Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Certification
Timeline
Generic

Christian Strama

Parkville,United States

Summary

I am a highly accomplished Program Manager with over 30 years of experience in software development, management, and agile practices. I have proven expertise in leading high-performing teams to deliver high-quality software solutions on time and within budget. I have had three major phases in my career, software developer, agile, and management. Across these three phases I have gained the knowledge and experience to create software from end-to-end, from product inception to release. I build great teams by aligning with great people and getting the best out of them by unlocking their intrinsic motivations. For my entire career my hands have never been far from the keyboard, so I am still sharp with software development, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure.

Experienced with coordinating and managing multiple projects simultaneously. Utilizes effective communication and organizational skills to ensure seamless project execution. Track record of implementing process improvements and achieving project milestones.

Diligent [Desired Position] with strong background in program management. Successfully led cross-functional teams to deliver complex projects on time and within scope. Demonstrated leadership and strategic planning skills.

Overview

31
31
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification

Work History

Program Manager

Oddball
09.2023 - Current
  • Manage and facilitate all aspects of the contract, including:
  • Contract Management: Spearhead all aspects of contract administration, from initiation to closure, ensuring adherence to project scope, timeline, and budget.
  • Client Relationship Management: Collaborate directly with clients to define project road map, prioritize deliverables, and align expectations to drive successful project outcomes.
  • Financial Management: Develop and manage budgets, conduct financial forecasting, and analyze variance between forecast and actual spending to optimize revenue generation.
  • Resource Management: Oversee the recruitment, development, and performance evaluation of project team members, including hiring and onboarding new talent, and managing staffing levels to meet project demands.
  • Stakeholder Communication: Maintain open lines of communication with clients, providing regular project updates, financial reports, and proactively addressing potential roadblocks, roadmap changes, and emergent discoveries.
  • Risk Management: Identify, assess, and mitigate project risks to minimize impact on project timeline and budget.
  • Continuous Improvement: Foster a culture of continuous improvement by gathering lessons learned, implementing best practices, and refining project management processes.
  • Agile Transformation and Implementation: Coach the teams on implementing Agile processes and practices to have better transparency, collaboration, and innovation. Identify data points to collect for metrics analysis on team productivity, quality, budget, and time management.
  • Technical Transformation: Coach the teams on technical practices and tools to create automation and CI/CD pipelines.
  • AI Implementation: Utilize AI prompt engineering and RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) to take advantage of the historical information and extensive documentation of legacy systems to increase contract productivity and onboarding of new team members.

Agile Coach

Oddball
02.2022 - Current
  • Customer Value Focus: Champion customer value by maintaining team focus on high-impact deliverables, removing impediments, and driving continuous improvement.
  • Agile Coaching: Empower Agile teams through:
  • Guiding product owners in backlog prioritization and user story writing
  • Coaching development teams on productivity techniques, including:
  • Capacity planning
  • Pair working
  • Short feedback loops
  • Guiding scrum masters on effective team building and relentless improvement
  • Retrospective techniques to identify areas of improvement
  • Key metrics to improve team performance (velocity, committed vs. completed)
  • Team building exercises to build an environment of psychological safety
  • Customer Feedback: Gather and analyze customer feedback to inform future priorities and drive product improvement.
  • Program Increment Planning: Facilitate PI planning events, fostering cross team collaboration and aligning on shared objectives.
  • Business Owner Coaching:
  • Prioritization techniques
  • Customer feedback analysis
  • Strategic goal planning using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) methodology
  • DevOps Pipeline Optimization:
  • Bottlenecks
  • Low-quality inflection points
  • Automation opportunities to reduce variance and minimize human intervention
  • Team Development: Recommend and coordinate training opportunities and industry conference attendance to enhance team skill sets and stay current with best practices.
  • Contract Proposal Support: Assist in crafting compelling contract proposals, highlighting relevant experience and skill sets of existing team members to secure new work and support strategic company goals.
  • Stakeholder Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with government contracting officers and program managers.

