Michelle Stewart
Kansas City,MO
Summary
Scrum Master with over 7 years of experience leading cross-functional teams and driving successful Agile transformations across diverse IT projects. I am skilled in applying Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, and other Agile frameworks to foster collaboration, transparency, and continuous delivery. Known for aligning project outcomes with strategic business goals while cultivating a culture of accountability and innovation.
Overview
28
28
years of professional experience
1
1
Certificate
Work History
Product Manager/Scrum of Scrums (Consultant)
Nestlé
12.2024 - Current
- Spearheaded the Data Foundation project, delivering a centralized dashboard accessed by several hundred business partners, improving reporting efficiency and data visibility by 50%.
- Led four Agile teams across concurrent workstreams, facilitating daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, sprint planning, and retrospectives—resulting in a 20% increase in sprint velocity over six months and 95% sprint goal attainment.
- Created and prioritized over 500 user stories from stakeholders and ad-hoc requests, enabling faster development cycles and reducing rework by 25%.
- Trained six summer interns on Agile methodologies, development lifecycle, and engineering practices, accelerating their onboarding and contributing to 100% intern retention and project contribution.
- Served as Scrum of Scrums lead, collaborating with two other Scrum Masters to resolve cross-team blockers, align sprint goals, and improve inter-team communication—reducing interdependency delays by 20%.
Business Analyst III
Commerce Bank
04.2023 - 12.2024
- Facilitated Agile stand-up meetings for TCS, improving team accountability and reducing daily status update time by 40%, despite limited Agile adoption.
- Developed and maintained over 150 test cases from business requirements and documentation, ensuring 95% coverage of critical functionality and reducing post-release defects by 30%
- Established and maintained a Confluence knowledge base, streamlining ticket resolution workflows and improving team efficiency by 35%.
- Performed QA testing across multiple system modules, identifying and documenting over 15 errors that were caught and fixed before going to the stakeholders.
- Authored system documentation used by cross-functional teams, reducing dependency on tribal knowledge and improving internal support response time.
- Managed a mission-critical project from planning through deployment, delivering on schedule and exceeding quality benchmarks.
- Directed a high-impact initiative with executive visibility, resulting in a seamless go-live and 25% improvement in user adoption
Scrum Master – Pharmacy Solutions
SS&C
03.2019 - 10.2022
- Led Agile transformation for a previously Waterfall-based team, reducing delivery cycles from 6 months to biweekly sprints and increasing release frequency by 300%.
- Facilitated Agile ceremonies (daily standups, sprint planning, retrospectives) for cross-functional teams, resulting in a 25% improvement in sprint velocity and a 40% reduction in cycle time.
- Collaborated with clients to define and refine project requirements, achieving a 95% stakeholder satisfaction rate and reducing rework by 30%.
- Trained and coached Product Owners on Agile principles, leading to a 50% increase in backlog readiness and more effective prioritization.
- Managed user stories and backlog grooming, ensuring 100% of sprint items were ready for development, contributing to a 98% sprint completion rate.
Quality Assurance Consultant
Resolve IT Resource LLC
06.2018 - 12.2018
- Ore precise Rewrote test cases based on evolving application functionality, ensuring alignment with updated business logic and improving test accuracy by 30%.
- Updated and redesigned test cases to reflect changes in application workflows, enhancing coverage and reducing manual testing effort.
- Reengineered legacy test scripts in response to application updates, resulting in m documentation and faster defect identification.
- Rewrote over 500 test cases to match current system behavior, contributing to a 50% reduction in post-release issues.
Quality Assurance Manager
Xceligent
03.2017 - 12.2017
- Led a team of 5+ QA testers, implementing structured testing processes that improved defect detection rates by 80% and reduced test cycle time by 25%.
- Developed automated reporting dashboards to provide real-time visibility into QA progress, defect trends, and blocker resolution—enhancing management decision-making and reducing status meeting time by 30%.
