Trish Putnam

Technology program management professional with a background leading Quality Assurance and Dev Ops departments, optimizing operational processes, and building high-functioning teams. Excellent communicator with the ability to foster an environment of productivity and collaborate with C-level stakeholders. Expertise in talent strategy and connecting the business vision with organizational practices.

trish@trishputnam.com | Redmond, WA | Austin, TX

Core Competencies and Skills

Project/Program Management:

  • Analysis
  • Budget
  • Schedule Management
  • Change Management
  • Relationship & Consensus Building
  • Policy & Procedure Creation and Management
  • Risk Assessment and Mitigation Strategies
  • Vendor Management
  • Personnel Management:

  • Hiring
  • Training & Development
  • Mentoring
  • Retention
  • Performance Management
  • Team Development & Growth
  • Organizational Leadership:

  • Strategic & Tactical Planning, Near and Long Term
  • Strength in Communications Across Organizational Boundaries
  • Solutions Driven Thinker
  • Collaborative Mindset with Business and Technology Leadership

    Broad technical knowledge in Quality Assurance, IT, DevOps, Release Management, Data Analysis


  • Work Experience

    • Client Site Manager/ QAnalysts / 2021 – Present

      • Hired to manage 30+ Quality Assurance FTE across 5 onsite project teams for a Fortune 100 client; long-term projects range from released products with new software or hardware, unreleased products, to an SDK and API product focus. Personnel: 12-31 FTE. Budget: $5M USD.
      • Successfully launched new product, three new hardware releases for a mature product, and ~15 new or updated major features across all 5 products in 1-year, delivering on schedule and ~6% under-budgets
      • Hired 12 new project professionals and hiring an additional 8 to fill newly created positions, maintaining an 85% retention
      • Coach and guide staff on process development, leadership training, and QA techniques, resulting in 2 individual contributors promoted into lead roles with recognition by the client for improvements in leadership
      • Overhauled project team structure, reassigned duties based on skillset, and introduced rhythm of business cadence which transformed clients’ overview and satisfaction of the team, resulting in winning contract as primary managed service
      • Improved estimates for projects 25% by developing an estimation tool, training team leads on use, and providing guidance to client stakeholders which enabled preliminary high-level estimates at project planning phases
      • Won contract renewal with a 40% budget expansion and two additional projects with expected YoY growth by taking leadership in the training development team, developing new hire onboarding plan, and piloting exceptional training program

    • Variety of Contract Roles (PM, BA, Technical Consultant) / 2017 – 2020

      • Drove the project lifecycle, from concept to delivery and at all phases in between, ensuring strict compliance with project plans and timelines for Xbox game related projects. Personnel: 20 FTEs across 3 major QA backlogs (25-30 simultaneous projects).
      • Improved project turnaround time by ~15% by incorporating agile and waterfall methodologies in process development and change management within a hybrid development environment
      • Created clarity and improved communications of metrics and KPIs through use of Azure DevOps, Power BI, and dashboards
      • Instituted a new team structure with ownership responsibility which improved team velocity by 10% through a reduction in need for ramp-up, improved estimation accuracy, and increased client visibility into project timelines
      • Rearchitected backlog structure, improved work intake process, eliminated redundant and outdated items in backlog, and introduced personnel tracking capabilities, increasing on-time completion of deliverables by10%

    • Head of Quality Assurance / Array Health / 2014-2016

      • Ownership for QA/DevOps and teams responsible for planning and executing QA tests and client implementations of an eCommerce style SaaS platform for private insurance exchange technology client. Personnel: ~12FTE & ~30 On & Off-Shore Contractors. Budget: $2.2M.
      • Built QA, SDET, and DevOps organization, hiring 10 FTE and 30 Contractors over 2-years with a 94%+ retention rate (remainder planned attrition) while boosting employee performance and output ~30%
      • Increased success rate of manual and automated testing by 40% through transformation of quality standards, practices/testing, and release procedures and by instilling a TDD mindset across the engineering org
      • Slashed number of significant defects discovered during UAT by ~90% with transparency and communication during the product release process
      • Prevented loss of disgruntled key customer by overhauling QA and UAT processes to reduce defects/bugs found from 300+ to just 30, resulting in complete turnaround of relationship in 6-months and multiple recommendations to new clients
      • Hired new DevOps Engineer, documented and automated complex processes, including validation tests, and reduced deployment from 5-hours to <45-minutes

    • Quality Assurance Lead (Contract at Premera) / Apex Systems Inc. / 2013-2014

      • Tapped to lead QA practice for 10 Agile Scrum Teams with dedicated QA resources responsible for update/enhancement projects for Premera’s website. Guided SMEs on test coverage, automation focus, prioritization, communication, tool selection, and approvals.
      • Automated 70% of manual processes to allow project teams to focus on new code and features which impact UX
      • Reduced testing cycles by 1-week per release
      • Decreased escalated incidents by 15%
      • Modernized the SOA infrastructure and architecture to improve scalability and flexibility by ~25%

    • QA Leadership Roles in e-Commerce QA (Quality Assurance Manager, Quality Assurance Strategy and Planning) / AT&T / 2008-2012

      • Led multiple teams with up to 25 FTEs and contractors as well as matrix responsibility for members of an offshore team supporting projects in the lab set-up, design of manual/automated testing procedures for releases, development of internal tools used in the QA organization, phone testing (including Android and iPhone, among others) and configuration of security measures
      • Developed all specifications for construction of the new lab, prepared the $100k proposed budget for new hardware/software, and presented the proposal and funding justification to Sr. Vice President of the division
      • Maintained 100% compliance with the specifications and requirements of 20+ enterprise initiatives while meeting and exceeding organizational testing and procedural goals
      • Authored new quality assurance processes and procedures for laboratory testing that impacted an organization of up to 60 QA analysts and SDETs, increasing laboratory efficiency by 20%
      • Developed employees through training and mentorship programs, identifying career paths for interested employees and promoting an average of 2 employees each year


    Education

    2024 (est.)

    Masters in Data Analytics

    Western Governors University

    2018

    Masters in Business Administration

    Western Governors University
    Specialization: IT Management

    2009

    Bachelor of Science: Information Tech.

    Western Governors University
    Concentration: Network Design and Management

    Certifications and Coursework

    Certified Scrum Master

    Certified Ethical Hacker (2009) / Certified Computer Hacking Forensic Inspector (2009)

    Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer

    Coursework in R, Python, Data Science

    CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, Project+