Agile Coach

Tantus Technologies, Inc.
01.2021 - 02.2022
  • Customer Value Focus: Champion customer value by maintaining team focus on high-impact deliverables, removing impediments, and driving continuous improvement.
  • Agile Coaching: Empower Agile teams through:
  • Guiding product owners in backlog prioritization and user story writing
  • Coaching development teams on productivity techniques, including:
  • Capacity planning
  • Pair working
  • Short feedback loops
  • Guiding scrum masters on effective team building and relentless improvement
  • Retrospective techniques to identify areas of improvement
  • Key metrics to improve team performance (velocity, committed vs. completed)
  • Team building exercises to build an environment of psychological safety
  • Customer Feedback: Gather and analyze customer feedback to inform future priorities and drive product improvement.
  • Program Increment Planning: Facilitate PI planning events, fostering cross team collaboration and aligning on shared objectives.
  • Business Owner Coaching:
  • Prioritization techniques
  • Customer feedback analysis
  • Strategic goal planning using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) methodology
  • DevOps Pipeline Optimization:
  • Bottlenecks
  • Low-quality inflection points
  • Automation opportunities to reduce variance and minimize human intervention
  • Team Development: Recommend and coordinate training opportunities and industry conference attendance to enhance team skill sets and stay current with best practices.
  • Contract Proposal Support: Assist in crafting compelling contract proposals, highlighting relevant experience and skill sets of existing team members to secure new work and support strategic company goals.
  • Stakeholder Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with government contracting officers and program managers.

Agile Coach

Fearless
06.2020 - 01.2021
  • Customer Value Focus: Champion customer value by maintaining team focus on high-impact deliverables, removing impediments, and driving continuous improvement.
  • Agile Coaching: Empower Agile teams through:
  • Guiding product owners in backlog prioritization and user story writing
  • Coaching development teams on productivity techniques, including:
  • Capacity planning
  • Pair working
  • Short feedback loops
  • Guiding scrum masters on effective team building and relentless improvement
  • Retrospective techniques to identify areas of improvement
  • Key metrics to improve team performance (velocity, committed vs. completed)
  • Team building exercises to build an environment of psychological safety
  • Customer Feedback: Gather and analyze customer feedback to inform future priorities and drive product improvement.
  • Program Increment Planning: Facilitate PI planning events, fostering cross team collaboration and aligning on shared objectives.
  • Business Owner Coaching:
  • Prioritization techniques
  • Customer feedback analysis
  • Strategic goal planning using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) methodology
  • DevOps Pipeline Optimization:
  • Bottlenecks
  • Low-quality inflection points
  • Automation opportunities to reduce variance and minimize human intervention
  • Team Development: Recommend and coordinate training opportunities and industry conference attendance to enhance team skill sets and stay current with best practices.
  • Contract Proposal Support: Assist in crafting compelling contract proposals, highlighting relevant experience and skill sets of existing team members to secure new work and support strategic company goals.
  • Stakeholder Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with government contracting officers and program managers.

Program Manager

Fearless
07.2018 - 01.2021
  • Manage and facilitate all aspects of the contract, including:
  • Contract Management: Spearhead all aspects of contract administration, from initiation to closure, ensuring adherence to project scope, timeline, and budget.
  • Client Relationship Management: Collaborate directly with clients to define project road map, prioritize deliverables, and align expectations to drive successful project outcomes.
  • Financial Management: Develop and manage budgets, conduct financial forecasting, and analyze variance between forecast and actual spending to optimize revenue generation.
  • Resource Management: Oversee the recruitment, development, and performance evaluation of project team members, including hiring and onboarding new talent, and managing staffing levels to meet project demands.
  • Stakeholder Communication: Maintain open lines of communication with clients, providing regular project updates, financial reports, and proactively addressing potential roadblocks, roadmap changes, and emergent discoveries.
  • Risk Management: Identify, assess, and mitigate project risks to minimize impact on project timeline and budget.
  • Continuous Improvement: Foster a culture of continuous improvement by gathering lessons learned, implementing best practices, and refining project management processes.
  • Agile Transformation and Implementation: Coach the teams on implementing Agile processes and practices to have better transparency, collaboration, and innovation. Identify data points to collect for metrics analysis on team productivity, quality, budget, and time management.
  • Technical Transformation: Coach the teams on technical practices and tools to create automation and CI/CD pipelines.
  • AI Implementation: Utilize AI prompt engineering and RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) to take advantage of the historical information and extensive documentation of legacy systems to increase contract productivity and onboarding of new team members.

Agile Coach

FEI Systems
09.2017 - 01.2021
  • Customer Value Focus: Champion customer value by maintaining team focus on high-impact deliverables, removing impediments, and driving continuous improvement.
  • Agile Coaching: Empower Agile teams through:
  • Guiding product owners in backlog prioritization and user story writing
  • Coaching development teams on productivity techniques, including:
  • Capacity planning
  • Pair working
  • Short feedback loops
  • Guiding scrum masters on effective team building and relentless improvement
  • Retrospective techniques to identify areas of improvement
  • Key metrics to improve team performance (velocity, committed vs. completed)
  • Team building exercises to build an environment of psychological safety
  • Customer Feedback: Gather and analyze customer feedback to inform future priorities and drive product improvement.
  • Program Increment Planning: Facilitate PI planning events, fostering cross team collaboration and aligning on shared objectives.
  • Business Owner Coaching:
  • Prioritization techniques
  • Customer feedback analysis
  • Strategic goal planning using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) methodology
  • DevOps Pipeline Optimization:
  • Bottlenecks
  • Low-quality inflection points
  • Automation opportunities to reduce variance and minimize human intervention
  • Team Development: Recommend and coordinate training opportunities and industry conference attendance to enhance team skill sets and stay current with best practices.
  • Contract Proposal Support: Assist in crafting compelling contract proposals, highlighting relevant experience and skill sets of existing team members to secure new work and support strategic company goals.
  • Stakeholder Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with government contracting officers and program managers.

