Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
Generic

Karole Gray

Lakeland

Summary

Resourceful Sr Operations Specialist that is responsible for collaborating with stakeholders to gather requirements, analyzing business processes for improvement, translating requirements into specifications, facilitating/ coaching communication between stakeholders and technical teams, managing product backlog prioritization, leading UAT efforts, driving change management, analyzing data for insights, identifying process improvement opportunities, coaching and implementing successful IT solutions.

Overview

13
13
years of professional experience

Work History

Sr. Operations Tech Specialist

Federal Express
Memphis, TN
02.2012 - Current
  • Serving as a key leader for cross-functional Scrum development team(s) to deliver valuable product enhancements and integrations. [Auto Verify, Dangerous Goods, Trams, Sonic Screwdrivers].
  • Understands and conveys the business processes and problems to multiple Scrum teams. [Auto Verify, Dangerous Goods, Trams, Sonic Screwdrivers].
  • Represents the voice of the customer to elicit, understand, analyze, document, refine and communicate business needs, so that business and/or technical delivery teams can build effective solutions[ VISA, CCII, IK2, K2, PSCAN, Weight and Balance, GURU, TRIP/ ROCS, TRAMS, Auto Verify, ITIH].
  • Defines and clearly articulates requirements (user stories and features) and acceptance criteria (use cases). [Auto Verify, Dangerous Goods, Trams, Sonic Screwdrivers].
  • Led and supported multiple User Acceptance Testing Initiatives; Overseeing quality control for identification and defect management through the facilitation on the following projects: [ VISA, CCII, IK2, K2, PSCAN, Weight and Balance, GURU, TRIP/ ROCS, TRAMS, Auto Verify, ITIH].
  • Assists in managing intake and prioritization within the product backlog through business value ROI, alignment with product strategy, and resource capacity.[ VISA, CCII, IK2, K2, PSCAN, Weight and Balance, GURU, TRIP/ ROCS, TRAMS, Auto Verify, ITIH].
  • Utilizes effective communication skills to surface essential requirements information. Owns the product vision and product backlog. Manages requirements and prioritization within the product backlog through business value roi, alignment with product strategy, and resource capacity [ VISA, CCII, IK2, K2, PSCAN, Weight and Balance, GURU, TRIP/ ROCS, TRAMS, Auto Verify, ITIH].
  • Represented BAO/AEO global transformational efforts: Provided US ART Gap Analysis; Created a comprehensive Training Guide; Developed user stories, acceptance criteria, and new features with the team. Engaged in BAO -Officers and Directors Quarterly meetings providing regional impediments assessments, scheduling and coordinating speaker representation for global awareness and best practices
  • Served as EBA Express liaison: Providing related Enterprise Business Agility (EBA) guidance and alignment information to teams on Express ARTs; Captured and documented process changes; Assisted with coordinating, scheduling, and facilitating transformational related team meeting and working sessions as needed; Identified areas for improvement, narrowing focus for decision-makers in making necessary change.
  • Served as a Planview Ambassador: Participating in understanding and testing the Planview suite for adoption across the enterprise, obtaining certifications to enable valued feedback during training module builds and for aid with understanding rollout.
  • Assists with strategic planning, business capability, value stream, and business process representations needed to model current and target state views of the business.
  • Understands and supports prioritized Portfolio and Value Stream work by collaborating with Solution Architects, Business Architects, Product Managers, and stakeholders to breakdown features into user stories.
  • Manages the delivery of business value by owning the team backlog, defining stories, establishing story acceptance criteria, and leading story refinement for preparation of iteration planning and program increment planning.
  • Provides input and feedback to Epic Owners on new and existing epics, understands stakeholder and customer needs and cost of delay.
  • Reviews and accepts user stories throughout the iteration as developed functionality is completed by the team (develop on cadence)
  • Works with other Product Owners and the Product Manager to determine impacts and interdependencies with other teams, programs, or value streams.
  • Acts as customer advocate for team questions and seeks out opportunities to connect the team with end users, stakeholders, and customers to develop and improve their understanding and empathy of end user needs.
  • Interacts with stakeholders during iteration demos, or individually, to show the most critical aspects of a solution and negotiate the reality of systems solutions.
  • Collaborates with other Project Managers to provide input to the project vision and roadmap.
  • Collaborates with Product Managers, Release Management, stakeholders, and team to define and plan for releases(Release on Demand).
  • Participates in the iteration demo and retrospective meetings to inspect and adapt the product or solution for the next iteration and the team’s process for improvements in how they work to build solution increments.
  • Works with the team to ensure features, stories, and tasks are entered, maintained, and tracked in required Agile tooling solutions.
  • Applies Design Thinking concepts and techniques (user persona, customer journey maps, empathy maps).
  • Applies quantitative methods of prioritization, through the team backlog, providing an iteration roadmap for delivery sequence, coordinated with dependencies, and aligned with the ART vision.
  • Creates team PI Objectives that represent the measurable business outcomes.
  • Has subject matter expertise of products and knowledge of the application dependencies.
  • Coaches backlog ceremonies and definition of ready adherence. Orchestrates solution demos to demonstrate incremental value delivered.
  • Develops and coaches training material to enhance proficiency and productivity. [Epic Owner writing, Portfolio Demand Intake criteria, OKR writing, New Hire Onboarding, ART health metrics, UAT acceptance criteria, ART capacity forecasting].
  • Champions the adoption of new tools and best practices that streamlines workflows across multiple departments [Agility, Viz flow metrics, Power BI, Planview suite including Viz].

Education

Criminal Justice

University of Memphis
Memphis, TN

Business

University of Phoenix

Federal Express

Skills

  • Applies certified knowledge in Agile and Lean values/concepts and scaling with SAFe framework
  • Demonstrates ability to be flexible, adapt, analyze, and understand complex ideas, break them down into smaller pieces of deliverable value sequentially, understanding interdependencies to deliver solutions
  • Delivers solutions-based thinking in problem solving, asks probing questions and looking for underlying issues
  • Has various systems subject matter expertise to partner with technical leads as it relates to stories and the overall Agile Release Train
  • Possesses strong facilitation, written and verbal skills to guide team(s) to develop solutions that solve business needs
  • Uses active listening, and influencing skills with internal customers, architects, and Product Managers to understand the system and iteration capabilities for deliverables
  • Communicates with strong verbal and written skills to articulate business value delivery achievement and effort
  • Has fundamental understanding of business with ability to understand make business decisions based on the larger company strategy, sharing the inspired vision
  • Current in software skills used for company centric repositories, including use of Microsoft Office, and other web-based applications

Timeline

Sr. Operations Tech Specialist

Federal Express
02.2012 - Current

Criminal Justice

University of Memphis

Business

University of Phoenix

Federal Express

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Karole Gray