Smita Samal
Pune
Summary
Strategic IT professional with over 15 years of experience, including 7 years in Agile leadership roles as Lead Scrum Master and Senior Scrum Master. Expert in implementing Scrum principles and fostering collaboration across distributed teams. Skilled in removing impediments and promoting self-organising teams, successfully leading large-scale web and mobile application development within the BFSI domain.
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Sr Scrum Master
Capgemini
Pune, India
06.2024 - Current
- Worked closely with Product Owners to refine backlogs and define sprint goals for project alignment
- Maintain the plan of record for a product release, maintaining dashboards and
reports - Work with cross-functional teams to ensure product features are delivered,
Manage the release backlog; continuously order and prioritise accordingly - Monitor progress to ensure application releases are delivered on time and within
budget, Communicate status to all stakeholders - Be the point of contact for the product allowing scrum teams to focus on
execution, Manage risks and resolve issues that affect release scope, schedule or
quality - Engage frequently with scrum teams to review progress, facilitate action
resolution, remove impediments - Prioritize continuously in accordance with the understanding and validation of
customer problems and needs - Conduct Release Readiness reviews, Milestone Reviews, and Business Go/No-Go
reviews - Maintain a release repository and manages key information such as build and
release procedures, dependencies, and notification lists - Continually work towards making improvements in the release process
,Coordinating and aligning ART activities with the organization's strategic goals - Managing the ART flow of value, or steps used to create value for the project
- Implementing PI planning events and monitoring their progress
- Encouraging teams within the ART to collaborate on certain tasks to meet goals
- Promoting improvement through inspect and adapt (I&A) events after PI
completions, Helping keeps the ART productive by ensuring the use of lean-Agile
processes - Manage projects with top-down oversight throughout entire execution to ensure
success as defined by adherence to standards of scope, budget, and timeline - Facilitating Agile ceremonies such as Sprint / PI Planning Readiness, by fostering
the preparation of Vision and Backlogs, and through Pre- and Post-PI Planning
meetings - Facilitating Periodic Synchronization meetings, including the Scrum of Scrum /
ART sync at the Program level and the Value Stream sync for Solution Trains - Partner with Product Owner to Prioritize/Resolve backlogs, Slashing Technical
debt and eliminating duplication codes - Collaborates with other RTEs for resolving Prioritization, Conflicts and
Synchronization - Driving continuous improvement via Inspect and Adapt workshops; assessing
the agility level of the Team / ART / Solution Train and helping them to improve - Leveraged Scrum metrics to identify process bottlenecks, inefficiencies, as well
as continuous improvements - Communicate and coordinate with affected stakeholders and assist in the
management, planning and control of the project - Supporting and improving the usage of DevOps, CI/CD (continuous Integration
/Continuous Deployment) across the Agile train(s)
Scrum Master
Accenture
04.2022 - 04.2024
- Hold good expertise with Scrum, Kanban, SAFe
- Coach agile teams by assessing current agility maturity, support them in
continuous improvement - Possess expertise in gap analysis, system analysis, and stakeholder
management and served as Liaison between the various stakeholders in the
business - Possess strong Leadership coaching skills & Coach RTEs, scrum masters, product
owners on agile principles, PI planning, and agile ways of working - Experience setting up CoPs (Communication,Ownership,Prioritization and Synchronization)for Agile
- Ability to create agile maturity assessments and guidelines, frameworks to
support teams - Assisted teams in identifying blockers or impediments that were preventing
them from achieving their goals - Conducted regular reviews of team performance against defined KPIs and
metrics - Advised teams on how to optimize their workflow using techniques like pair
programming, continuous integration, and test-driven development - Developed training materials to educate stakeholders about agile processes
- Communicated sprint objectives clearly to ensure everyone was aligned with the
goal - Monitored team performance metrics such as velocity, throughput, cycle time
- Mentored junior members of the team on the agile methodology
- Collaborated with Product Owners to define user stories and prioritize backlogs
- Encouraged collaboration between developers and other stakeholders by
facilitating open communication channels - Supported teams in resolving conflicts or disputes that arose during sprints or
planning meetings - Coached teams in Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban
- Coached stakeholders on their roles in the Scrum process and how to best
