Yogesh Sharma, PMP, CSM, CSPO

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

AgFirst Farm Credit Bank, Columbia, SC, USA 10/2020 – 09/2023 Project Manager for IT

• Industry: Agribusiness Financial Services

• AgFirst, formed in 1995, serves as a wholesale lender and business service provider to a network of farm credit associations in 15 southern and eastern states. It is a part of the US Farm Credit System with assets of $40 billion and growing.

• As a part of the PMO, responsibilities included delivering multiple IT infrastructure upgrade projects.

• Led enterprise-level end-to-end testing with 65 applications, including building a new UAT environment for the first and major release of Fiserv's DNA (Direct Note Application) Loan System, replacing the existing mainframe.

• Reduced the Bank's Nightly Processing Cycle time from 12 to 9.5 hours.

• Enhanced Bank's Customer Information System integrations from Mainframe to Fiserv's DNA Loan System and delivered a high-availability solution.

• Upgraded a highly customer-facing Mobius application responsible for the Bank's nightly reports.

• Transformed business processes from an existing Third-Party Risk Management System (by MetricStream) to a new VendorInsight product (by MitraTech) with integrations and automation.

• Managed Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) using Waterfall and Agile/Kanban methodologies.

• Utilized Microsoft SharePoint, Project, Visio, Azure DevOps, and Office 2019/360 Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook).

Achievements:

• Established communication channels to build relationships and trust with the Stakeholders (CIO, CFO, Directors, Senior Managers), Compliance, Business, and IT support teams.

• Led technical and non-technical sessions 17 teams across the bank.

• Documented internal SOWs (statement of work) including business objectives, milestones, acceptance criteria/constraints, and definition of done.

• Managed resources capacity heatmap and financials with a Project and Portfolio Management system.

• Tracked the project financials and invoices using Oracle and Clarity systems.

• Maintained features, backlog items, sprints, and queries in ADO boards (Azure DevOps).

• Tracked the program-wide remaining features.

• Became proficient in using Excel (pivot tables, Macro), Visio diagrams, Microsoft Project Plan, OneNote, and documentation management.

• Provided MS Project 2016 training to my colleagues in the PMO team.

• Used PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge). Aflac Incorporated, Columbia, SC, USA 05/2016 – 02/2020 Project Manager

• Industry: Insurance Industry

• Aflac took one of its most significant initiatives to reshape its 61-year-old business model by investing in a multi-phase, multi-year, and multi-million-dollar (USD 591M) business transformation program to migrate its core business from IBM based core policy administration system to a new, highly flexible Wynsure Platform, supported with new Group Administration System (GAS). The program consisted of highly interdependent 13 work-streams / projects and required significant planning to perform the collaborative effort.

• Responsibilities included managing the end-to-end configuration of insurance products (new and existing) on the new platform.

• Delivered new insurance products such as Disability (DI 50000) and Whole Life (WL 60000).

• Managed the changes and defects of the existing insurance products. i.e., Critical Illness (CI 21000), Hospital Indemnity (HI 80000), and Accident (AC 70000).

• Planned all changes in coordination with the dependent work-streams/LOBs. i.e., Enrollment, Claims, Billing, Correspondence, Commissions, and Proposal teams. (In VersionOne and MS Project)

• Resolved the defects with the required test artifacts. (in HP ALM)

• Managed documentation on SharePoint with proper approvals and provided user training for UAT.

• After joining the team in Feb 2019, I took the following initiatives to establish a system to deliver efficiently:

• Created a Kanban process by consolidating all the phases for a change in sequential order.

• Combined several spreadsheets of changes into a centralized location (VersionOne) by assigning its appropriate phase, release, and responsible person/team to manage them efficiently.

• Prioritized the changes based on effort, urgency, and dependency and regularly updated VersionOne features in coordination with impacted stakeholders.

• Planned the release with regular collaboration with the project and other dependent teams.

• Created a single channel of recurring/weekly reporting to communicate the progress of existing and upcoming efforts, risks and issues, and defects in-focus.

• Used PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge).

• Managed Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) using Waterfall and Agile/Kanban methodologies.

• Utilized Microsoft SharePoint, Project, Visio, Azure DevOps, and Office 2019/360 Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook).

Additional Initiatives:

• In addition to the assigned projects, I took the following initiatives. I delivered:

• the changes/CRs in the Express Change File system to enable existing/migrated groups.