Agile Coach

Optum
02.2018 - 07.2018
  • Customer Value Focus: Champion customer value by maintaining team focus on high-impact deliverables, removing impediments, and driving continuous improvement.
  • Agile Coaching: Empower Agile teams through:
  • Guiding product owners in backlog prioritization and user story writing
  • Coaching development teams on productivity techniques, including:
  • Capacity planning
  • Pair working
  • Short feedback loops
  • Guiding scrum masters on effective team building and relentless improvement
  • Retrospective techniques to identify areas of improvement
  • Key metrics to improve team performance (velocity, committed vs. completed)
  • Team building exercises to build an environment of psychological safety
  • Customer Feedback: Gather and analyze customer feedback to inform future priorities and drive product improvement.
  • Program Increment Planning: Facilitate PI planning events, fostering cross team collaboration and aligning on shared objectives.
  • Business Owner Coaching:
  • Prioritization techniques
  • Customer feedback analysis
  • Strategic goal planning using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) methodology
  • DevOps Pipeline Optimization:
  • Bottlenecks
  • Low-quality inflection points
  • Automation opportunities to reduce variance and minimize human intervention
  • Team Development: Recommend and coordinate training opportunities and industry conference attendance to enhance team skill sets and stay current with best practices.
  • Contract Proposal Support: Assist in crafting compelling contract proposals, highlighting relevant experience and skill sets of existing team members to secure new work and support strategic company goals.
  • Stakeholder Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with government contracting officers and program managers.

Software Engineer

FEI Systems
04.2017 - 09.2017
  • As a skilled and versatile software engineer with expertise in multiple programming languages, I am adept at delivering high-quality solutions for a variety of coding challenges. With a strong background in developing mission-critical applications, I have experience working on both frontend and backend development.
  • I have worked extensively with various programming languages including C# .NET, Java, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and Python, as well as COBOL for mainframe environments. I am particularly proficient in designing and developing web-based interfaces using Angular or React, creating middle tier APIs with C#.Net, and writing SQL queries for SQL Server databases.
  • My ability to work efficiently in a team and my strong leadership skills have also enabled me to serve as an Engineering Lead, managing teams of developers to complete user stories within iteration timelines. I am confident that my expertise and experience make me a valuable asset to any coding project.

Software Engineer

Connections Academy
08.2013 - 03.2017
  • As a skilled and versatile software engineer with expertise in multiple programming languages, I am adept at delivering high-quality solutions for a variety of coding challenges. With a strong background in developing mission-critical applications, I have experience working on both frontend and backend development.
  • I have worked extensively with various programming languages including C# .NET, Java, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and Python, as well as COBOL for mainframe environments. I am particularly proficient in designing and developing web-based interfaces using Angular or React, creating middle tier APIs with C#.Net, and writing SQL queries for SQL Server databases.
  • My ability to work efficiently in a team and my strong leadership skills have also enabled me to serve as an Engineering Lead, managing teams of developers to complete user stories within iteration timelines. I am confident that my expertise and experience make me a valuable asset to any coding project.

Software Engineer

Success For All Foundation
10.2008 - 08.2013
  • As a skilled and versatile software engineer with expertise in multiple programming languages, I am adept at delivering high-quality solutions for a variety of coding challenges. With a strong background in developing mission-critical applications, I have experience working on both frontend and backend development.
  • I have worked extensively with various programming languages including C# .NET, Java, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and Python, as well as COBOL for mainframe environments. I am particularly proficient in designing and developing web-based interfaces using Angular or React, creating middle tier APIs with C#.Net, and writing SQL queries for SQL Server databases.
  • My ability to work efficiently in a team and my strong leadership skills have also enabled me to serve as an Engineering Lead, managing teams of developers to complete user stories within iteration timelines. I am confident that my expertise and experience make me a valuable asset to any coding project.

