Engineering resources and external partners) including Application Managers, Supervisors and project teams to improve the overall quality of products.
• Managed multiple projects through closure; develop release plans with contract requirements, milestones, risks and plan for execution.
• Responsible for scheduling necessary meetings with resources and stakeholders, act as a facilitator and provide clear documentation, minutes and communication to all involved with project(s).
• Conducted project briefings on project status to project teams and Senior Leadership when required.
• Perform project control analyzing variances to the project plan, providing root cause analysis and corrective actions.
• Guided the team and organization on how to use Agile/Scrum practices and values to delight customers
• Guided the team on how to get the most out of self-organization
• Guided the team on self-organizing to fill in the intentional gaps left in the Agile/Scrum frameworks
• Assessed the Scrum maturity of the team and organization and coaching the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and organization

Environment –Salesforce, Hadron platform, Services running on Hurley, Jira, Test Rail, Youtrack, Charles Proxy for logs, Scoop, Elgato testing, Geoblocking through Charles. Fiddler, Libby MW

Macy’s, NY – Technical Project Manager                                                                                            October 2010 – May 2012                               

Project - Macy’s Beauty Spot

§  Enhanced Macy’s high-touch in-store application providing an alternative way for customers to learn more about beauty care products by sharing reviews, making and saving personalized beauty cart

§  Implemented features like browse products, profiles, YMAL suggestions, shopping cart, social media sharing capabilities, payments, checkout. 

§  Worked on demandware out of the box e-commerce solution for new business global launch with SSO.

Environment – Hybris, Demandware, Firebug, MS Office, Version One

Jones Group, NY – E-Commerce Project Manager                                                                           October 2008 – August 2010                                                                      

Project - Revamped desktop sites, Implemented Mobile sites, Created Selenium scripts for regression,E-commerce - PayRunner, ShopRunner features, Reward programs , Paypal implementation, International checkout implementation via FiftyOne (formerly BorderFree) - www.ninewest.com, www.easyspirit.com, www.jny.com, www.anneklien.com, www.us.kurtgeiger.com, www.brianatwood.com, www.rachelroy.com, www.shoeWoo.com

• Managed all aspects of project management - scoping, estimation, budgeting, invoicing, scope management, team management and client relationship for all websites development projects with improved 35% growth in overall site traffic

§  Added paypal as additional payment method on the website

Environment: Demandware, Bugzilla, Jira, Toad, WinScp, Replatform from Weblogic systems to Storm eCommerce systems, Selenium automated scripts, YesMail email blast

Bank of America, NY – Sr. Project Coordinator                                                                       August 2007 – September 2008                                   

Project – Derivatives and Trade Compliance with ACTIMIZE – Trade Surveillance System and ACTUATE reports

• Managed Actuate reporting on Derivatives Trade Compliance Reporting System processes flow project E.g. in-house Derivatives Trade Reconciliation, Front Running, Wash Trades and Pre-Clarence reports for Trade Compliance group.
• Trade Surveillance suite - Actimize (Risk Mitigation Tool) and its modules e.g. Actimize Case Manager (ACM) on Equity (EQ) and Fixed Income (FI) Trade Surveillance Management modules

Environment: Mercury QTP, Actimize, Actuate, JIRA

Canon USA Inc., Lake Success, NY – E-Commerce Business Analyst                                  February 2005 – July 2007

Project - Internet Reconstruction (E-Commerce), ISG Retail Extranet (Retail) and Installation Management Processing System (Client/Server application)

• Acted as a main interface point with Product owner, responsible for gathering requirements, attaining signoff on design specifications, managing detailed project plan for design and development, coordinating testing activities, prepare for launch and rollout.

Environment: Mercury QTP, Test Director, Moved sites from Oracle 8g to 9i

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

BS in Computer Information Systems & Finance from The City University of New York.