support the team's success - Assisted with release planning and coordinated efforts between multiple teams
working on related projects - Enforced scrum values such as transparency, respect, commitment, courage,
focus, openness and inspection - Tracked metrics related to sprint performance and identified areas of
improvement for future sprints - Created dashboards using various tools such as JIRA, Confluence, Trello, to track
project progress and milestones - Worked with project owners and end users to prioritize feature development and
enhancements based on critical paths and business needs
Scrum Master
Capgemini
Pune, India
04.2019 - 04.2022
- Implementing Scrum and SAFe practices in software development to increase
the value flow - Protect development team from outside distractions, impediments, Maintain
focus on Sprint backlog, project timelines - Assist the Delivery Team and Product Owner in continuous process and product
delivery improvement embracing servant leadership model - Assisted teams in identifying blockers or impediments that were preventing
them from achieving their goals - Advised teams on how to optimize their workflow using techniques like pair
programming, continuous integration, and test-driven development - Collaborated with Product Owners to define user stories and prioritize backlogs
- Supported teams in resolving conflicts or disputes that arose during sprints or
planning meetings - Responsible for ensuring scrum/ SAFe is understood and the team adheres to
Scrum theory, practice, and guidelines - Coach the scrum team in self-organization, cross-functional skillset, domain
knowledge and communicates effectively, both internally and externally
working within the scrum team - Work with the scrum Team, as well as internal and external stakeholders, to
influence and drive decision making and support organizational project or
product teams
Test Automation Team Lead
Capgemini
Pune, India
03.2016 - 04.2022
- Automation of Web Application & Mobile Application Testing using Selenium WebDriver/Java with BDD
- Framework and using the perfecto/Headspin cloud
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to define test requirements, ensuring comprehensive test coverage across web and mobile applications
- Designed and executed test cases for web applications using Selenium and Java frameworks, ensuring proper functionality across various browsers and operating systems
- Have used GIT as version control, Jenkins as CI/CD and scheduling of jobs and used Maven for dependency management
- Have used Jira as a defect management tool and also used for feature requirements
- Collaborated with development teams to identify and prioritize test cases for automation, optimizing testing efforts and maximizing test coverage
- Participated in agile development cycles, providing continuous feedback on application quality and actively contributing to the team's agile testing practices
- Mentored junior team members by providing guidance and training on mobile and web automation best practices
- Executed automated regression tests before release cycles, identifying software anomalies to enhance product quality.
- Participated in Agile sprints, contributing to planning, execution, and review phases for timely feedback.
Test Analyst
TCS
Pune, India
01.2011 - 03.2016
- Identified automation scope for project to enhance testing efficiency.
- Executed regression, smoke, and sanity testing using Selenium.
- Execution of Automation scripts
- Set up the automation environment using Eclipse, Java, Selenium WebDriver jars, and TestNG.
- Analysis of test requirements and tracking the changes
- Communicate with the Test Data team to get required test data
- Executed and managed defects in Quality Centre to ensure quality standards.
- Facilitated daily status calls with project team and business stakeholders to maintain project alignment.
- Provided test support for production testing.
- Coordinated and attended calls with onshore counterparts and business stakeholders.
Education
Bachelor of Science - B Tech
Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management
BhubaneswarSkills
- Agile methodologies
- Conflict Resolution & Problem Solving
- Emotional intelligence
- Sprint Planning & Execution
- Standup facilitation
- Agile Coaching & Mentorship
- Jira & Agile Project Management Tools
- Project management
- Stakeholder management
- Stakeholder Communication
- Team Building & Performance Optimization
- Continuous improvement
- Process optimisation
- Agile transformation
- Change management
- Conflict Resolution & Problem Solving
- Servant Leadership
- Leadership and Mentorship
- Emotional intelligence
- Leadership and Mentorship
- Emotional intelligence
Certification
- Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®)
- SAFe 5.0 Agilist
- ISTQB Foundation in Software Testing
Timeline
Sr Scrum Master
Capgemini
06.2024 - Current
Scrum Master
Accenture
04.2022 - 04.2024
Scrum Master
Capgemini
04.2019 - 04.2022
Test Automation Team Lead
Capgemini
03.2016 - 04.2022
Test Analyst
TCS
01.2011 - 03.2016
Bachelor of Science - B Tech
Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management