Software Engineer

Benelogic, LLC
03.2007 - 08.2008
  • As a skilled and versatile software engineer with expertise in multiple programming languages, I am adept at delivering high-quality solutions for a variety of coding challenges. With a strong background in developing mission-critical applications, I have experience working on both frontend and backend development.
  • I have worked extensively with various programming languages including C# .NET, Java, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and Python, as well as COBOL for mainframe environments. I am particularly proficient in designing and developing web-based interfaces using Angular or React, creating middle tier APIs with C#.Net, and writing SQL queries for SQL Server databases.
  • My ability to work efficiently in a team and my strong leadership skills have also enabled me to serve as an Engineering Lead, managing teams of developers to complete user stories within iteration timelines. I am confident that my expertise and experience make me a valuable asset to any coding project.

Software Engineer

TimeShareWare
07.2005 - 01.2007
  • As a skilled and versatile software engineer with expertise in multiple programming languages, I am adept at delivering high-quality solutions for a variety of coding challenges. With a strong background in developing mission-critical applications, I have experience working on both frontend and backend development.
  • I have worked extensively with various programming languages including C# .NET, Java, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and Python, as well as COBOL for mainframe environments. I am particularly proficient in designing and developing web-based interfaces using Angular or React, creating middle tier APIs with C#.Net, and writing SQL queries for SQL Server databases.
  • My ability to work efficiently in a team and my strong leadership skills have also enabled me to serve as an Engineering Lead, managing teams of developers to complete user stories within iteration timelines. I am confident that my expertise and experience make me a valuable asset to any coding project.

Software Engineer

Convergys
02.1996 - 07.2005
  • As a skilled and versatile software engineer with expertise in multiple programming languages, I am adept at delivering high-quality solutions for a variety of coding challenges. With a strong background in developing mission-critical applications, I have experience working on both frontend and backend development.
  • I have worked extensively with various programming languages including C# .NET, Java, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and Python, as well as COBOL for mainframe environments. I am particularly proficient in designing and developing web-based interfaces using Angular or React, creating middle tier APIs with C#.Net, and writing SQL queries for SQL Server databases.
  • My ability to work efficiently in a team and my strong leadership skills have also enabled me to serve as an Engineering Lead, managing teams of developers to complete user stories within iteration timelines. I am confident that my expertise and experience make me a valuable asset to any coding project.

Software Engineer

The Maryland Insurance Group
04.1994 - 07.1994
  • As a skilled and versatile software engineer with expertise in multiple programming languages, I am adept at delivering high-quality solutions for a variety of coding challenges. With a strong background in developing mission-critical applications, I have experience working on both frontend and backend development.
  • I have worked extensively with various programming languages including C# .NET, Java, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and Python, as well as COBOL for mainframe environments. I am particularly proficient in designing and developing web-based interfaces using Angular or React, creating middle tier APIs with C#.Net, and writing SQL queries for SQL Server databases.
  • My ability to work efficiently in a team and my strong leadership skills have also enabled me to serve as an Engineering Lead, managing teams of developers to complete user stories within iteration timelines. I am confident that my expertise and experience make me a valuable asset to any coding project.

Education

Bachelor's Degree - Computer Information Systems

University of Phoenix
01.1998

Skills

  • Programming Languages: Java, Python, Javascript, HTML/CSS, Bash, C#, SQL
  • Software Applications: MS Office 365, Google Docs, Atlassian Suite
  • Cloud Infrastructure: AWS
  • Manager: Interviewing/hiring, finances/budgeting, conflict resolution, team building
  • Agile: Facilitation, training, scrum master, Scaled Agile Framework, kanban
  • AI: RAG, AWS Bedrock, prompt engineering
  • Operating Systems: Linux, MacOS, Windows
  • Problem-solving
  • Project management
  • Detail-oriented
  • Strategic planning
  • Decision-making

Certification

  • PMI PMP
  • SAFe Program Consultant 6.0
  • ICAgile Certified Professional - Agile Coaching
  • Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Professional
  • Scrum @ Scale Practitioner

Timeline

Program Manager

Oddball
09.2023 - Current

Agile Coach

Oddball
02.2022 - Current

Agile Coach

Tantus Technologies, Inc.
01.2021 - 02.2022

Agile Coach

Fearless
06.2020 - 01.2021

Program Manager

Fearless
07.2018 - 01.2021

Agile Coach

Optum
02.2018 - 07.2018

Agile Coach

FEI Systems
09.2017 - 01.2021

Software Engineer

FEI Systems
04.2017 - 09.2017

Software Engineer

Connections Academy
08.2013 - 03.2017

Software Engineer

Success For All Foundation
10.2008 - 08.2013

Software Engineer

Benelogic, LLC
03.2007 - 08.2008

Software Engineer

TimeShareWare
07.2005 - 01.2007

Software Engineer

Convergys
02.1996 - 07.2005

Software Engineer

The Maryland Insurance Group
04.1994 - 07.1994

Bachelor's Degree - Computer Information Systems

University of Phoenix

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Christian Strama