Ginger Ferguson
Huntsville,AL
Summary
Mission Assurance and Software Quality Assurance leader at Northrop Grumman with expertise in project management and systems engineering. Established quality processes that enhanced compliance with Agile, CMMI, and AS9100 standards. Demonstrated ability to mentor teams and promote collaboration, holding an active Top Secret clearance.
Overview
9
9
years of professional experience
2
2
Certifications
Work History
Mission Assurance (MA)/Software Quality Assurance (SQA) Manager/Staff
Northrop Grumman
Huntsville, AL
11.2020 - Current
- Succeeded as a Mission Assurance manager (Level 2 & 3) and established the foundation for the Software Quality Assurance (SQA) organization for the program. As the functional and technical manager established the group to include managers, staff members and individual contributors.
- Responsible for the hiring activities (creating job requisitions, interviews, clearance and onboarding support, training/tasking, quarterly performance reviews and forecasting future growth). Managed a distributed team located at multiple sites (Huntsville, AL; Roy, Utah; Colorado Springs, CO and Manhattan Beach, CA).
- Held routine All Hands meetings and individual one-on-one meetings with the organization. Flow down of Human Resource (HR) and Northrop news to keep the teams informed. Strategically adjusting to program changes to ensure the best support for software quality and the program. Continuous working relationship with HR and business partners.
- Worked closely with engineering leadership and program management in support of sector and program goals. Provided mentoring to Interns and Northrop future leaders. Ensure team members are appropriately tasked and knowledgeable to succeed and enjoy their job.
- Engage in Northrop Leadership training opportunities. Most recently, the Leader of Leaders Conference. Develop tools to ensure a strong team that is fully trained and accountable. Providing guidance and leadership to my managers and staff.
- Supported Mission Assurance EVMS and CAM as a Work Package Lead (WPL). As a Work Package Lead (WPL) and manager ensure accurate time charging that aligns to the tasking as assigned and budgeted. Attending Project Management meetings/updates.
- Established software quality processes and plans, training curriculum (via PowerPoint/Confluence and GLX training modules). Created Jira projects for collecting team tasking for accountability/performance, and status/metrics reporting via Jira, Confluence and Tableau.
- Routinely presented to Mission Assurance leadership and teams on software quality health and status (metrics), process improvement, risks and roadblocks. Continuous training to ensure team members succeed in their role and growth toward a dedicated career with Northrop.
- Created lead roles to ensure focus on critical areas and provide opportunities for team members to elevate their careers and mentor junior teammates. Created SQA lead discipline roles to collaborate and focus on system requirements and testing.
- Supporting a program with over 600 software developers. Ensuring SQA is a Stakeholder of all software and engineering peer reviews to include Systems Engineering design peer reviews (Cameo models/DOORS requirements). Review of Test Plans/Procedures and Test Cases. Ensure SQA oversight of all levels of testing activities (unit/integration/Integrated Functional Capability (IFC/Roy, UT).
- Stakeholder in the multiple engineering change boards across the program. Support the Preventive and Corrective Action Board (PCAB) with leadership. Oversight of the software issues reported by DevStar via the Problem Report Board (PRB).
- Continued interface and collaboration with DCMA, customer and partners as it relates to software and quality. Working relationships with Systems/DevOps/DevStar and Software leadership throughout the lifecycle.
- Routinely brief Mission Assurance (MA) director and the management team on software quality status/health, upcoming milestones and staffing projections.
- Review priorities and tasking needed to support effectively at each Program Increment (PI). Align SQA tasking to the PI priorities and tasks within the critical path. Ensure support of peer reviews and readiness leading up to Critical Design Reviews (CDRs).
- Support the oversight of System/Segment/Element level software efforts. Monitor/support reviews of the software features, Computer Software Configuration Items (CSCIs) and their required Contract Data Requirements List (CDRLs) and Supplier CDRLs (SDRLs).
- Ensure implementation of the Northrop Quality Management System (QMS) to meet customer and organizational requirements. Alignment to the division and program-level guidance and policies. Leading internal and supplier software audits; in addition to supporting the CMMI and AS9100 audit groups from the division.
- Collect data via Jira Query Language (JQL) for detailed quality checks and monitor of team accountability. Software Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) reported via Jira Dashboards.
- Established the monthly SQA Internal audit program. Ensure internal audit reporting and corrective actions reporting to the MA and program leadership.
- Support test events at the Weapon System, Segment and Element levels. Participate in hardware/software integration (build-up of hardware/software compatibility (HSC) activities leading up to Integrated Functional Capability (IFC) events.
- Participate/support audits (Business Site Audit, AS9100, QMS, DCMA and customer). Escalate issues, to the Mission Assurance Corrective Action group. Supporting Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to understand failures and to drive improvements through corrective actions.
