Deepa Prakash
Secaucus,NJ
Summary
PMP® and SAFe ®Certified Senior Scrum Master and Agile Project Manager with over 11 years of experience in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and more than 8 years of leading Agile delivery. Expertise in driving enterprise-scale transformation initiatives across Data, DevOps, and Product domains, consistently achieving measurable outcomes. Proven ability to enable high-performing teams, optimize delivery flow, and enhance time-to-market through Agile and Lean methodologies. Committed to fostering collaboration, mentoring teams, and leveraging data-driven decision-making to ensure sustainable project success and strategic alignment with business objectives.
Overview
13
13
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Senior Scrum Master/ Agile Project Manager
John Wiley & Sons
03.2025 - Current
- Currently leading as a Agile Project Manager on a fast-paced Master Data Management (MDM) initiative, focused on streamlining product data using Stibo and managing complex pricing structures via Vistex.
- Managed end-to-end delivery of Product and Pricing MDM workstreams, achieving 98% sprint commitment completion and consistent release milestones.
- Partnered with Product, Engineering, and Business teams to define project scope, objectives, and measurable outcomes aligned with organizational OKRs.
- Improved data synchronization accuracy across systems by 40%, reducing pricing and product discrepancies in downstream applications.
- Streamlined Agile ceremonies and sprint cadence, increasing delivery velocity by 25% and enhancing delivery predictability.
- Implemented KPI dashboards (Jira + Confluence) to track progress and dependencies, improving stakeholder visibility by 50%.
- Led RAID tracking and proactive risk management, cutting delivery blockers by 35%.
- Facilitated onboarding and Agile coaching sessions, reducing new team ramp-up time by 20%.
- Presented sprint outcomes and KPI metrics to executive sponsors, improving transparency and decision-making alignment.
- Success Criteria:
- Delivered Product and Pricing MDM enhancements on time and within scope, meeting all sprint commitments.
- Improved enterprise product and pricing data accuracy by 40%.
- Increased team velocity and delivery predictability by 25%.
- Enhanced cross-functional alignment and stakeholder transparency by 50%.
- Strengthened Agile maturity through structured coaching and onboarding initiatives.
Associate Project Manager/Senior Scrum Master
J C Penney
09.2023 - 03.2025
- Led two Agile teams to deliver end-to-end customer and marketing data integrations, improving campaign reporting accuracy by 35%, reducing turnaround time for data requests by 28%.
- Partnered with Product Owner and business stakeholders to groom backlog and prioritize user stories aligned with strategic goals, increasing sprint predictability by 25%.
- Drove cross-team synchronization across five ARTs (Agile Release Trains), resolving dependencies early and reducing delivery delays by 30%.
- Championed process improvements through retrospectives and continuous feedback loops, improving team velocity by 20%.
- Promoted automation and CI/CD adoption, resulting in a 40% reduction in manual data validation efforts.
- Facilitated PI Planning and SOS sessions, ensuring alignment between technical delivery and marketing objectives.
- Strengthened communication and collaboration across distributed teams in multiple time zones, improving sprint goal attainment rate to 95%.
- Drove a culture of continuous improvement within the team, regularly facilitating retrospectives to reflect on processes and find opportunities for enhancement.
Scrum Master
Allstate Canada
05.2022 - 09.2023
- Coached and mentored 3 cross-functional Agile teams (15+ members) → Increased sprint predictability by 25% and fostered self-organizing teams.
- Planned and coordinated API testing, refinement, estimation, and execution of 50+ user stories per PI → Achieved 95% of PI objectives on time with higher quality deliverables.
- Managed dependencies and critical paths across multiple streams → Prevented major delivery delays and mitigated risks proactively.
- Facilitated PI Planning for 3 Agile Release Trains → Improved delivery transparency and reduced leadership escalations by 30%.
- Championed continuous delivery and automation improvements → Accelerated release cycles by 20% and enhanced test coverage.
- Conducted executive-level status reviews → Kept leadership informed, leading to faster decision-making and issue resolution.
- Mentored 2 Junior Scrum Masters → Increased Agile adoption and team maturity metrics across Scrum teams.
