Overview
Work History
Education
Work Preference
Timeline
Generic
Smithaa Gopaal

Smithaa Gopaal

Scrum Master
Frisco,USA

Overview

26
26
years of professional experience

Work History

Scrum Master / Project Manager

UnitedHealthcare
01.2023 - Current
  • Led multiple Agile teams delivering cloud migration from legacy IVR to Genesys, AWS
  • Acted as a servant leader, advocating for team needs and facilitating team success.
  • I led 7 teams in Optum IVR(14)Legacy(5
  • 5),midware(7) conducted daily scrum meetings, reviewed sprint progress, and projected progress using Rally and documentation in Confluence.
  • Size of migration team -14, facilitated sprint planning (capacity planning & velocity), refinement sessions twice every week, Sprint review on Fridays, and retrospective at the end of the sprint.
  • Effective sprint planning reduced the project handover time or Go Live by 20%. All migration projects were successfully migrated onto Genesys with relevant DevOps meetings, retrospective sessions.
  • Assessed and improved team processes continuously to enhance efficiency and product quality.
  • Advocated for the team to maintain a productive and positive work environment.
  • Served as a liaison between technical teams and stakeholders, ensuring expectations were aligned.
  • Communication of enhancements, updates, and issues to end users via sprint demos, deployments.
  • Reviewed and approved weekly status reports for accuracy, and communicated where appropriate.
  • Prepared defect review after project 'Go Live', reported risks, team progress in the current sprint, previous sprint achievements vis-à-vis DOR /DOD, timesheet management.
  • Utilized Tableau for reports and data, Rally to maintain the backlog, boards of teams, sprint tracking. Confluence was used to maintain sprint goals, conduct retrospectives, and facilitate stakeholder communication.
  • Facilitated all Agile ceremonies and retrospectives with distributed teams.
  • Ensured data integrity during transformation by coordinating QA/UAT, CI/CD releases.
  • Fostered effective communication and collaboration among developers, testers, and stakeholders.
  • Resolved risks through close collaboration with Product, DevOps, and Architecture.
  • Proactively removed obstacles and blockers that hindered team progress to ensure delivery timelines.
  • Weekly reporting to the Director of Engineering the progress of the progress made by Legacy teams (5 teams).
  • Prepared and submitted a document to management – Working agreement between agile teams and stakeholders, which was appreciated.

Scrum Master / Data Project Lead

Truist Bank
12.2020 - 10.2022
  • Facilitated and led two decommissioning teams initially from December 2021 to May 2022, led conflict resolution and facilitated team-based decision-making sessions.
  • Facilitated the Daily scrum using Jira boards, sprint planning, sprint tracking, and gradually moving onto Rally.
  • Facilitated retrospectives, PI Planning for multiple teams, and represented the team in Tech Data meetings.
  • Conducted and reported to RTE the maturity assessments of teams after each PI Planning.
  • Successfully coached and mentored the teams with proactive efforts using Team boards, burndown charts, and discussed the movement of user stories with the sprint goal in mind.
  • Reduced the dependencies on external vendors, time lags by 60-70% due to collaborating with teams, escalating to RTE, right departments.
  • Delivered end-to-end data migration and archival solution across legacy banking systems.
  • Coached Agile teams on empirical planning and self-organization.
  • Conducted backlog grooming with PO, BA, and vendor teams (Infosys), shadowed the PO, performed PO duties in her absence, attended PO Sync.
  • Represented teams in scrums of scrums and addressed the risks in Biweekly senior management reviews.
  • Supported reporting dashboard updates using SQL and Excel.
  • Promoted a culture of continuous improvement, learning, and psychological safety within Agile teams.
  • Coached and mentored team members on Agile principles and best practices.
  • Ensured clear understanding of project goals and priorities across the team and stakeholders.

Scrum Master & Program Coordinator

Infosys - Global Immigration Services
09.2021 - 11.2021
  • Project- Filing of H1B Visas of engineers with USCIS.

Project Lead | Operations & Technology

Frisco ISD / Independent Projects
Frisco, USA
03.2021 - 03.2021
  • Supported AI-centric internal projects focused on student performance segmentation and data analytics.

Scrum Coordinator / PO/Branch Manager/Wealth Portfolio Manager

ICICI Bank / IndusInd Bank
01.2016 - 01.2018
  • Introduced automation into customer onboarding and retail banking workflows.
  • As Chief Manager (Branch) SPOC for the projects, I drove the successful implementation of automation, attended sprint review sessions, and facilitated the IT team.
  • Shadowed the product owner to prepare the scope, participated in sprint reviews, and conducted Daily scrum for the operations team.
  • Participated in use case documentation, test scenario creation, and release review.
  • Partnered with SME, IT Team leads for feature feasibility and implementation planning - Ability to see the big picture while working through requirements and requests.
  • Learned the extensive use of spreadsheets for Branch reporting, MS Teams, Jira and Confluence -Monitored and tracked project progress through JIRA dashboards and regular reports.

Scrum team member

01.2012 - 01.2016
  • Led 18 branches as scrum team member- Acted as liaison between internal operations teams and end users.
  • Automated 18 Bank Branches in Mumbai.
  • Coached and implemented the use of Kanban Boards and Sales trackers.
  • Facilitated daily meetings, facilitated reviews at the Cluster office level.
  • Reported every week on the progress of all 18 branches.
  • Conducted and facilitated retros at the cluster level.
  • Led conflict resolution and facilitated team-based decision-making sessions.
  • Acted as a servant leader, advocating for team needs and facilitating team success.
  • Promoted a culture of continuous improvement, learning, and psychological safety within Agile teams.
  • Distributed incoming issues to appropriate teams and ensured resolution.

Branch Banking

Axis Bank
India
01.2000 - 01.2012
  • Led enterprise transformation initiatives including automation of customer workflows and digital onboarding.
  • Acted as SPOC for business and technical teams across operations and product lifecycles.
  • Delivered complex, multi-departmental projects on time and within budget, managing cross-functional risk.
  • Developed agile documentation, including SOPs, user stories, and process maps using Visio & Excel.
  • Spearheaded digital transformation in Wealth Management and core banking solutions.

Education

Master of Science - Cloud Computing

California Institute of Technology
California
01-2025

Work Preference

Work Type

Full TimePart TimeContract WorkInternshipGig Work

Timeline

Scrum Master / Project Manager

UnitedHealthcare
01.2023 - Current

Scrum Master & Program Coordinator

Infosys - Global Immigration Services
09.2021 - 11.2021

Project Lead | Operations & Technology

Frisco ISD / Independent Projects
03.2021 - 03.2021

Scrum Master / Data Project Lead

Truist Bank
12.2020 - 10.2022

Scrum Coordinator / PO/Branch Manager/Wealth Portfolio Manager

ICICI Bank / IndusInd Bank
01.2016 - 01.2018

Scrum team member

01.2012 - 01.2016

Branch Banking

Axis Bank
01.2000 - 01.2012

Master of Science - Cloud Computing

California Institute of Technology

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Smithaa GopaalScrum Master