SUMMARY:

• Dynamic, effective and accomplished, results driven and goal oriented Information Technology (IT) Program and Project Manager with 15 years of comprehensive and progressive leadership experience, managing complex projects for clients at the top of the IT industry.
• PMI certified Project Manager (PMP) with deep hands - on experience facilitating, monitoring, and reporting on projects and initiatives, from release pre-planning through implementation
• Program/Projects include in the areas of Software development, and support and maintenance of existing applications; environments include real-time systems, multiple interfaces, external vendors, and different technology components such as embedded database and different programming languages.
• Expert in Delivery management, Program management, Project planning, Strategic planning, Risk analysis and Mitigation plan, Quality controls, Team Development and Management, Scheduling, Budgeting and Forecasting, Monitoring and Tracking of project activities, progress and results. Offers outstanding leadership at creating and implementing technical and operational plans and strategies.
• Innovative problem solving strategist, ability to understand and integrate the full scope of goals of a corporate environment, as well as an exceptional ability to work under high pressure. Proven ability to handle/resolve conflicts, able to handle multiple assignments simultaneously and ability to manage frequent changes.
• Brings ongoing initiative, resourcefulness, dedication, and above all a proven record of experience, delivering excellence in consistently meeting project objectives and exceeding expectations, and brings an unmatched commitment to the achievement of organizational goals and objectives.
• Experience working with fortune clients including Target Technology, Kohl’s, Abbot and Confidential . Managed the team of 30+ members in matrix environment including Business Analyst, Technical Architect, and Offshore Developers, client SMEs, vendor Consultants, QA and Performance testing teams.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Confidential, Dallas, TX

Program Manager

Responsibilities:

• Manage delivery of multiple IT projects from all aspects of program and project management involving requirement analysis, project planning, project scope management, effort estimation, quality management, gap analysis, risk management, issue resolution, testing, training, documentation, change management, release management and post implementation support
• Partner with Business Stakeholders to define project scope and deliverables, create project plans and manage budget
• Organize kickoff meetings with key stakeholders at the beginning of the project and discuss Scope, Deliverables, Timelines, Assumption and Risks.
• Coordinate Requirements gathering sessions with Product Managers, Business and IT Teams. Ensure internal and external review completion and formal BRD signoff
• Develop and manage project schedule including estimating the project duration, effort, and critical path as well as assigning and tracking the scheduled activities and milestones through completion
• Risk identification, mitigation, response planning; Manage project risks by careful analysis of planned activities and update to Risk Register. Discussed risk items during weekly/monthly meetings with the leadership team and communicate risks to other Stakeholders.
• Execution of projects on Agile methodology. Facilitate Sprint planning sessions, daily scrum meetings, backlog grooming sessions, sprint demos and retrospectives. Generate sprint reports with accomplishments, metrics, open actions, risks and mitigation
• Manage portfolio staff of PM's, BSA's, Data Modeler's, DBA's, ETL Developers, SQL Developers, Unit testers, and QA testers working on multiple customer projects. Team onboarding, Interviews, Team management.
• Facilitate weekly customer meetings to discuss key accomplishments, project schedule, performance metrics, upcoming deliverables, open action items, risks and dependencies. Provide meeting minutes to all stakeholders.
• Working on new Proposals, RFPs including solution approach, effort and cost estimates; SOW process on approved proposals, Change Request on existing SOWs where a change in work scope is approved. Supporting sales teams in preparing sales presentations and client visits.