• the changes/CRs in Case 360 system automatically collect the latest signed master agreement and attach it with the related master policy product series before sending it to print.

• A new Consolidating Service to aggregate all intraday changes on the master policy before printing.

• Managed the Project Management life cycle for two GAS work-streams. 1) Communications

(Print/Electronic) (USD 1.5M) 2) Express Change Files (USD 500K). Project Management Accountabilities. I:

• Managed the Print and Electronic Correspondences and Communications project that includes 19 Categories of Correspondences (Master Policies, Certificates, Invoices, Endorsements/Amendments, and Claim letters) and 160 project artifacts.

• Managed Risk and Issues using the SharePoint RAID log and the escalation process where necessary.

• Led various project phases and delivery of required artifacts/deliverables. (i.e., BRD, SRS, QA, etc.)

• Facilitated architectural discussions to achieve technical resolution/decisions.

• Managed the Project Charter, Kick-off meeting, Executive Reviews, and other communications.

• Developed and executed Project Plan and tracking deliverables using Microsoft Project (MPP).

• Managed vendor deliverables and the Project Change Requests. (PCRs)

• Forecasted and managed resource requirements and input to the program budget.

• Reported the project status to the senior executive leadership team in the weekly Read-Outs Sessions.

• Used PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge). Additional Initiatives. I:

• Authored the scope of Migration Strategy for the overall program (across all phases) that includes several active groups (Companies/Customers), resources, products, etc.

• Developed and maintained a Program level schedule (Integrated Project Plan) of 13 work-streams in one Microsoft Project plan to produce an overall program timeline. The highlighted the dependencies discussed at various management levels, i.e., in Executive Level discussions, Forecasting Budget, Delivery, QA, Contracting External Partners, etc.

• Supported Overall Quality Assurance Plan for the Program.

• Created a consolidated view for Communications Project Artifacts for the broad audience that later became a standard for all other projects.

Deploy Partners for Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) Account, Sydney, Australia 08/2015 – 12/2015

Project Manager, Networks OSS

• Industry: Telecommunication Industry

• As a part of the IT delivery team, the responsibilities included managing the Project Management life cycle of Netcool Infrastructure Upgrade Project (AUD 850K) for Vodafone Australia (VHA). The project had an aggressive delivery timeline, and I successfully delivered the project and three other medium projects simultaneously. During this assignment, I:

• Migrated the IBM Netcool platform from a partially virtualized environment to the fully virtualized and completely redundant infrastructure with high availability in two geographically diverse data centers.

• Consolidated various legacy MTTrapD and CORBA probes, including NetAct, STP (IP Core), IPTNMS (Ericsson Transmission), U2000 (TX), M2000 (Huawei RAN) to streamline the monitoring Network.

• Integrated all the Network devices with ITNM (IBM Network Management System) to produce a Network topology; and ITNCM (IBM Tivoli Network Configuration Management system) to centralize the configuration management of devices such as Cisco, Juniper, Huawei and Ericsson based IP devices.

• Provided data center consolidation for the platform by delivering two Production and a Model environment.

• Provided new VIP (Virtual IP address) for the platform to receive SNMP traps from enterprise-wide Implement SNMP V3 ready Netcool infrastructure for IP devices for future needs of the organization.

• Used PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge).

• Held responsible for delivering the above changes with the following Project Management responsibilities:

• Manage the project throughout various phases of the Project Life Cycle, starting from the Initiation, Planning (Feasibility and Design), Execution (Build and Test), and to the Closure phase.

• Defined and socialized project plan, schedule, risk, and issues with using MS Project (MPP), MS Visio, and CA Clarity Portfolio Management tools.

• Facilitated the sessions to identify the WBS, estimations, and producing schedule aligning 8/80 rule.

• Managed all project artifacts for internal and PMO audits, including Concept Paper (Business Case), Scope, the Datacenter Design documents, Information Security Compliance, and Change register.

• Followed Work Package commitments for scope and timelines, and carefully manage the variations.

• Tracked demand and capacity of resources and forecasting of resource allocation.

• Managed Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and applied PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) using Waterfall methodology.

