Project Manager Management
Resume:
SARAVANAN NARAYANAN, CSM
actwiq@r.postjobfree.com
Program / Project Manager
More than 18 years of experience in Information Technology, of which more than 14 years has been in program, project & release management and as Agile coach managing numerous complex SDLC projects from Requirements Phase thru Implementation. Has extensive experience in managing various full life-cycle software development including Enterprise / Scaled Agile, hybrid (waterfall & agile), maintenance, and service management projects.
Major Strengths:
Experience in Banking, Financial Services, Retail e-commerce Omni Channel, Search Engines, Insurance, Telecommunication (Billing) and Health Care domains
Partnering with client to setup and execute projects in onsite – offshore global delivery model
Managing releases / programs handling multiple projects and involving multiple cross-functional teams and vendors in projectized and matrixed environments
Executed projects using Agile methodology
Identify upstream / downstream dependencies in a given release and schedule deploy date(s) accordingly
Manage releases / programs with budget exceeding $5 Million per year and involving a team of around 50 people
Interfacing with executive leadership, stakeholders, vendors and business teams
Planning, scheduling, and managing various deliverables and milestones expected out of various projects within a release
Performing regular project management activities such as planning, budget tracking, and status reporting
Hiring and rolling off resources based on program needs
Expertise in Transition management from one IT vendor to another
Experience in SOX audit (by external auditor) for project deliverables and processes
Managing onsite and offshore outsource vendor teams
Defining processes to improve quality and productivity of projects being executed or services being offered
Designing RDBMS databases and user interfaces
Worked with / on big 5 consulting firms like IBM and their methodologies (Method 1 from Andersen Consulting)
Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
Technical Skills:
Project Management
Atlassian JIRA ALM, MS Project, Planview portfolio management tool, Clarity, Sharepoint, CSM, Scaled Agile, CMMI Level 5, Method 1
Languages
.net, ASP, Java, Java Script, COBOL, SQL, JCL, XML
Databases
Oracle, SQL Server, Lotus Notes, DB2, IMS – DB/DC
Others
Wiki, HP Quality Center, PAC2000, Remedy, MS Visio, MS PowerPoint, MS Office, CICS, MVS-TSO, IDMS, CA-Datacom, File-AID, File-IMS, and Infoman, ITIL Change Management, SOLR Search Index, Sterling, WebSphere Commerce, JDA Red Prairie, RMS, OMS
Project Experience:
Leading Consulting firm July 2012 to Feb 2016
(all the below JCP, Ascena, Home Depot and Best Buy projects were done for this consulting firm)
JC Penney, Texas
May 2015 to Feb 2016
Price Planning – Price Pacing Flow Chart (PPFC)
As Project Manager, responsible for successfully delivering JC Penney’s new Price Planning application called Price Pacing Flow Chart (PPFC).
This project is to provide users with a .net and Dev Express based UI tool that will automate the process to generate a single, adaptable and consistent Price Pacing Flowchart (PPFC) for Stores, jcp.com and Enterprise channels. Currently, the JCP merchandise buyers are manually generating the PPFC on an excel spreadsheet that is being used by buyers to plan the sales pricing and promotions for all of JCP merchandise.
Responsibilities include:
Understand JCP Price Planning process – both as-is and to-be scenarios
Manage an 8 member Development team that includes Tech Leads and Developers. Team is co-located in both India and USA
Mentor and coach the team to get the best out of them
Planning, scheduling, and managing project deliverables and milestones
Run daily standup calls
Continuously review and improve the project processes to increase the team efficiency and productivity
Weekly / Daily Status Reporting
Understand JCP Price Planning process – both as-is and to-be scenarios
Participate and contribute on Requirements & Design discussions / reviews
Environment: Oracle, .net, MS Office, Sharepoint, Dev Express
ASCENA Retail, Pennsylvania
June 2014 to April 2015
Retail e-commerce – RMS Integration and monthly enhancements
As Agile Program Manager, responsible for successfully delivering the RMS (Retail Merchandising System) - ecommerce integration program and monthly enhancement releases.