Kanban Manager/Scrum Master
Pitney Bowes
05.2020 - 05.2022
- Coached 2 Agile teams (12–15 members) in Scrumban adoption → Improved workflow efficiency by 30% and reduced bottlenecks by 40%.
- Guided DevOps teams in visualizing workflow using Kanban boards → Enhanced transparency and reduced cycle times.
- Promoted CI/CD and DevOps automation → Doubled deployment frequency while maintaining high quality.
- Led Scrum of Scrums and PI alignment sessions → Improved on-time feature delivery by 20% and strengthened cross-team coordination.
- Facilitated stakeholder collaboration → Increased transparency into delivery progress and improved stakeholder satisfaction.
Scrum Master
American Express (AMEX)
05.2016 - 03.2019
- Coached 1 Scrum team of 8–10 members and facilitated all Scrum ceremonies → Improved team delivery by 15–20% per quarter.
- Assisted Product Owner in backlog management and prioritization of 100+ user stories → Ensured on-time delivery and improved portal functionality.
- Tracked technical dependencies and coordinated cross-team efforts → Resolved 15+ critical blockers per release, enabling uninterrupted delivery.
- Implemented metrics-driven improvements using Jira dashboards → Increased team visibility and supported continuous improvement.
- Facilitated workshops and training sessions on Agile principles → Accelerated team adoption, improving engagement and self-organization.
- Transitioned release planning and estimation from Waterfall to Agile → Improved predictability of delivery timelines and reduced late-stage scope changes.
- Monitored team performance and conducted retrospectives → Identified areas for improvement, leading to 10–15% increase in velocity per quarter.
QA Test Analyst
American Express (AMEX)
05.2013 - 12.2015
- Designed and Developed Test plan based on BRD and User Stories.
- Developed and Executed Test Cases in VersionOne Tool.
- Reported defects and was deeply involved in defect life cycle.
- Validated reports by executing SQL queries and compared the data using File comparison tool diffcheck.
- Executed shell script to start / stop the servers. Transfer the log files to developers to debug the defects. Verified the daily builds in Linux server.
- Involved in Webservices Testing using Selenium tool. Validated request and response XML.
- Created Test Data for QA and UAT.
- Prepared daily/ weekly status reports on Test case execution, defects etc.
- Involved in planning test execution activities, defect reporting and analyzing test metrics.
Education
PGDM - Software and Information System Testing
Fanshawe College
London, ON04.2020
Post Graduation - DevOps
Purdue University
11.2025
MBA - Human Resource Management
GITAM University
India02-2016
Skills
- Leading Cross Functional teams
- Agile Coaching and Servant Leadership
- Agile and DevOps Mastery
- Excellent Verbal, Written Communication Skills
- Customer-Service Oriented
- Change Management
- Stake Holder Engagement
- Outstanding Leadership and Organizational Skills
- Exceptional Problem-Solving Skills
- Risk Management
- Time Management
- Data- Driven Decision Making
- MySQL, Microsoft Visual Studio
- Micro Services
- Kafka
- API Testing, Selenium
- Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure
- Python
- Java/Spring Boot
- CICD
- GIT
- Jenkins
- Ansible
- Erwin (Data Modeling)
- Talend, Informatica, Apache Airflow (ETL )
- PySpark
- Service Now, Remedy
- Jira, Jira Cloud, Jira Align, Confluence
- MS Excel, Sharepoint, MS Project, Clarity
- Mural, Miro, Figma
Certification
- PMP
- Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
- Safe Certified Scrum Master (SSM)
Timeline
Senior Scrum Master/ Agile Project Manager
John Wiley & Sons
03.2025 - Current
Associate Project Manager/Senior Scrum Master
J C Penney
09.2023 - 03.2025
Scrum Master
Allstate Canada
05.2022 - 09.2023
Kanban Manager/Scrum Master
Pitney Bowes
05.2020 - 05.2022
Scrum Master
American Express (AMEX)
05.2016 - 03.2019
QA Test Analyst
American Express (AMEX)
05.2013 - 12.2015
Post Graduation - DevOps
Purdue University
PGDM - Software and Information System Testing
Fanshawe College
MBA - Human Resource Management
GITAM University
Awards
Innovation – Team Hackathon Winner (2017), Noteworthy Recognition for Scrum Expertise (2018)