Platform Development, Continuous Delivery, Quality Transformation

Effectively doubled throughput by developing and operating an ALM platform at an e-commerce giant.

Increased deployments 5-fold and ensured fast feedback loops at a large dental benefits company.

Optimized a global QA organization, reducing defects by 35% while also improving delivery consistency.

E-Business (B2B2C) company * IT organization of over 500 people

Director – Technology, leading a 30+ member organization, including Platforms, DevOps, Automated QA and Performance Engineering

Scattered de-coupled systems and tools used to build and deploy software
Significant number of production patches
Inability to make informed decisions based on testing information
Automated solutions scattered and ad-hoc, hindering velocity and increasing cost of ownership.

Implemented an integrated ALM Platform to:
- Continuously build and deploy software across environments
- Drive test planning, test execution, and effective triage
- Identify projects, releases & deployments that were ‘at risk’
- Help in making timely decisions.
Implemented a Unified Automation Solution that could be leveraged during development sprints through system integration testing
Developed a Visualization Dashboard focused on progress, coverage and quality to actively manage scope and product risk on every release.

Doubled software delivery throughput by employing the platform
Architected a test management system that housed over 15000 tests with a reuse factor of 2.5
Increased the effectiveness of the automation function, while reducing maintenance time by 30%
Automated tests accounted for over 10% of the defects found post-sprint
Over time, this led to a 20% reduction in production patches.

Large Dental Benefits Administrator * IT organization of over 300 people

Principal Consultant, leading an 18-month multi-workstream transformation effort

Need to scale delivery systems to support technology refresh and business growth
Unable to deploy code easily after every build, even as scrum teams operated in sprints
Environments not available when needed, with increasing sprawl
Quality feedback slow or missing
Results of performance testing not trusted by stakeholders
Declining reliability of claims processing systems in production.

Architected a future-state deployment pipeline and release process
Defined a purpose-driven approach to managing environments
Implemented automated deployment across the enterprise
Developed a functional test automation solution that would support BDD, and could be used across the development lifecycle
Established the practice of goal-oriented performance engineering
Delivered extensive on-boarding, training and coaching to upskill various parts of the IT organization.

Code can be deployed after every build
Number of deployments per month increased 5-fold
Environment use was tied to the deployment pipeline, reducing number by 35%
Automated regression increased over 400% across multiple applications
Scrum teams using BDD and automated acceptance tests every sprint
Use of production-enabled workload model and statistical approach led to improved accuracy of performance engineering efforts
Significant increase in stability and reliability
Built a culture of DevOps incrementally over time.

Windows-based Web applications, Salesforce, Oracle Revenue & Billing, BI/Analytics stack comprised of Informatica ETL, SSRS/SSIS, Cognos and Tableau
TFS, TFS-Git and Microsoft RMS for automated deployment
C# and Selenium based test automation solution
Neoload for performance testing
Dynatrace for performance and production monitoring.

Diversified Financial Services company * IT organization of over 1500 people * QA of over 200 people

VP – Technology, leading a 100-member organization supporting 50+ applications

Inconsistent delivery by a globally distributed organization leading to lack of business trust
Increasing trend of QA & test cost and cycle time while supporting increased growth
Major issues being identified late in the lifecycle.

Redesigned the global organization with a 70/30 onshore-offshore mix and consolidated operations from 7 to 4 locations
Built a highly-experienced 20-member team of quality and system architects, to lead cross-functional projects and ensure effective systems integration
Implemented a risk-based QA practice to understand the failure impact on core business features. Ensured end-to-end scenarios were validated prior to business acceptance, which helped identify major integration issues.
Established a Test Automation Center of Excellence with a dual-shore model – a scripting center focused on delivering executable automation and a capabilities team focused on developing and maintaining a modular automation framework.

Grew the QA team by just 11% to support a 35% development team growth
Reduced blended labor cost by over 10%
Reduced test cycle time to 20% of project cycle time, from around 25%
New software defects in production reduced by 35%
First pass run-rate improved significantly while automated coverage increased by 30%
Through these results and active collaboration, increased trust with the business stakeholders.