Project Manager

Michael Dedman

**** ***** **** *****, **********, AL

************@*****.***

PH: 470-***-****

I am a dedicated IT professional with over 34 years of experience in providing excellent leadership, and job skills to all roles of the System Development Life Cycle. I have a track record of success in both support and development arenas. This was achieved by obtaining outstanding results in problem remediation and delivering project requirements. My job experience, excellent communication skills and strong IT/PM knowledge base allows me an understanding of the differing perspectives of developers, team members, stakeholders, etc. This insight allows me to facilitate a positive work experience by establishing knowledgeable supportive relationships and working with individuals in varying roles to obtain the goals and requirements desired. I enjoy challenges, and have a knack for developing creative solutions to issues / risks which arise throughout the project lifecycle or day to day support of an application. The passion I bring to the job for delivering a quality product or result, team building and desire to succeed will benefit your organization and ensure that the opportunities provided are addressed successfully.

Professional Summary

Elavon (U.S. Bank)

Sandy Springs, Ga.

09/16 – Current

Role: Sr. Project Manager

In my role as Sr. Project Manager I had responsibility for Card Brand Regulations and Compliance Projects. Elavon is on twice yearly release cycle (April / October) to deploy Regulatory and Compliance updates to their systems/ applications in support of Card Brand regulations. I successfully project managed three deployments (Oct ‘16, April ‘17 & Oct. ‘17.) successfully meeting milestone dates including deploying as targeted. These initiatives had a project cost between $350,000 - $500,000 and had an average of 30 stakeholders and team members. In addition I managed two or three additional projects concurrently with Regulations and Compliance efforts. These projects including smaller regulatory efforts, a multi- phase MasterCard project in support of pre-authorization enhancements, Installing fraud prevention technology such as Anti Money Laundering “AML”, including updating the boarding systems with “AML” regulations and Know Your Customer “KYC” requirements, providing U.S. Bank with updated “AML” data, as well as a couple of other initiatives focused on clean-up of pending or incomplete regulatory issues which were nearing compliance violations.

Projects were managed with a “Waterfall” methodology and a very structured SDLC. I was responsible for scheduling, facilitated and providing agendas for both kick-off and weekly meetings, as well as providing meeting recap, and weekly management status updates. I was involved at the onset of the project working with the BAs to define both High Level and Functional requirements. Facilitated WBS sessions with Developers and Architects on the Project Technical Designs to determine dependencies, hardware requirements and LOE. Worked with QA on tracking testing issues. Developed “Effort Driven” MS Project schedule with milestones to track project progress and report weekly status. I maintained a Clarity schedule used for Timekeeping, Capacity Management and tracking risks and issues. Responsible for managing addition, deletion or change in requirements via the change control process. Was on call for Deployments as a point of escalation and stayed engaged in project for one month post deployment in support of Warranty phase, Lessons Learned, and providing required audit artifacts.

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InComm

Alpharetta, Ga.

04/11 – 07/16

Role: Sr. Technical Program Manager

While at InComm I worked exclusively in the Financial Services Information Technology (FSIT) arena. My responsibilities consisted of managing a team of developers in conducting analysis of COBOL programs/ processes for conversion to Java and other 3rd generation languages, as well as tracking and resolving a backlog of production issues. After becoming more familiar with the existing technical processes my role evolved into that of a Program Manager with responsibilities consisting primarily of managing projects within the FSIT area. In this role I had 60+ stakeholders with project responsibilities ranging from development of new GPR card processes, enhancement of existing card technologies including Card Brand regulations and certifications, KYC - POS enhancement, disaster recovery and support of other enterprise projects owned outside of the FSIT business unit. Led several initiatives requiring the design and development of 3rd party GPR cards for clients such as Wal-Mart, Jackson Hewitt and Utah Transit System. Managed the FSIT area’s requirements in support of the Disaster Recovery effort, which involved both software and hardware installations, as well as establishing connectivity with the Disaster Recovery site. Most projects utilized a waterfall methodology in support of the SDLC; however I did participate in 2 initiatives utilizing an agile approach. Instrumental in designing generic project schedules to be utilized for FSIT projects by all Project Managers.

