SRI HARSHA GOLAKOTI

Summary

Results-driven IT professional with 7+ years of experience as a Business Analyst, Change Coordinator, and Release Coordinator, specializing in ITIL-aligned change management and end-to-end release coordination across Dev, QA, UAT, and Production environments. Proven success owning CAB/CCB processes, managing release readiness, approvals, dependencies, and deployment coordination in complex enterprise environments. Hands-on experience with ServiceNow, Jira, and Excel dashboards for tracking, reporting, and audit readiness. Adept at partnering with DevOps, infrastructure, and application teams to deliver smooth, compliant releases, with exposure to CI/CD-enabled deployment pipelines and continuous process improvement.

Overview

years of professional experience

Certification

Work History

Change & Release Coordinator

Data Solutions Inc | Enterprise Media & Entertainment Client (via Global SI Partner)

Orlando, FL

04.2023 - Current

Designed and implemented a structured Change Management framework aligned with ITIL standards and organizational governance to ensure controlled execution of IT and business changes.
Managed the complete Change lifecycle in ServiceNow, including RFC creation, risk and impact assessments, approvals, scheduling, implementation, and post-implementation reviews.
Owned and facilitated CAB and CCB meetings, preparing agendas, presenting high-risk and emergency changes, and ensuring audit-ready approvals.
Coordinated end-to-end releases across Development, QA, UAT, and Production environments, ensuring environment readiness, deployment timing, and stakeholder alignment.
Acted as the central coordination point for release readiness, dependencies, cutover planning, and go/no-go decisions.
Partnered with DevOps, Infrastructure, QA, and Web/Application teams to ensure deployments were executed accurately and on schedule.
Monitored live release and deployment activities, proactively identifying risks, coordinating issue resolution, and escalating blockers to leadership.
Led end-to-end Release Management activities including scope validation, dependency tracking, testing coordination, production readiness checks, and deployments.
Developed and maintained SOPs for Change and Release Management including rollback strategies, communication plans, and contingency procedures.
Effectively handled emergency changes using expedited approval workflows while maintaining ITIL compliance.
Utilized Jira boards and dashboards to track change tasks, release milestones, risks, and dependencies.
Built Excel-based dashboards and executive reports to track release schedules, approval status, success rates, risk trends, and compliance metrics.
Supported CI/CD-enabled release pipelines by aligning automated deployments with governance and change approvals.
Supported patching and release activities across multiple applications and business units.
Conducted post-implementation reviews and root cause analyses, driving continuous process improvement.
Provided training and ongoing guidance on Change & Release processes, ServiceNow, Jira, and IT governance standards.

Business Analyst | Change Coordinator

Datasol Technology Services Pvt Limited

Hyderabad, India

06.2016 - 12.2020

Elicited, analyzed, and documented business and functional requirements through stakeholder interviews, workshops, and process mapping sessions.
Translated business needs into Epics, User Stories, Acceptance Criteria, and functional specifications, ensuring clarity and alignment with delivery goals.
Acted as a key liaison between business stakeholders, product owners, and development teams to ensure shared understanding and successful delivery.
Facilitated Agile ceremonies including Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, and Reviews, ensuring stories were prioritized and sprint-ready.
Managed and optimized JIRA boards, filters, and dashboards to provide end-to-end visibility into project progress, risks, and issue resolution.
Oversaw the full defect lifecycle in JIRA, including logging, triaging, prioritization, tracking, and closure of defects.
Supported and implemented formal IT Change Management processes, ensuring changes were properly assessed, documented, approved, and communicated.
Represented project teams in CAB/CCB meetings, evaluating change requests, presenting impact and risk assessments, and securing approvals.
Collaborated with IT and business stakeholders to assess risks, track change metrics, and deliver reports to support governance and continuous improvement initiatives.
Coordinated UAT readiness and supported release approvals by validating testing completion and deployment feasibility.
Created Excel and Jira-based reports to track change metrics, approvals, and delivery timelines.

Education

Masters - Information Technology Management

Webster University

FL, USA

12.2022

Skills

Methodologies & Frameworks: Agile, Waterfall, Scrum, Kanban, ITIL (Change & Release Management), SDLC

Release, Change & DevOps Tools: ServiceNow (Change, CAB, RFCs), Azure DevOps (TFS), Jira, GitHub, Jenkins, VersionOne

CI/CD & Automation Exposure: CI/CD Pipelines, Release Pipelines, Jenkins, GitHub Actions (exposure), UAT & Production Deployments

Reporting & Documentation: Microsoft Excel (Dashboards, Reporting), MS Office Suite, SharePoint, Confluence, Smartsheet, MS Project

Testing & QA Tools: HP ALM / QC, Selenium, HP LoadRunner

Web & Data Technologies: XML, JSON, HTML, CSS, SQL

Operating Systems & Platforms: Windows, macOS, Windows Server, iOS, Android

Enterprise Systems & Other Tools: SAP, UiPath (RPA), Swagger