John M. Watters

 

 

 

SUMMARY

 

Quality Assurance Professional with extensive experience in Software Quality Assurance/Project Planning.  Expertise is built on prior work assignments: QA manager/team leader/project management/individual contributor roles, mentor, software analysis and correction, defect analysis and process improvement, customer support, technical trainer, database administrator, and software development. Have held these positions across a wide spectrum of information technologies in a CMMi compliant company. Strengths include team building, working effectively in a fast-paced, dynamic, multi-tasking environment, defining comprehensive test strategies for large and small scale software products, ability to communicate to senior management, and training/managing off-shore partners (e.g., Wipro, InfoSys, CTS).

 

 

EXPERIENCE – SOFTWARE SYSTEMS

 

Dun  AND BRADSTREET (Contract Assignments,  August 2006 to Present)

 

Quality Assurance Manager for the Detailed Trade Data Warehouse  Project  (DTW)

Recruited into DnB’s QA leader team within the Technology Organization. Team members are responsible for managing off-shore test teams while ensuring adherence to DnB’s Project Development Process. A few of my specific accomplishments in the Detailed Trade project were: managing InfoSys and CTS test teams, coordinating shared environment usage by multiple vendors, developing project strategy for using Mercury’s Quality Center(QC) tool and DOORs(BA Repository), automating the QC test case upload process, and developing/analyzing test metrics for the Project Managers. This was DnB’s 3^rd attempt to launch the DTW project, our team successfully launched the DTW project in 4Q2008.

 

Quality Assurance Software Consultant for the Global Hygiene & Match Project (GHM)           

Joined the project team responsible for a Globally Scoped Data Hygiene/Account Matching effort for a Fortune 100 client. In this position I performed software verifications, data analysis/correction using Excel and MS Access, provided quality review of off-shore test plans/specifications, worked closely with on-shore development staff to remediate software defects.

 

 

Telcordia Technologies (formerly SAIC/Telcordia, formerly Bellcore, formerly ATT)

 

Senior Software Quality Engineer        (1995-2006)

Responsible for facilitating, via excellent coordination and communication skills, the  efforts of System Engineers, QA staff, Software Engineers and Learning Support Specialists working to produce sets of Integrated Products. This position verifies the products’ conformance to its specifications and provides continuous feedback to evolve the quality process. Telcordia is an CMMi/ISO9001 certified company.

 

• QA Team Leader for the Passive Optical Networks (PON) initiative on the Network Monitoring Analysis (NMA) application and related systems, this was the first implementation of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA/XML) in Telcordia. NMA is utilized by USA and International Companies (Platforms: Stratus/VOS, HP/Unix, PCs, Sun Workstations, Web).

 

• QA Team Leader for the effort to re-architect the front-end GUI to NMA from Xemulation  to a PC Java application running JVM on WinXP, Win2000, WinNT, Win98, Sun Solaris and AIX operating systems (Platforms: PCs, Sun Workstation, and Notebooks).

 

• Team Leader for developing the Automated Test Methodology for a PC GUI using Segue’s SilkTest product.

 

• Selected to be part of the Telcordia quality assurance team audited for adherence to CMM standards; Telcordia was certified at CMM level 5.

 

• Recruited to lead the QA effort on a brand new client/server inventory product (SIMM) in a “Rapid Application Development (i.e., Agile)” methodology. Progressed from prototype to fully functional product in 9 months, deployed approximately 1,100 clients in subsequent roll out. This product was the “seed” for a new Telcordia product line and continues to be utilized in telecommunications operations today.

 

Software Quality Engineer        (1988-1995)

• Team Leader for the QA effort to integrate several corporate databases (i.e., Data Migration) with multiple applications; the initial implementation was with DB2 and subsequent implementation was on HP/Unix platforms

 

Training and Education Experience – during Telcordia employment

• Assignments included the responsibility to develop and deliver training material, directly to customers or to “train the trainer”. This role was necessary as producing software products at Telcordia created a constant need to analyze new software functions, new methods and procedures for customers. Training assignments were performed for International customers: Wipro Technologies, Dutch PTT and for USA telecommunications companies: Verizon, BellSouth, SBC, Quest, Sprint.

 

 

EXPERIENCE – Financial

H&R Block

Tax Professional           (Seasonal Employee 2005-2007)

In this position I was responsible for the preparation of individual tax returns and also performed as an agent of H&R’s Banking service. Professionals are required to maintain current knowledge of tax laws and must comply with federal regulations governing bank products and services. I am registered with the IRS as a professional tax specialist.

 

 

Education/Professional Development

 

BS, Computer Science; Rutgers University; East Brunswick, NJ

IT Industry Training (40 hrs per year)

H&R Block tax and finance training (30 CPE hours per year to maintain certification)

 

 

RecoGnition

 

Received 3 DnB “Star” awards for:  1) training technical staff and business partners on Quality Center,  2) developing automated procedures for use by the QA test team,  3) Successfully managing off-shore test teams

 

Applied for and received a certified copyright certificate from the Library of Congress Copyright office for a small business application (Excel VBA) in June 2003.

 

Received vice-presidential "team quality award" in 2 successive years for developing and delivering a new client/server product (SIMM).  Received vice-presidential "team quality award" for developing and delivering a state of the art set of inventory products to the regional telephone companies.

 

Member of the team recognized as Bellcore’s Best “Turn-Around” effort in 1992 (the team rescued a development effort with a major client)

 

Co-Authored and published a paper on "Experiences with Defect Analysis".  This paper was presented to the annual Bellcore conference on quality innovations.

 

Received vice-presidential "team quality award" for developing and presenting technical training to the Dutch PTT (Netherlands).

 

Approved by the IRS as an Electronic Return Originator(ERO)- this credential grants the capability to electronically file tax returns for tax payers- Completed H&R Blocks intensive 66hr training course in 2005, employment with H&R Block was contingent upon successful completion of their training program