As part of Ascena RMS program, ecommerce platform will be integrated with new RMS migrating away from its current mainframe based legacy Merchandising system. This program involves around 35 application teams across Ascena involving multiple vendors.
Monthly releases will address any UI / backend functional enhancements needed on the ecom application running on vendor provided Micros platform. Monthly releases were executed using agile approach with enhancement requests being pulled from a pool of backlog being groomed continuously over a period of time.
Responsibilities include:
Manage and take complete transition from another IT vendor for supporting and maintaining the Ascena ecom application
Built a new team of 18 members comprising Developers and QA. Team is co-located in both India and USA
Mentor and coach the team to get the best out of them
Planning, scheduling, and managing various deliverables and milestones expected using hybrid (agile + waterfall) approach
Run daily standup calls
Daily status update to executive leadership
Continuously review and improve the project processes to increase the team efficiency and productivity
Weekly Status Reporting
As part time responsibility manage the Store PoS and Corporate portfolio teams as well
Participate and contribute on Design discussion / reviews
Environment: RMS, OMS, Micros, PoS, MS SQL Server, Atlassian JIRA ALM tool, Java, .net, MS Office, Sharepoint
The Home Depot (THD), Atlanta
December 2013 to May 2014
Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) – CDM
As Project Manager, responsible for delivering the EDW (Terradata) portion of the Customer Data Management (CDM) project.
CDM will deliver the retirement of the Siebel Universal Customer Master (UCM) suite, and the enablement of retail systems integration with new Hadoop Golden Record data store and Cassandra services. Problems with the existing UCM application include antiquated technology, constrained by slow batch performance, inability to scale, heavy IBM MIPS consumption, data latency does not support business initiatives, lack of data quality, and inability to support near real time CRM business decisions. Some of the business values out of this project are reducing duplicates while doing customer lookup, leverage purchased 3rd party customer keys for customer identification, postal cleansing/standardization and house holding. Also, the client will save millions of dollars in the next few years by eliminating UCM maintenance and reducing the cost of computing.
CDM involves EDW obtaining more than 5 billion historical sales transactions and few hundred million Customer, Household and Preferences historical data from new Customer Golden Record via Hadoop full views. After one time historical data loads, delta data loads will be turned on that will run multiple times every day.
Responsibilities include:
Planning, scheduling, and managing various deliverables and milestones expected using hybrid (agile + waterfall) approach
Run daily standup calls
Daily status update to executive leadership
Manage Change Requests to accommodate new scope / design change
Continuously review and improve the project processes to increase the team efficiency and productivity
Liaison with hadoop and Golden Record areas and business teams for quick impediment resolution, UAT planning and other project activities
Weekly Status Reporting
Participate and contribute on Design discussion / reviews
Environment: Terradata, Talend, Hadoop, SAS, MS Office, Sharepoint
The Home Depot (THD), Atlanta
June 2013 to November 2013
e-commerce Omni Channel site
As an Agile Project Manager / Delivery Manager, responsible for delivering Data Migration, Cutover and Rollout work streams for the client’s online e-commerce site (store).
COMET (Customer Order Management Enterprise Transformation) is a multi-million dollar initiative by the client to migrate their Order Management System (OMS) from their current vendor JDA / Red Prairie to in-house IBM Sterling platform for their online store, involving around 30 impacted application areas. By completing this migration the client will save millions of dollars each year in vendor fees. As part of this program managed Data Migration, Program Cutover and Program Rollout work streams.
Data Migration involves migrating more than 30 million customer orders and POs from vendor location to client’s in-house Sterling platform. Program Cutover workstream is to strategize and ensure that the business (OMS) cutover / transition from vendor to in-house Sterling platform occur in a phased manner with minimal impact to client’s business operations. Program Rollout workstream will come out with an integrated rollout plan for all the 30 application teams on the program to ensure seamless implementation of the overall COMET program.
