Category: Agile and Scrum Reviews

All About My Professional Background

As documented by Samuel Soper

I’m an Army veteran from Wisconsin, U.S.A. While serving back in 1982, I became interested in Satellite Communications as a Senior Instructor/Curriculum Writer. I moved into the private sector in 1994 and worked as a Communications and Systems manager for a while. In my 40-year career span, I have served many companies as a consultant and a Director of Technology.

Due to so many years of experience and newly learned skills, I could change my domain to Solutions Architect within my company in 2020. Then, in January 2022, I joined a new company as a Technical Solutions Architect. My role here focuses on analysis and solution architecture, assisting development and providing configuration while extending D365 Customer Engagement capabilities throughout the Accounting, Architecture/Engineering/Construction, Legal and Consulting industries. Our teams design and deliver a range of solutions to client problems, process gaps, and inefficiencies by providing the skills and knowledge to create solutions that fit in their business strategies.

My Desire to Stay Current Kicks In

I worked as the Enterprise and Application Architecture Director with a company when the global pandemic hit. Although I am on the verge of retirement, I didn’t want to retire. I wanted to retain a youthful perspective regarding skills and mindset at my job. Today’s young people are technically more literate than me. My desire to maintain relevancy in both my position and in the marketplace became my chief incentive to upskill.

How I Chose Simplilearn as My Go-To Upskill Resource

I began my journey by taking some free Simplilearn courses through Skilllup, focusing on business analysis and project management. I really liked the courses and the structure they provided, so I enrolled in Simplilearn and started taking other courses. So, I began with PMI-ACP and PMI-RMP certifications and then moved on to ITIL 4 and TOGAF 9.2 certifications. I took all four of them in 2020. I took the courses to streamline my work. I was looking for courses that would give me practical knowledge and clarify all theoretical aspects. Finally, I wanted to understand how I could use these technologies as a technical architect and help develop business solutions.

I added to my skill set this year by taking certificate courses in Business Analysis and Digital Transformation.

With already working as a technology leader, I wanted to do something bigger and better. I was looking for ways to expand my knowledge in the software industry and also grow as a person. Upskilling to learn about project management, definitely did the trick for me and even resulted in a new job.

Background 

I’m a software professional with over 15 years of experience in software industry. I was working as a technology leader in my last company, which was a product company in the Telecom and Healthcare domain.

Looking to grow in my career, I started looking for learning new things and came across Agile and Scrum as the most demanded in the project management field. I came across couple of articles on Agile methodology on internet. With Agile methodology in particular scrum methodology is the most effective methodology for developing complex software product in complex environment, I wanted to go into software project management. So I decided to take up a course in Agile Scrum methodology.

As documented by Namrata Mishra

My career mantra is to always keep looking up and keep moving forward. I am constantly looking at how I can improve myself and how I can attain my next career goal. This is exactly how when I was faced with the opportunity of becoming a Scrum Master, I took it and haven’t looked back since. Here’s my journey of how I became a Scrum Master.

I have worked my way up ever since I began my professional career, starting as an SAP trainee with SoftSpin Services in Mumbai nearly 20 years ago. Learning on the job came naturally to me. I always make a conscious effort to learn something of value from everyone I encounter—not just at work, but in daily life. This spirit of lifelong learning is exactly how I came into contact with Simplilearn.

I believe a lot can be learned just by doing it in your regular course of work, but sometimes it’s necessary to take a more structured approach to learn, especially when it i