- Improved story development and clarity, reducing defect rates by 80% per sprint and increasing story completion by ensuring each item included clear Acceptance Criteria and testable outcomes.
- Collaborated with QA and development teams to rewrite user stories for better test alignment, resulting in a 90% sprint completion rate and fewer carryovers to subsequent sprints.
Project Manager
Verint
05.2015 - 12.2016
- Managed multiple high-impact IT projects from initiation to deployment, achieving 100% on-time delivery and alignment with strategic business objectives.
- Developed detailed project plans and facilitated cross-functional communication, reducing stakeholder misalignment by 40% and accelerating decision-making cycles.
- Oversaw budgets and resource allocation across concurrent initiatives, maintaining financial compliance and optimizing team utilization by 25%.
- Led stakeholder engagement efforts, resulting in a 95% satisfaction rate and improved transparency throughout the project lifecycle.
- Developed comprehensive project plans, ensuring alignment with business objectives and stakeholder expectations.
Test Engineer II/Business Analyst
Sprint
08.1997 - 04.2015
- Various Roles: Test Engineer II & Supervisor Development Program | 2002–2015
- Led multiple high-impact QA and IT projects, including Kana Response and Knowledge Management implementations for the Call Center, and Sprint.com initiatives that enabled customer self-service and reduced call volume by 25%.
- Managed concurrent projects and testing efforts, overseeing P1 and P2 ticket resolution, coordinating cross-functional teams, and ensuring timely delivery aligned with strategic goals.
- Created and implemented structured QA processes, improving defect detection rates by 30% and reducing test cycle time across Producer, Provider, and Revenue applications.
- Developed and maintained comprehensive test documentation, including test plans, system/integration/UAT cases, traceability matrices, and business use cases—achieving 95% coverage and alignment with evolving requirements.
- Acted as liaison between development, QA, and project management, escalating showstopper issues, forecasting test scope, and facilitating deployment activities.
- Generated detailed test execution reports and dashboards for upper management, providing insights into progress, defect trends, and performance baselines.
- Interviewed and mentored QA team members, allocating workloads, conducting performance reviews, and providing post-project feedback to foster continuous improvement.
- Facilitated training programs for sales representatives and interns, including Agile methodologies, development lifecycle, and system onboarding—resulting in improved sales performance and faster ramp-up times.
- Ranked #1 in supervisor stack rankings for multiple consecutive months, recognized for leadership, coaching, and operational excellence.
- Utilized Oracle and ALM tools for application testing, data validation, and test case management.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Business Administration
DeVry University
Hoffman Estates, IL02.2021
Skills
- MS Project
- Budgeting
- Communication
- SDLC
- Gantt Charts
- Agile
- Scrum
- Kanban
- Waterfall
- Risk Analysis
- Project planning
- Product lifecycle management
- Teamwork and collaboration
- User story creation
- Product development
- Product vision and strategy
- Agile software development
- Critical thinking
- Stakeholder communications
- Product backlog management
- Prioritization and execution
- Interpersonal communication
- Cross functional leadership
- Goal setting
- Jira, atlassian, rally
- Project management
- Attention to detail
- Software development
- Customer empathy
Certification
- CSM Certified
- Scrum Master – Scaling Agile with Team of Teams
Timeline
Product Manager/Scrum of Scrums (Consultant)
Nestlé
12.2024 - Current
Business Analyst III
Commerce Bank
04.2023 - 12.2024
Scrum Master – Pharmacy Solutions
SS&C
03.2019 - 10.2022
Quality Assurance Consultant
Resolve IT Resource LLC
06.2018 - 12.2018
Quality Assurance Manager
Xceligent
03.2017 - 12.2017
Project Manager
Verint
05.2015 - 12.2016
Test Engineer II/Business Analyst
Sprint
08.1997 - 04.2015
Bachelor of Science - Business Administration
DeVry University