Responsibilities include:
Planning, scheduling, and managing various deliverables and milestones expected using hybrid (agile + waterfall) approach
Run daily standup calls
Lead the team in running multiple PoCs / Discovery streams in parallel and implement the PoCs in Production as soon as the PoC is successfully complete
Continuously review and improve the project processes to increase the team efficiency and productivity
Make presentation to senior / executive leadership of the client on Data Migration, Program Cutover and Rollout strategy to get their buy-ins
Manage resources: on-board resources with appropriate skillset, roll off resources of the project based on performance
Lead the team of PMs, Architects, Tech Leads, DBA, Analysts, Developers & QA in defining and implementing Data Migration, Cutover and Rollout approach and activities
Lead the team in Data Mapping between Sterling and vendor JDA / Red Prairie DB
Lead the team to setup new storage infrastructure and DB for Data Migration
Liaison with 30 different application areas, vendor JDA, Infrastructure and Support teams for quick impediment resolution, design and other project activities
Weekly Status Reporting and presentation to Program team
Authored and published the BRD for Data Migration
Design reviews
Environment: Java, Web service, Oracle, IBM Sterling, IBM WebSphere Commerce (WCS), MS Office, Sharepoint, Wiki, XML, MQ
Best Buy (BBY), Minnesota
July 2012 to May 2013
Bestbuy.com e-commerce site
As Scrum Agile Coach / Agile Program Manager, responsible for managing major programs using Scaled Agile / Enterprise Agile methodology – Virtual Currency, PSP Pop Up and new Search Platform migration for Best Buy online e-commerce site (store).
BBY was migrating to new Enterprise Search (SOLR) platform for their online store enhancing their online customer experience by providing more relevant search results much faster than their current search platform (FAST, Microsoft). The new SOLR search on BBY went live in May 2013.
Virtual Currency is a major initiative by Emerging Channels business area at Best Buy partnering with major Credit Card Company to introduce the Pay with Points program for the credit card customer shopping at Best Buy online store.
PSP Pop Up project will result in better shopping experience for the online store customer while trying to purchase the Product Service Protection plan by making the required enhancements to the system.
Responsibilities include:
Planning, scheduling, and managing various deliverables and milestones expected out of each Sprint using Agile methodology. JIRA tool has been used to accomplish this
Run daily standup calls
Run Scrum of Scrum meetings
Manage a team of 30 Developers, QA & Tech Leads. Hiring and firing resources based on the project need and performance
As Scrum Coach, impart key processes around effective story writing, self-manage the tasks, writing TDD tests, improve Sprint Velocity, etc. to team members
Radiate key Sprint / Release metrics to the team and stakeholders
Performing regular project management activities such as planning, budget tracking, and status reporting
Issue / Risk resolution to help the teams keep progressing on the Sprint activities
Product Backlog grooming partnering with Product Owner and BA team
Sprint planning with the team
Run story jam sessions involving team members
Plan for and coordinate UX Usability study for online / front-end portion of the application
Manage Stage and Production Performance Tests for new SOLR Search before the go-live
Collaborate with Release & Implementation management and other cross functional teams to align with BBY ecommerce Agile Release Train
Environment: Java, JSP, Web service, Oracle, Atlassian JIRA ALM tool, MS Office, Sharepoint, Wiki, Axure, Apache SOLR, XML, TDD
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Minnesota
November 2010 to June 2012
Home Affordable Modification program (HAMP) & Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Applications
As Agile Program / Release Manager, responsible for multiple projects in each release for the HAMP & SPOC applications.
HAMP is part of President Obama administration initiative designed to enable borrowers that meet eligibility criteria to avoid foreclosure by modifying loans to a level that is affordable for borrowers and sustainable for the long term.
As per the mandate from Federal Regulator, the SPOC application has been developed using Agile methodology as a Wells Fargo internal website to provide an interface for looking up and managing the single point of contact for a borrower who has been entered into Collections.
