Firuzan Ekinci-Cole, PMP, MBA, MSEE, CSPO

***** ******* *****, *******, ** 27614

Telephone: 919-***-**** Email: acvafs@r.postjobfree.com

SUMMARY

Results-driven Certified Project Management, CSPO and Six Sigma Green Belt professional with over 12 years of experience in telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, networking and supply chain. Advanced skills in negotiation, interpersonal, resource planning, organizing, scheduling, and analysis within a matrix organization. Energetic, analytical leader and communicator regarded for ability to drive talented, highly-motivated teams that consistently deliver results. Strong expertise in gap analysis and process optimization. Proven track record of effectively managing software processes and workgroups in a global matrix organization to deliver project objectives on time and on budget. Extensive software and system design, implementation and improvement experience

SKILLS

oProject Manager PM tools and methodologies

oProject implementation in IT software development

oBusiness Development and Planning

oSoftware Development Lifecycle (SDLC) management (Waterfall, Agile, Iterative)

oStakeholder Management and Communication

oResource Planning, Gap analysis, Statement of Work Creation

oBudgeting, cost analysis, resource planning

oProduct requirements definitions and major software solutions from conception to completion (SDLC)

oExtensive experience in gathering requirements, business, user and system requirements creation, functional specs, ensuring end-to-end traceability through appropriate artifacts in corporate environment

oLead cross-functional Joint Application Design meetings and drive decision making and resolution

oPersuasive negotiation and presentation skills, excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to work across the organization and interact/influence/negotiate effectively at all levels

oStrong leadership and team building skills. Effective team leader, builder, contributor and liaison between business and technology partners

oGlobally focused; experienced with diverse teams in a fast paced environment

oBusiness Process Analysis: Agile and Scrum

oExcellent time management and organizational skills

oStrong written and oral communication skills

oFunctional & non-functional requirements, use cases, user stories, screen and interface designs, reporting & data requirements

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Lead Business Analyst, Select Group at MetLife, Research Triangle Park, NC 8/2015-3/2016

Primary SME liaison between business users/BAs and IT project team, in an Agile environment, for the Global Sales and Services Platform project to improve customer’s online experience exponentially

Manage user expectations and requirements scope

Lead requirements elicitation and definition, functional requirements, design documentation, user stories

Participate in fit/gap analysis of functional requirements, change management activities

Facilitate functional requirements walkthroughs, respond to test team ambiguity review questions, review test cases

Senior Business Analyst, CSPRING at SYNGENTA, Research Triangle Park, NC 10/2014-7/2015

Created user stories for a Material Management system (in a SCRUM environment) to provide end to end track and trace capabilities for biological materials in research and development through production

Translated business need for multi-parcel and multi-leg shipments within Material Management by redesigning processes which will save in shipment costs

Created regression test cases for the Material Management system which helped to catch errors and saved time in testing

Helped with User Acceptability testing of the Material Management system which led to 100% user satisfaction

Analyzed user interface and provided feedback as well as list of desired error codes so that the application has a consistent look and feel to the user

Senior Business Analyst/Project Manager, CARQUEST-GPI, Raleigh, NC 7/2010-9/2014

Responsible for project managing the migration of Weblink2 8th version which saved $400,000/year in maintenance and support cost:

Planned, organized, implemented, tracked, analyzed and managed application delivery projects and

turn-over to production

Reported project progress, deliverables, milestones and accomplishments

Owned project issue resolution and risk management

Followed SDLC and project management methodology for major software solutions from conception to

completion ensuring all approvals are acquired and steps are followed

Led a project team composed of various functions within the organization

Facilitated project, risk status and steering committee meetings

Created project documentation and status reports (including Statement of Work, Scope document)

Created business and functional requirements for Punch-out feature which enabled restricted individual procurement systems (like US Communities and Manheim) to use GPI CARQUEST as their back-end for catalog access and orders with the latest content and pricing. This feature increased sales growth by $6M (additional gross profit of $2.1M) in 2012.

Analyzed and documented the process of how supplier and in-house images for parts are ingested into the system. Provided a process to correct metadata associated with suppliers enabling display of 9,000 product images which increased sales by 10%.

Facilitated structured interviews, joint application development sessions between customer, IT and business to gather business and system requirements for Catalog Service, Part Service, Order Service

Was instrumental in cutting costs by 15% by providing business and functional requirements to pass the cost of Mitchell eData services (like labor, maintenance, fluid specifications) to the independent stores.