Macy*s

Johns Creek, Ga.

04/91 – 11/10

Director Store System Development (04/2007 – 11/2010)

Promoted to direct teams of system support and enhancement software engineers (COBOL, C++, Java,.net, CICS, etc.) on development related to establishing and maintaining “Store Business Unit” applications (Pricing, Coupons, Tax, Gift Cards, Servers and Hand Held devices). This opportunity did come with challenges involving Senior Management, in that the Store Business Unit VP, whom I reported to directly, was new to Macy*s and the Sr. VP worked from a remote location. Communication and ensuring understanding was critical to address these challenges. In addition to ensuring timely, concise and effective communication to all Senior Management and stakeholder, team members, a primary focus was providing leadership, direction and coaching.

Established and developed a team of outstanding associates, via hiring, coaching, feedback and listening skills. In 2004 my area of responsibilities had 13 associates, in 2010 the team had grown to 34 associates, with (3) direct report managers. This growth can be contributed to the development of additional systems, acquisitions of other retailers and the maturation of project management and government regulations. The retention in my area was outstanding due to the challenging opportunities, respect and fairness. My goal was to ensure the team environment was conducive to support of team members, learning, growing and being recognized for hard work and effort.

Updated Sr. Management on a weekly basis in regard to budgets, project statuses, 5 year plans, personal performance and additional considerations and impacts to my suite of systems.

Responsible for the utilization, adherence and enforcement of Q4M strategies and guidelines within the Stores Systems applications/processes within my area of responsibility. Utilized the “Q4M” process to ensure all phases of the SDLC were done in a timely and accurate manner.

Successfully directed initiative for the merger/conversion of the Macy*s data onto the Federated platform. Millions of customers were converted, which impacted files, DBs, reports, signage in every facet of the stores applications. Conversion of the in-store pricing applications, which executed on the server and POS registers, were extensive due to the integration of pricing structures, reporting, taxing and pricing criteria from (5) separate geographical divisions.

Provided leadership and guidance in the support of the merger of May Co, onto the Macy*s suite of systems. This merger, although presenting several of the same issues / risks as the prior merger with Macy*s was executed efficiently and ahead of schedule. I attribute a large part of our success in converting May Co. to the “lessons learned” during the Macy*s conversion, ability to reuse processes developed during previous conversions, and a staff of committed resources who had worked together in prior mergers and understood their roles and responsibilities.

Partnered with Human Resources to develop a formal mentoring process for associates within “Store Systems”. I provided ideas and feedback from a technical prospective which were incorporated into the mentoring process. This opportunity to allowed me to participate as a mentor for (2) Managers, both of which were rewarding efforts, in that it had a positive impact on both associates, and I improved my skills in coaching, listening, approach and attitude. Additionally, I directed the development of a mentoring database containing associates skills, roles, expertise, comments, etc.

Established and maintained relationships with 3rd party vendors to facilitate product pricing, specifications, contracts, etc. on POS software/hardware solutions in support of registers, hand held devices, servers and POS / Pricing software

Communicated and conducted meetings with 3rd party vendors, coordinated presentations to Sr. Management actively participating in product research, testing and acquisition of vendor POS/Pricing applications and hardware products.

Participated in discussions regarding the future of electronic signage, server virtualization, hand held devices and RFID.

Sr. Project Manager (12/2004 – 3/2007)

I was responsible for management of all facets of the “Q4M” (Quality for Macy*s) project development life cycle for Macy*s Store Business Unit initiatives. This opportunity provided many challenges, the foremost being working within the guidelines of a Project Management system in its development stages, as this was a multi phased initiative. Many of the Project Management concepts and procedures were being developed, on in their infancy, when I undertook the role of PM, which allowed me to contribute ideas and feedback to the initial development and implementation of “Q4M”. The “Q4M” process consisted of the project management guidelines, procedures, risk tolerances, role descriptions, templates and various other requirements in support of a SDLC process. My primary duties were to provide hands on leadership and guidance over various project initiatives in the Stores Business Unit. My knowledge base and multi-tasking skills allowed me to manage multiple initiatives concurrently.