- Organize and participate in World Quality Week for multiple locations. Organize Huntsville site tours, upon request from visitors.
- Participate in the Program Planning; 3-month Program Increments (PIs), 2-week Sprints. Reevaluate SQA assignments based on priorities of each PI. Ensure participation is all Stakeholder Peer Reviews, system models/design, software requirements, code reviews, test plans, processes, and CDRLs/SDRLs prior to board approval. Ensure software checklists are applied in the Jira Stories of peer reviews.
- Provide support/participant in major program milestones, Critical Design Reviews (CDRs), Test Readiness Reviews (TRRs) and witness of formal test events.
- Ensure traceability from software requirements (Cameo/DOORS) to the software test cases and mapped to the Requirements Verification Architecture Model (RVAM). Ensure safety-critical software has been identified and in compliance.
- Familiarization with the software products being developed for the program (embedded, application, and simulation/testing software). Understand containerization development and the configuration management of software in a cloud environment.
Program Execution Support/Systems Engineering
QTEC Aerospace
Huntsville, AL
04.2017 - 11.2020
- Ground Systems (GS) Program Execution team member. Participate/support of multiple engineering change boards, DevSecOps, system, software product and test groups. Provide Internal Review (IR) and critical design review (CDR) support.
- Support includes management of meetings, identification of Stakeholders, schedule activities, review/edit/prepare materials or CDRLs, manage action items and risks, minutes and author CDRLs. Record/track open items through closure. Provide feedback to the Ground Systems (GS) management team for the Agile/GS Sprint Reviews. Lead GS Sprint Reviews during management absence. Provide process improvement ideas and assist in implementing new processes.
- Requirements team member supporting the development of the Configuration Item (CI) Interface Requirements Specification (IRS) CDRL, per DID. Perform requirements trace to MDAs Interface Control Specification (ICS). Assist with identifying the DOORS attributes and modules. Verify requirements coverage for all transmit/receive messages for both the internal and external CIs. Participate in Stakeholder reviews for comments and concurrence prior to verification/testing phases.
- Manage communication between MDA, NG and Boeing. Access the Classified networks, MDA, Portal and Boeing’s network to retrieve data from Stakeholders. Authorized DTA (data transfer agent) to provide data transfers to/from Classified and Unclassified networks to support teams and customer deliveries. Assist with collecting and reporting the Objective Evidence (OE) that is required to be delivered to our MDA customer for each Internal Review, design review or release. Administrator for Atlassian tools (Jira/Confluence).
- Previous role: Engineering Architecture team member in a Scrum Master/Product Owner role Jira Administrator. Managed the Rhapsody System Designer tools. Provided recommendations for managing the use case artifacts. Performed user data merges of the Architecture models using the Rhapsody tool. Performed configuration management, training, and backup of data. Provided Architecture models to Boeing. Collaborated with IBM experts to provide a better solution to managing the Rhapsody models and configuration management with integration into DOORS and the use of the Rhapsody Model Manager (RMM) on the Jazz platform. Assisted software architecture team with importing system architecture models for creating simulations.
- Scrum Master role supporting Sprint planning/retrospective meetings, daily team collaboration, remove blockers/identify risks per Releases/Sprints. Managed tasks and provide Sprint status, metrics and reporting via Atlassian tools, JIRA and Confluence. Provided JIRA & Confluence training and coach to Scrum Masters and Product Owners. Atlassian tool Administrator, maintaining user accounts/privileges and modify Jira screens/fields. Created Confluence pages to manage board approved use case/artifacts for the Product teams to reference. Provided guidance to the GS Execution team on the use of Jira/Confluence. Design a Jira workflow/roles prototype to better manage the tasks within multiple teams.
Education
Bachelor of Science (BS) - Computer Information Systems (CIS)
Columbia College
Redstone Arsenal/Columbia, Missouri10.1995
Skills
- Top Secret security clearance
- Project oversight
- Systems design and analysis
- Quality assurance in software
- Process optimization
- Testing protocols and compliance
- Agile practices and CMMI certification
Certification
PMI.org - Project Management Professional (PMP) Member #437907
ScrumStudy.com - Scrum Master Certified (SMC)
Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt - Siemens/Arizona State University (ASU)
ScrumStudy.com - Scrum Master Certified (SMC)
Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt - Siemens/Arizona State University (ASU)
FULL EMPLOYMENT HISTORY & REFERENCES
(Upon Request)
Timeline
Mission Assurance (MA)/Software Quality Assurance (SQA) Manager/Staff
Northrop Grumman
11.2020 - Current
Program Execution Support/Systems Engineering
QTEC Aerospace
04.2017 - 11.2020
Bachelor of Science (BS) - Computer Information Systems (CIS)
Columbia College