Baljinder Saini

• Coordinating several cross-functional teams of different sizes (6 to 13 people) under SAFe Agile framework.
• Enhanced team productivity by implementing Agile methodologies and improving communication between cross-functional teams.
• Streamlined project delivery by conducting all Agile events including daily stand-ups/team sync, sprint planning, backlog refinement, retrospectives, scrum of scrums and review/demo meetings for multiple projects simultaneously.
• Facilitated and coached successful onsite as well as virtual PI (program/planning increment) planning events for 5-7 teams. Guided, involved, and rolled out PI planning playbook; This helps SMs/POs/TPMs can now facilitate sessions independently.
• Defining project scope and objectives, resources needed, possible risks, and ways to mitigate those in creative and timely fashion manner.
• Ensuring product backlog is created as user stories ready for development, grooming and negotiating stories with team and BA/PO reps to ensure all user stories have clear description and acceptance criteria.
• Successfully onboarded 30+ team members (from company acquired by Finastra) onto one SAFe Agile/Scrum methodology. It was very challenging task and meant much more responsibility. But I did it in collaboration with PMO!
• Coached/Mentored cross-functional and geographical distributed teams from 4 different scrum teams to deliver quality product releases during every PI.
• Improved reliability of all team’s commitments (planning, estimation, defects)

- Achieved 80% committal reliability for almost every sprint.

- Tracked team commitments per sprint and PI using JIRA data.

• Fostered culture of continuous improvement, leading retrospectives to identify areas for process enhancement.
• Produce various Agile team KPIs and metrics to measure team’s performance and progress, such as Commitment Reliability – story point vs closed story point, PI Burn Up (commitment (story point) vs actual (closed story point)), Velocity trend, Capacity utilization, Burndown charts, Work distribution, etc.
• Mentored junior Scrum Masters and team members in Agile principles and promoting best practices.
• Resolved impediments to team progress by proactively identifying issues and facilitating effective solutions.
• Protect scrum teams from both internal and external distractions.

• Being Servant-leader to 3 Agile teams, always managed to identify and resolve impediments and blockers that are obstacles to team’s progress. Built trusting, collaborative, and safe environment where team can experiment and learn. Ensured that Agile principles, methodologies, and concepts are consistently adhered to and guided team through Agile activities as needed and requested.
• Driving culture of process improvement, continuous development and integration, and delivery within teams and organization by adopting best practices of scrum, SAFe, and Kanban.
• Reinforce standards and processes to have better alignment with team expectations:

- JIRA standards (data entry, workflow, estimation using planning poker, scrum boards)

- Documentation of Agile practices & standards (Confluence)

- Definition of Ready and Done

- Working Agreement

- Maintain and review action items during a team retrospective

• Enhanced team efficiency by implementing Agile methodologies and guiding daily scrum meetings.
• Advised executives on scaling Agile practices across departments to increase organizational agility and responsiveness to change initiatives.
• Improved project delivery timeframes through effective backlog management and sprint planning.
• Facilitated cross-functional communication, enabling teams to collaborate effectively on project tasks via scrum of scrums calls.
• Coached team members in Agile practices, promoting culture of continuous improvement.
• Developed metrics for tracking progress such as sprint report, burndown charts, velocity report, committed vs completed and measuring team performance against goals.
• Conducted sprint reviews and retrospectives, fostering collaborative environment for feedback and improvement.
• Established strong relationships with stakeholders, aligning expectations and maintaining open lines of communication throughout projects.

• Partner with key stakeholders to define requirements and establish strategy and timelines for Filogix (Mortgage origination and connectivity portal to various lenders) line of business.
• Improved project efficiency by analyzing business processes and identifying areas for improvement.
• Conducted brainstorming sessions with customers and partners to study the market and define improvements to the product to complete in the market.
• Coordinate the training and onboarding for all internal support mortgage broker agents.
• Update support processes and procedures to meet the business needs.
• Established and lead the training and Quality Program teams to achieve and maintain global consistency and enhance the customer support experience.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams, ensuring a cohesive approach to business analysis.

• Effectively lead QA team of total 19 members in various geographical locations.
• Managed design, development, and execution of entire test process; track and report progress of test execution; documented and coordinate detailed execution plan for all cycles to support testing.
• Created Master Test Strategy/Plan and reviewed Business requirements, Design documents, and prepared Test Plans for all assigned project releases.
• Ensured that team follows QA Standards and processes. Meet twice week with QA team members to deliver project status and help them understand their assigned project tasks; Help clarify their questions or concerns.
• Reduced software defects by conducting thorough manual and automated testing on regular basis.
• Provided continual Risk Assessments for each testing phase to QA Manager and Project Manager to factor those risks into project plan.
• Lead in creating Functional and Regression Test suite for Stream Loan project in HP Quality Center.
• Lead in creating and execution of System Integration tests and interface testing by validating XMLs and using SOAP UI tool.
• Lead UAT testing activities
• Improved product quality by implementing comprehensive test strategies and plans for various software applications.
• Enhanced team performance by providing guidance and mentorship to junior QA engineers.