Initiatives

• Customer Reward / Loyalty programs (Macy*s Reward, Thanks for Sharing, Give more Give Pink)

• Implementation of virtual gift cards on Macy*s.com

• Incorporated “Bridal” application onto in-store Gift Kiosk and Macy*s.com

• Banking compliance initiatives

• Bi-annual releases in support of gift cards, register data collection, pricing, coupons and Bridal registry,

Other job requirements included:

• Stakeholder / 3rd party / team member communication (oral, written, conference calls, on site meetings)

• Weekly project status overview presentations to Sr. Management reflecting status, risks, issues, milestone dates and mitigation plans

• Reporting, tracking, communicating and resolving outstanding issues / risk associated with projects.

• Reporting, tracking of milestones, critical path, cost and expenses utilizing MS Project.

• Ensuring audit compliance internal / external by reviewing government / corporate requirements with Sr. Management, Business Partners and Legal Compliance office.

• Managed all aspects of the project life cycle following “Q4M”, company standards and compliance requirements. Tasks defining scope, conducting ”WBS” (Work Breakdown Structure) meetings, gathering requirements, identification tracking and prioritizing risks and issues, schedule and facilitate stakeholder and team member meetings, manage change control process, conduct team meetings and provide agenda and follow-up notes, acquire sign-off for testing and code reviews.

• Created “Lessons Learned” and Project close-out documentation.

Application Manager Store System (03/1995 – 2/2000)

After effectively proving myself as supervisor for 2 years I was given the opportunity to manage (3) application teams, consisting of 27 associates, in support and development of several core Store System applications including: pricing, HOSC, coupons, Taxware, Electronic Journal/Signature, UPC Logging, hand held applications (FedStart / Fed Price), Loyalty programs, promotions and gift cards.

Led the effort to design a system to address the needs of sales auditors who were requesting an online electronic receipt lookup application, from which a specific transaction and their associate’s signatures could be queried. Signatures were collected via POS pen pads and uploaded to the mainframe in daily batch processing. This allows sales auditors access for verification of signatures, which had a significant impact in fraud reduction. The ability to present receipts online allowed sales auditors the ability to reference sales receipts in researching customer issues. The availability of receipts online had a secondary benefit of allowing developers to view any problematic transactions they may be researching. I also had the opportunity to work with a 3rd party software vendor that provided electronic signature validation, via touch points on the pen pad (length, pressure and distance).

My team and I were recognized with the Macy*s annual “Innovation Award” for the design and development of the “Host Return System” which ensured that customer returns, without proof of purchase could be tracked and accessed via various query methods for 90 days.

Managed development of hand held pricing application (FedPrice) utilized by in-store associates to verify pricing, setup sales and associated signage, check “on hands” for specific items and facilitate customer support. The FedPrice system enable associates to perform sale setup in a timely manner, assists customers without having to leave the sales floor and validate prices reflected on the merchandise, This application was leveraged later to enable in-store customers to use the hand held devices as part of their shopping experience.

Directed the initiative to improve accuracy of bar code scanning at Point of Sale. On occasion, due to missing UPCs or incorrect UPC information the ability to provide a quick customer checkout has been impacted. If an item scanned did not return proper information or was missing, the checkout experience became cumbersome and time consuming resulting in a poor customer sales experience, Processes were developed to identify and transmit missing or incorrect UPCs from each retail location to mainframe for overnight processing. The identified UPCs were analyzed in overnight processing and if possible generate a UPC record, with correct information to be downloaded to proper retail locations prior to store opening the next business day.

Instrumental in the analysis, design and implementation of the Y2K project. The concern was that dates could be truncated due to the manner in which they were formatted in the files, databases, reports, etc, therefore when 1999 became 2000 systems failures would result, and invalid date would be generated. All potential date format issues were identified and enhanced in compliance with the company standard for dates. The resulting implementation was extremely stable with only minor issues.

Managed the day to day support of several applications, ensuring timely response, accurate troubleshooting and tracking of issues. Tracked and assigned service requests and communicated with divisional business partners regarding the status of issues. Coordinated and managed the on-call rotation.