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA), Sydney, Australia 07/2011 – 12/2014 Project Manager- VHA Network OSS

• Industry: Telecommunication Industry

• As a part of the OSS (Operational Support System) engineering delivery team in the Networks domain, the responsibilities included the delivery of several complex technology upgrade projects.

• Technical/System Integration Accountabilities. I: o Migrated IBM Tivoli OMNIbus Platform from physical servers to partially virtualized VMware vSphere hosted infrastructure (AUD 1.4M).

o Deployed the solution on HP c7000 chassis with the integration of OA (Onboard Administrator), iLO remote management, and HP OneView to manage 16 blade servers and resources with centralized access control by VMware vCenter to build a local virtualized environment.

o Organized the Rackspace, Power allocation, Network Ports, Cabling, and Storage allocation to install new HP c7000 chassis and its middleware/firmware upgrades in two datacenters. o Procured the hardware and software licenses for IBM Tivoli OmniBus 7.4, Oracle 11g, RedHat Linux 6.4, ITNM (IBM Tivoli Network Management System), ITNCM (IBM Tivoli Network Configuration Management), and TIP (Tivoli Integrated Portal). o Delivered ITSM enhancement project (AUD 200K) with the implementation of functional requirements of the workflows to the Change Management modules of the BMC Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) suite.

• E2E Project Management Responsibilities. I:

o Developed the project schedule and facilitated identifying project risks and issues, tracking them through the project life cycle, with RAID register (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies).

o Managed work packaging, organized Purchase Orders, and receipting the milestone payments as acceptance of goods and material.

o Capitalized the cost for all project expenses associated with Hardware, Software Licenses, and Labor in the current financial year and advising the accruals for the following years. o Managed PMO governance Process (ORCA) and Change Management Board (CAB) compliance.

o Used PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge). o Managed Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) using Waterfall methodology.

• Following is a summary of the different types of initiatives I delivered. o Lifecycle and Capacity Upgrade Netcool Infrastructure Upgrade AUD 1.4 M o Lifecycle and Capacity Upgrade Citrix Capacity Upgrade AUD 1.3 M o Risk Mitigation/Resilience OSS Backup and Restore AUD 0.8 M o New Feature/Service Upgrade IBM Tivoli Network Management (ITNM) AUD 0.9 M o New Feature/Service Upgrade IBM Tivoli Network Configuration Management (ITNCM) AUD 0.6 M

o Lifecycle and Capacity Upgrade BOSS Portal Capacity Upgrade AUD 0.5 M Program Coordinator

• As a part of Network Engineering PMO, the responsibilities included supporting the overall progress of the Program delivery portfolios that includes RAN, Transmission, IBC (In-Building Coverage), OSS, CS, and PS CORE, Dark Fiber Transmission, HSPA+, and LTE programs.

• Managed the Project Management templates, including the Project Charter, Project Management Plan, Communication Plan, Microsoft Project Schedule (MPP), Budget tracking sheet, RAID register, etc.

• Ensured the project status reports and dashboards are current and correctly reflect the current information.

SingTel Optus Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia 06/2010 – 06/2011 Project Manager, Jr.

• Industry: Telecommunication Industry

• As a part of the Billing and OSCC (Optus Sales and Customer Care) delivery team, I managed the mid-sized projects and providing support to a large program.

• Managed the upgrade of Hercules Commission Management System to expand its capability to manage commissions for the retailers for selling contracts for PrePaid, PostPaid, Internet Dongles, and Devices.

• Delivered IT and pre-paid Billing segment of the amaysim project that was driven to integrate a wholesale supplier with the SingTel group to provide backend services.

• Contributed in the multi-million-dollar large billing compliance program PCIDSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards) that included the upgrade of three major billing platforms.

• Used PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge). Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Sydney, Australia 03/2009 – 07/2009 Project Manager Intern

• Industry: Financial Services

• CBA is one of the largest banks in Australia. I was,

• Selected for a Project Manager Internship for postgraduate studies, focusing on learning the project management best practices in Foreign Exchange (FOREX) and Financial Markets Operations, IT Project Delivery area.

• Awarded as Outstanding Project Manager Intern.

• Responsibilities included delivering eCommcorporate Decommissioning project (worth AUD 400 K project) including the project initiation with scoping, planning with work breakdown structure, execution with the coordinating technical team, that saved up to AUD 1M on operational expenses

(OPEX) yearly of the bank.