Confidential,Houston, TX

Program Manager

• Manage SSO program, maintain pipeline of new projects, prioritize the projects based on Score card, complete Discovery analysis, process SOW with clients/business teams
• Complete SDLC life cycle execution through all phases including Discovery, Requirement, Design, Construction, QA, UAT and Production deployment
• Discovery phase: Analysis and Proof of concept (PoCs) with different vendors to define the best solution. Engage on vendor coordination, PoC infrastructure, setup and execution, tools evaluation report and reviews
• Define the Project plans and timelines in coordination with application team, vendor, technical team, QA and Performance testing teams
• Requirement Gathering (BRD): Capture complete business requirements, define Functional Specification documents
• Continue and Progressive review of Design document, plan and organize internal and external reviews, facilitate the discussions and brainstorming over design questions/issues, design approval
• Ensure timely completion of all code modules, code reviews with Architects and review of unit test result report
• Perform QA test planning; ensure timely completion for test plan and test cases and thorough reviews along with Business Analyst and Tech Architect. Setup test environment, test data and test IDs; daily meetings with QA team to discuss the testing progress and resolve QA issues
• Coordination with Business to prepare UAT plan and test cases, UAT test ID setup, review and agreement over UAT Entry and Exit criteria, ensure timely build of UAT environment and UAT kickoff, daily UAT meetings to discuss the progress and resolve UAT issues
• Prepare detailed Production deployment plan along with the technical team and perform reviews with required stakeholder including build/release team. Ensure timely execution of all deployment and implementation activities, resolve any implementation issues along with required teams, and perform production IVP with Business owners.
• Project closing activities including Run Book, Complete transition to Support team, Lesson learnt, project closing report and check list, Archive and retain project documentation
• Provide weekly and monthly Status report, Metrics and Dashboard to higher management
• Delivery Management including new RFPs, pre-sales support, SOW, invoicing, resource onboarding, team management

Confidential, Chicago, IL

Project Manager

• Manage all phases of project from Planning, Requirement, Design, Construction, UAT and Cutover/Implementation though Agile Implementation.
• Requirement gathering with multiple business owners/stakeholders for 100+ HRIS applications; Because of independent applications, channelized the requirement gathering and communication methods like Emails, Meetings and Phone conversation. Coordinate with Business owners to maintain Product Backlog of User stories.
• Project Planning including Sprint planning, Velocity of user stories, Resource estimation, Project schedule and Budget, Risk Analysis and Mitigation plan, Work Breakdown structure on making sure that tasks are done at detailed level
• Coordination and communication with multiple business owners/stakeholders for Design, Testing and Cutover/Implementation
• Built the Team and supervised more than 20+ resources which was a mix of Business Analysts, Client Subject Matter Experts, Onshore and Offshore Technical team and testing teams. Lead and direct the work to team members.
• Process improvement and process setup for various phases of SDLC like Design templates, Review/Approval/Configuration processes for Design documents, Code Review process, UAT process including client communication, Approval methods, and Role and Responsibilities among Business Analyst and testing team.
• Aggressive execution of Design, Construction and UAT due to stringent timelines and the volume of applications for each Sprint. Daily Scrum meeting.
• Built a Tracker tool - because of volume of HRIS applications and team size, this tool was used extensively on all phases for assignments, tracking, and metrics and also by team members to report the status and issues.
• Facilitate frequent team meetings to resolve the Technical and Functional questions from BAs and Technical team, which helped to quickly resolve the issues and queries while working on design and Construction of multiple applications. Similar meetings helped during UAT phase to quickly resolve the testing issues.
• Summarizes progress of project, reports and statistics including forecasting of Budget and Schedule to higher management including client VP, Directors and Sr. Manager.

Confidential, WI

Service Delivery Manager

• Service Delivery Management of backend Kohl’s charge application including Incident Management, Enhancements and Change Requests
• Responsible and accountable for the coordinated management with client team and act as Single Point of Contact (SPOC) with the client
• Pioneered and strategically built an offshore set up for a client Service Delivery model. Acknowledged for effective co-ordination skills used to set up the remote team and bring it up to an efficient and productive speed in record time.
• Coordination with Service Manager and other teams including infrastructure, network for resolution of Production issues, co-ordination with offshore team on daily project activities
• Adherence to defined Performance objectives and Service Level Agreements (SLA), Escalation point for Delivery and Production issues
• Trend analysis and metrics, Change Requests based on Trend analysis, Manage Knowledge Articles/Repository
• Release Management including Change Request form, Change Request approval from CAB (Change Approval Board), Release support on deployments
• Application transition with Development team including review of Project Artifacts and Deliverables throughout SDLC, complete Transition activities, shadow support
• Progress monitoring, Resource management, Team building, Performance appraisal, Planning and conducting the knowledge sharing sessions for the team.
• Coach, mentor and lead personnel within a technical team environment. Mentored onshore and offshore staff in Processes, Methodology and encouraged best practice.
• Provide status reports and metrics to the client. Present periodic Dashboard reports on the current program, future opportunities and client issues.
• Managed and perform the process of Statement of Work and contract creation to secure new and follow-on work.
• Collaborate with senior management and sales teams on project development, pre-sales meetings with clients, and definition of enterprise architecture
• Customer satisfaction surveys, resource invoice/billing to customer accounts and development, monitoring and reporting of performance metrics.