Responsibilities include:
Planning, scheduling, and managing various deliverables and milestones expected out of each release using Agile methodology
Applying Agile framework techniques, SPOC application first major release successfully went live in production within two months of starting that program
Daily standup calls to track status and to assign tasks to the team
Performing regular project / release management activities such as planning, budget tracking, and status reporting
Issue / Risk resolution to help the teams keep progressing on the release activities
Plan for and manage monthly releases
Work with business on requirements prioritization for each release
Identify upstream / downstream application dependencies and schedule the release deploy dates accordingly
Set and rollout the streamlined release processes to teams
Environment: C#, .net, Active Directory, Web service, SQL Server, MS Office, Sharepoint
United Health Group, Minnesota
September 2007 to October 2010
Consumer Accounts Management System (CAMS) and Definity Health Applications
As Program / Release Manager, responsible for the CAMS and Definity Health applications. CAMS is a major application that was created by bringing in the consumer account management functionalities from various acquired companies, including Definity Health.
Responsibilities include:
Planning, scheduling, and managing various deliverables and milestones expected out of various projects within a release
Handle multiple Compliance / Regulatory (HIPAA, 5010, etc.) related projects in a release
Performing regular project / release management activities such as planning, budget tracking, and status reporting
Work prioritization for each release working with business stakeholder
Coordinate and deliver estimates on various work items on each release
Issue / Risk resolution to help the teams keep progressing on the release activities
Allocating resources for various projects in a release
Identify upstream / downstream application dependencies and schedule the release deploy dates accordingly
Environment: Java, Oracle, LDAP, Web service, Planview, MS Office, Sharepoint
Ameriprise Financial/American Express, Minnesota
March 2002 to September 2007
Multiple Projects
As Project Manager, executed various projects. Responsibilities include:
Performing program, project and release management, including managing offshore and onsite teams, budgeting, and status reporting for various development and maintenance projects
Staffing projects with appropriate resources
As Project and QA Manager, successfully delivered Fund of Funds (Fund Merger) project for the Asset / Fund management area
As Project Manager successfully delivered critical Brokerage projects on schedule and with high quality
Program Managed team of resources from both onsite and offshore
Performing test and implementation management
Interfacing or coordinating with multiple teams and vendors
Environment: Mainframe OS 390, CICS, DB2, Java, .net, Clarity, MS Office, ETL, ITSM Change Mgmt
State Street Bank / Verizon, Boston
May 2001 to February 2002
Multiple Projects
As Project Manager, involved in various projects. Responsibilities include:
Managing data conversion and maintenance projects
Effort estimation for the Datacom tables to be migrated to DB2
Interface with various application owners to collect the application details
Environment: Mainframe, DB2, CA-Datacom, MS Office
Aetna Health Insurance, Hartford / Chennai
August 2000 to April 2001
Health System
As Project Manager, involved on a project to maintain / support a set of AETNA applications. Responsibilities include:
Managing maintenance and production support teams for one of Aetna’s health systems
Coordinate with onsite team and AETNA stakeholder at Hartford, CT
Mentoring the India, offshore team on processes and production support activities
Environment: Mainframe, COBOL, CICS, VSAM
TJ Maxx & Marshalls, Boston / Chennai
August 1999 to July 2000
Project
As Technical Architect/Module Leader, responsibilities include:
Writing high level and detailed design documents
Creating the DB2 database design (from scratch)
Designing the new user interface (online screens)
Conducting code reviews
Delivering modules on schedule
Environment: Mainframe, DB2, COBOL, CICS
A&P Supermarkets, Montvale NJ
April 1998 to March 1999
Multiple Projects
As Programmer Analyst, involved in the analysis, design, coding, and testing of various projects. Responsibilities include:
Understand the business requirements
Create technical specifications
Coding and unit testing
Environment: Mainframe, COBOL, CICS, VSAM
ABN AMRO Bank, Kemper Insurance, Chicago
March 1997 to March 1998
Multiple Projects
As IBM Consultant - Programmer Analyst, involved in the analysis, design, coding, and testing of various projects. Responsibilities include:
Understand the business requirements
Create technical specifications
Coding and unit testing
Environment: Mainframe, COBOL, CICS, VSAM, DB2
Madras Stock Exchange, Chennai, India
September 1996 to February 1997
Multiple Projects
As Software Engineer, involved in coding Oracle stored procedures using SQL. Responsibilities include:
Code as per the technical specifications
Unit testing the code
Environment: SQL, ORACLE, PL-SQL, Visual Basic
Education:
Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Communication Engineering, University of Madras, Chennai, India
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