• Contributed to the Traveler’s Money project – a joint program between CBA and MasterCard (AUD 1.1M project) and managed an exclusive part of the project (AUD 85 K) and coordinated a team of up to six people with various stakeholders. I deployed a simplified regular reporting system to track the issues.

• Developed schedules for a large size project MIDAS Domestic AS400 (AUD 2.1M) and prepared weekly reports in HP PPPM (Portfolio, Program, and Project Management System). Timeus Interactive, Microsoft Corporation India account, Gurgaon, India 08/2005 – 07/2007 Project Manager (Digital)

• Industry: Online Marketing & Web Communications

• Timeus Interactive is an agency that provides various online solutions for the online marketing campaign, Branding Designing Creatives, Websites, Content Management, WebCast for Tech Community, and Develop Web-Based Applications. I,

• Managed all technical projects delivered for Microsoft’s account.

• Managed Microsoft technical websites with Microsoft’s internal global tools, i.e., TechNet, TechNet Flash, MSDN, MSDN Flash, Microsoft Webcasts, Tech.Ed06 and Tech Mela.

• Delivered the internal projects for Microsoft Corporation India, i.e., Microsoft Webcasts, Microsoft Casestudies & Viewpoints dynamic CMS (Content Management System).

• Planned, developed, and launched eCommerce and digital solutions, and managed client relationships.

Akiko Sherman Infotech, New Delhi, India 08/2003 – 08/2005 Software Engineer

• Akiko Sherman Infotech is an ISO 9001:2000 certified CMM Level 3 software organization and provides solutions to the state government and local businesses with design creatives and software and web application development. I,

• Delivered software projects such as Payroll System for Delhi Jal Board, Account Management system for Kukreja Hospital, Library Management system for Rashtirya Swayamsevak Sangh.

• Developed a solution for all the projects based on ASP, VB, ASP.Net, VB.Net, C#, JavaScript, VBScript.

EDUCATION

BE (CSE)

Bachelor of Computer Science and Engineering

MDU (Maharishi Dayanand University), India

08/1999 – 06/2003

MS S/w Eng. Mgt

Master of Commercial Software Engineering Management

(Major in the Project Management)

University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

08/2007 – 12/2008

MS IT Mgt

Master of Information Technology Management

University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

02/2009 – 07/2009

CERTIFICATIONS

PMP

Project Manage Professional Certification, PMI

01/2012 – 01/2024

CSM

Certified Scrum Master

03/2018 – 11/2025

CSPO

Certified Scrum Product Owner

11/2018 – 11/2025

ITIL Foundation

ITIL Foundation Certificate, OGC

06/2014 – 06/2017

RHCA

Red Hat Certified Associate

04/2015 – 04/2018

RHCE

Red Hat Certified Engineer

04/2015 – 04/2018

Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt

Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt

12/2018

AWARDSPROMOTED TO SR. PROJECT MANAGER (DIGITAL)

Awarded a promotion for the remarkable success of one of my projects, Microsoft WebCast. Timeus Interactive

Outstanding Project Management Intern

Awarded as an appreciation of my outstanding performance as an intern. Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Star Award

Awarded for the successful delivery of a complex and critical project Netcool Infrastructure Upgrade. Vodafone Hutchinson Australia

TECHNICAL SKILLS

• Management Tools

o Azure DevOps boards and Test Plans

o VersionOne Agile Project Mgt.

o Broadcom CA Clarity

o Jira

o HP Quality Center ALM

o Excel Vlookups and Macros

• Microsoft Tools

o Microsoft Project 2019

o Microsoft Visio 2019

o Microsoft SharePoint

o Microsoft Office 2019/360 Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook)

• Computer Language/ Database

o ASP.NET, VB.NET, C#

o ASP 3.0, VB 6.0, XML

o PHP, JavaScript, VBScript

o UML, HTML, DHTML

o SQL 2000 and Access databases

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS:

Project Management Institute (PMI).

Scrum Alliance.

MISCELLANEOUS:

• Efficient in managing expectations, communications, and relationships.

• Proficient with Microsoft Project, Visio, ADO Board, and Excel, and good with dates and numbers.

• Versed in Waterfall and Agile methodologies and use PMBOK.

• I like planning, streamlining processes, and maintaining consistent progress.

• Skillful in aligning organization’s/management’s strategic goals with the project objectives.

Contact this candidate