Prabhakar Palem
Senior Program Manager | Agile Leader | AI-Enabled Delivery |
Hyderabad
Summary
Senior Program Manager and Agile Leader with 16+ years of IT experience across Healthcare, BFSI, Payments, Mining, and Warehouse Management domains. Proven expertise in leading large-scale Agile transformations and managing multi-team programs (50+ FTE). Strong hands-on adoption of AI-assisted delivery using Microsoft Copilot and Generative AI to improve productivity, reporting automation, quality, and decision-making.
Overview
17
17
years of professional experience
5
5
Certifications
Work History
Program Manager / Offshore Delivery Lead
Cognizant Technology Solutions
03.2019 - Current
- Lead end-to-end program delivery across multiple projects, ensuring alignment to scope, schedule, quality, and compliance.
- Define and manage program roadmap, milestones, dependencies, and delivery priorities.
- Drive standard delivery frameworks including Scrum and Kanban across teams.
- Adopt and leverage AI tools (Microsoft Copilot / GenAI) to improve delivery efficiency, reporting, and decision-making.
- Act as the primary interface for client leadership, managing expectations and communication.
- Run Weekly Status Reports (WSR) and Monthly Steering Committee meetings.
- Establish and govern program quality gates and delivery standards.
- Design and maintain program dashboards (Velocity, Completion Rate, Unplanned Work, Escaped Defects, Bug vs Story).
- Proactively identify and manage risks, issues, and dependencies, ensuring timely closure with root-cause and preventive actions.
- Prepare and present bi-weekly governance decks for senior leadership.
- Lead staffing, resource planning, optimization, and budget tracking for large programs.
- Manage and mentor teams across 50+ FTE and multiple parallel workstreams.
- Drive process optimization and reusability, reducing rework from 58% to 12% using BIQ techniques.
- Ensure adherence to organizational processes, compliance, and delivery governance.
- Build and sustain high-performing teams through coaching, mentoring, and continuous improvement.
- Deliver effective executive presentations, customer demos, and stakeholder communications.
- Client: Lineage Logistics
- Program: LinOS | 8 Scrum Teams
- Duration: Apr 2024 – Present
- Key Contributions:
- Drive Scrum/Kanban execution, release planning, and dependency management across teams.
- Adopted Microsoft Copilot:
- Accelerate status reporting, WSRs, and Governance decks
- Improve backlog clarity, acceptance criteria, and documentation.
- Support AI-assisted code reviews, unit test generation, and defect triage
- Designed program dashboards with Velocity, Completion Rate, Escaped Defects, and Unplanned Work.
- Lead monthly steering committees and act as primary interface for client leadership.
- Fostered a high-performance, inclusive team culture, enabling predictable delivery and stakeholder trust.
- AI & GenAI Adoption
- Practical usage of Microsoft Copilot for:
- Sprint summaries, MoM, and executive updates
- Risk analysis and decision support
- Delivery metrics interpretation
- Leveraged GenAI to:
- Reduce manual reporting effort
- Improve documentation quality and consistency
- Enhance QA productivity through test insights
- Strong understanding of ethical and responsible AI usage in enterprise delivery environments.
Senior Scrum Master
Caterpillar
03.2019 - 04.2024
- Served as Senior Scrum Master for multiple Scrum teams delivering business-critical enterprise products.
- Coached Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and development teams on Scrum values, principles, and best practices.
- Facilitated all Scrum ceremonies including Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives.
- Guided teams through forming, storming, norming, and performing stages to improve Agile maturity.
- Prepared working Team agreements like Definition of Ready (DoR), Definition of Done (DoD), How to estimate Story Points, and sprint planning norms.
- Improved sprint predictability and delivery commitments through data-driven planning and retrospectives.
- Actively removed impediments and managed cross-team dependencies to ensure smooth sprint execution.
- Ensured transparency through Agile metrics, dashboards, and visible information radiators.
- Championed Built-In Quality practices to reduce post-production defects.
- Promoted continuous integration, In Sprint Automation awareness, and sustainable engineering practices.
- Facilitated meaningful retrospectives that resulted in measurable process improvements.
- Fostered a culture of continuous learning, collaboration, and psychological safety.
- Practiced servant leadership with strong focus on coaching, empowerment, and conflict resolution.
- Reduced inter-team and intra-team dependencies through improved planning and collaboration.
- Mentored team members and junior Scrum Masters on Agile mindset and delivery excellence.
- Supported team onboarding and scaling while maintaining Agile discipline.
- Client: Caterpillar – Chennai, India
- Program: Mining Health (MineStar Health, Productivity Insights, AP 2.0, NGSS, Reusable Components)
- Duration: March 2019 – April 2024
- Role: Senior Scrum Master
- Team Size: 36 members across 3 Scrum Teams
- Domain: Mining & Fleet Management
Education
Master of Science - Integrated – IT
Periyar University
Skills
Program & Portfolio Management
Agile Delivery (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe)
Stakeholder & Executive Communication
Risk, Dependency & Governance Management
Scaled Agile & Multi-team Coordination
Risk, Dependency & Issue Management
Certification
AB-730 (Microsoft Certified: AI Business Professional)
Timeline
Program Manager / Offshore Delivery Lead
Cognizant Technology Solutions
03.2019 - Current
Senior Scrum Master
Caterpillar
03.2019 - 04.2024
Master of Science - Integrated – IT
Periyar University