Susan English

**** ****** *****, ******* ****, KS

Phone: 913-***-**** Cell: 913-***-****

Email Address: abijcc@r.postjobfree.com

Accomplished and integrity-driven professional offering 20 years of

business success with strong concentration in project management and

technical writing.

Professional Strengths

Project Management Team Building & Mentoring Technical Writing

Vendor Negotiations Strategic Planning Budgeting

Business Analysis Training & Problem Resolution Research

Career Development

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) - Kansas City, MO,

Consultant

Team Lead - 2006 to present

Recognized as a strong fit for management role, recommended by Program

Manager to assume leadership role, train and mentor technical writers and

improve existing processes. Tasked with managing five developers and three

technical writers using Agile methodology to oversee successful release of

Broadcast-Phase II application.

Notable Achievements:

. Supported government project manager in SAP project for Broadcast

application to 2,600 field offices, which eliminated monthly shipment

of compact disks (CDs) to field offices. This effort reduced costs by

$10,000 per month and improved time to market on all releases.

. Conducted business analysis on functional requirements provided by

client based on needs analysis and functional studies.

. Monitored and controlled status of project and reported status to

management in weekly and monthly reports.

. Managed cross-functional project teams and developed documentation for

internal client.

. Improved technical writing processes and reduced turnaround time on

documentation by 4 weeks. Created monthly task schedule that included

peer reviews of all documentation. Improved previously non-existent

communication with other departments (thereby improving trust issues)

and reinforced use of government guidelines. This effort was cited as

a major factor in improving communication between development staffs,

test teams and stakeholders.

Sprint/Nextel - Overland Park, KS - Consultant

Project Manager/ Senior Technical Writer - 2005 to 2006, 1998 to 2004

Worked as a consultant in a lead position on ION, 3G phones and Cable

Solutions efforts in a fast paced environment that was deadline driven.

Promoted to senior position based on work ethic and support to development

teams.

Notable Achievements:

. Worked with development teams to reduce man hours on $80 million

project by eliminating third shift and producing daily status for

executive management staff. Used Access database to automatically

gather data and produce daily reports.

. Coordinated and managed efforts of multiple development and test teams

to move releases for 12 ION modules.

. Tracked development releases and bugs for 3G release of cell phones.

Worked with test teams to document errors and report findings to

development staff.

. Produced logical application view diagrams depicting applications,

dependencies, services and databases.

. Wrote content for customer web site and created presentations used by

staff for presentations to Sprint executive board and cable clients.

. Wrote user guides, operations guides, online help files, web content,

test cases, test plans, installation instructions, release notes and

process documents for internal and external clients.

. Managed marketing efforts and release of documentation to clients.

Informix Software, Inc. - Lenexa, KS

Team Lead/Senior Technical Writer/Editor - 1989 to 1997

Hired as a technical writer and promoted to Senior Technical Writer/Editor

in three months. As team lead to 15 writers, responsibilities included

working with cross-functional project teams to meet marketing deadlines for

software applications.

Notable Achievements:

. Worked with management to develop generic writing style that

drastically reduced resources required to document applications on

multiple platforms (Windows, Motif, Macintosh)

. Developed unified style guide with technical writing staffs in Menlo

Park and Palo Alto, California. Wrote unified style guide for three

writing teams.

. Member of team that presented generic approach to software

documentation at Society of Technical Writers convention and won two

awards for excellence in documentation.

. Worked with development staff to define and document client

requirements and specifications. Worked with quality assurance

engineers to test documentation and software applications, and to

develop test cases.

. Conducted ongoing meetings with client to capture application

information and business requirements.

. Trained writing staff on documentation templates, style and desktop

publishing application (FrameMaker).

. Worked as liaison with technical writing staffs in California and

Dublin, Ireland to finalize international manuals.

. Edited all copies of materials written by staff writers. Directly

responsible for finalization of 15,000 pages every three to four

months.

Software Applications

MS-Office Suite, SharePoint, RoboHelp 8.0, Adobe Acrobat Writer 6.0,

Rational ClearCase/ClearQuest, Stellent Site Studio, PhotoShop, FrameMaker,

FrontPage, ForeHelp, QuarkXpress, Qarbon Viewlets, Intuit Track-It, SnagIt,

JAWS, AccVerify, PageScreamer, MEGA Modeling

Education

University of Kansas - Bachelor of Science, Journalism

Business Analyst Boot Camp 2010

Microsoft Office Project 2007

Introduction to Photography

Speech Presentation

Awards

Award of Excellence - Society of Technical communicators

Best of Show - Society of Technical Communicators

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