Conducted performance appraisals and participated in interviews of job candidates.

Application Supervisor Store System (03/1993 – 2/1995)

I earned promotion to application supervisor after excelling in my previous role as Programmer/ Analyst II. This role required supervision of (4) developers in the design, development and support of the “Price Lookup” application. My responsibilities transitioned to a management role; however I continued to participate in the creation of system specifications, design, coding, testing and other tasks associated with a COBOL / CICS development role.

Established productive relationships with divisional pricing system owners and stakeholders. Due to the massive redesign of the pricing application, which occurred over the past 3 years, the pricing owners were at times skeptical when issues arose. Therefore, it was critical to build trust, along with open and honest communication between the Pricing team and the application users. Gaining the confidence of our users proved pivotal so when high impact issues occurred the divisional partners were willing to partner with the pricing team to gather information, execute test and monitor production occurrences of the issue being addressed.

Supervised the integration of Macy*s proprietary pricing application with IBM Price Management. This integration provided new functionality which provided a more concise and flexible approach to entering and applying price change request. Prior to these enhancements price change request were done for each specific UPC, very manual and time consuming, as well as generating large volume of data to be transmitted and applied at point of sale. New functionality provided the pricing owners the ability to enter promotions via a price change which offered a wider selection of criteria to use in pricing (Dept / Class / Vendor/ Promotional items / Dept / Subclass, etc.). These enhancement s allowed for more robust price changes reducing the amount of time for user to enter the price changes, less pricing records to transmit and apply to the in-store server.

Provided the Store Business Unit representation for the “Disaster Recovery” exercise. This was an annual 4 -5 week effort in which we executed all processed required to recover system availability and processes at a remote location. This opportunity was an excellent chance to understand the big picture of all Macy*s systems and applications during the execution of end to end testing. It also assisted the team in ensuring all of the pricing backup procedures were executing correctly and all new applications or enhancements had been installed with the proper backup in place.

Programmer / Analyst II (04/1991 – 2/1993)

Bell South (Contractor)

Birmingham, Al

Programmer / Analyst II (02/1989 – 03/1991

Independently developed and implemented the “Mechanized Toll Rating Verification” application. This initiative provided systemic checks and balances to ensure toll rates were accurate, and any discrepancies were reported daily for research and resolution.

EBSCO

Birmingham, AL

Programmer / Analyst II (06/1987– 01/1989

Provided technical solutions and application development in support of foreign and domestic invoicing application for an international media distributor.

First Data Resources

Omaha, Ne

Programmer / Analyst II (08/1982– 05/1987

My job required that I provide technical support, trouble-shooting and enhancements via COBOL / CICS development of Cable TV, Airline Reservation System, Credit System applications. Responsibilities included monitoring of daily / weekly batch processing, providing fixes for production issues via application enhancements or fixes. Part of the weekend and on-call rotation for support of production issues. Instrumental in initial development, testing and deployment of both the “Cox Cable TV” systems, as well as, “Peoples Express Reservation” system.

Technical Skills

Tools:

MS Project, Clarity / Work Bench, SharePoint, JIRA, Confluence, TSO / ISPF, Abend-Aid, MS Word / Excel / Access, Expeditor, CAPEX Analyzer Optimizer, EZTrieve, ROSCOE, Intertest, File-Aid, Power Point, VISIO, Lotus Notes, Extra, Outlook Express, InSync, TCP/IP, FTP, Syncsort, SDLC, NDM, PDF, Smart Sheet

Skills:

MVS COBOL, COBOL II, Command Level CICS, DB2, MVS JCL, MQ-Series, DYL280

Databases:

VSAM, ISAM, DB2, SQL, Oracle

Systems:

IBM OS390 and several IBM Mainframe systems, Honeywell, OS/MVS, JES/JES2, DOS

Industries:

Retail, Banking, Airline Reservation, Gift Card / GPR Cards, Cable TV, POS Pricing

Education:

Herzing College – Associates Degree in Computer Science (3.5 GPR) 1980 – 1981

References available upon request

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