Assisted in business process redesign and documentation for new technology: created a business requirement document that addresses vehicle data changes from Motor Company to Polk Company that provided more than 90% coverage of reported vehicle information, thus decreasing customer complaints about data quality by 40%.

Identified processes for improvement, documented existing processes, identified and analyzed gaps: One example was the Product Resolution System which reduced discrepancy creation by 40%, reduction in parts return by 20%.

Senior Business Analyst, ANALYSTS INTERNATIONAL at QUINTILES, Morrisville, NC 4/2009-6/2010

Spearheaded a pilot program to improve existing requirements gathering, analysis and validation process for a next generation Informatics project. Pilot project successfully demonstrated that the tool will meet downstream stakeholder/deliverable needs and will improve quality and quantity of requirements elicitation, analysis, documentation, and validation timelines by 30%.

Improved the current requirement elicitation, analysis, documentation and validation processes by enhancing it to be scalable, repeatable, and maintainable through the use of the TopTeam tool.

Successfully performed intensive business analysis and design to meet critical business implementation of next generation Informatics project in an Agile environment. Mentored Senior Business Analysts on use case methodology.

Senior Business Analyst, KEANE at CISCO, Morrisville, NC 7/2007-2/2009

Created multiple business requirements documents and process flow document for eDelivery application. They helped to decrease the eDelivery support team’s involvement as the project moved from pilot stage to global availability.

Created Frequently Asked Questions pages for the eDelivery application that is used both on the partner page and within the application to help partners find answers to some of their questions before involving customer support.

Collaborated with multiple business units and then lead project to successfully deploy the mapping of 65% of router and switch Product IDs to standardized nomenclature used by Cisco.com and marketing (metadata framework) using Software Delivery System (SDS) Production Mapping Table.

Created eDelivery user guide template, and facilitated the update, review and signoff of specific eDelivery user guides

Conducted business user acceptance testing of eDelivery application; opened bug reports if problems found.

Process improvement: Developed Viewsflash customer feedback mechanism on the eDelivery application site and wrote the feedback process document.

Performed Clickstream customer data analysis in the “Voice of the Customer” project to identify customer pain points and turn them into quick wins.

Ensured requirements were met by creating content for notification emails and FAQ documents, in consultation with legal, marketing, and managers.

Created Software Center access metrics using Business Objects.

Technical Business Analyst/Senior Software Engineer, HILL-ROM, Cary, NC 2002-2007

Identified and fixed risk assessment and requirements discrepancies as part of a Six Sigma initiative which improved the efficiency of software product cycle by 30%.

Analyzed focus group results with marketing to create specifications increasing customer satisfaction with product. Result: Increase in company revenue by 10+%.

Designed architecture and technical requirements specifications for an Obstetrical Data Management System, improving maternal and fetal safety.

Established requirements baseline for two healthcare projects using Doors application in an Agile environment.

Developed scenarios by analyzing marketing requirements which decreased software system development cycle by two weeks for every internal release.

Identified, and documented detailed functional, technical requirements, use case diagrams, UML models for a development project in collaboration with the software group which shortened the software life cycle by three weeks for every release.

Created a traceability map for product release enabling 100% coverage of requirements

SOFTWARE PROFICIENCY

Doors (Telelogic)

Clickstream

Quality Center

MDF Browser

Blueprint, TopTeam, MS Office (Word, Excel, Project, Visio, PowerPoint)

SnagIt

SharePoint

Rational XDE

PPM

Crystal Ball

JIRA, Confluence

Unix, Windows 8

Business Objects

SharePoint

SPSS, Viewsflash

Photoshop

HTML

Adobe Acrobat

Scrumworks

VersionOne

EDUCATION

MBA, University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler Business School, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. Ranked in top 10%.

MSEE, Bogazici University (formerly Robert College), Istanbul, Turkey.

BSEE, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Scored in top 10% nationally on exams.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

CSPO Certification - May2016 (Scrum Alliance-Applied Frameworks)

PMP Certification - May 2008

PMI Certification Training at Teach Path

PMI – Registered Member, NCPMI Leadership Committee member

Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society – Member

Duke University Certificate in Management

Six Sigma Green Belt

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Languages: Fluent in English, Turkish; Proficient in French, beginner in Spanish

US Citizen

References Furnished Upon Request

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