Project Management Manager

AHMED SYED PMP®, CSM®, MBA

Dallas, TX ***********@*****.*** Phone# 203-***-**** LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ahmed-syed-pm

Project Manager/Consultant with over 10+ years of experience in streamlining business processes, influencing Scrum Agile methodology and gathering business requirements, Project Management for Oil & Gas, Retail, Banking domains. Strong knowledge of related industry trends in IT to participate in continuous improvement projects, Product Roadmap, and programs. Created and Business Requirement Documents by conducting JAD sessions with the clients and stakeholders to capture functional requirements and performed functional testing, User Acceptance Testing on deliverables.

Proficient in object-oriented analysis and design principles, with extensive experience in business case development, strategy definition, financial management, vendor relations, negotiation, and risk mitigation.

Cross-functional team development and management with a focus on team relations and expectation/priority management in a highly complex matrix environment

Implemented several Technology Services initiatives for strategic clients and was responsible for Proposal development, SOW creation, contract negotiation, and Project Management

Established Project Management Office PMO at various organizations, with the responsibility of creating and implementing PLC and SDLC best practices and processes

Possess diversified technical, functional, and management experience in Development, Maintenance, Integration, Regulatory Compliance, Infrastructure, Quality Assurance, Risk, Service Delivery, Business Analysis, and Consulting projects and programs

Experience in Mergers/Integration and Risk Management programs

RELEVANT SKILLS

Project Management

Azure, Jira, Asana

Joint Application Development (JAD)

Business Case Development

Defect Management, Software Testing / UAT/ System Design

Coaching and Development

Application Development

Vendor Management

Negotiation Skills

SCRUM, Kanban, DevOps Methodologies

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

Configuration and Change Management

M.S Office Suite, Visio, Outlook

Requirement gathering and Analysis

Communication(verbal/written)

Resolving Issues

Continuous Improvement

AGILE Methodologies

Stakeholder Management

Business Process Improvement (BPI)

Unified Modeling Language (UML) Use Case Diagrams

Product Strategy

Problem solving

Application Programming Interface (API)

MS Project

Production Support

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Role: Senior IT Project Manager October 2023 - Present

Employer: Trinity Envision Business services

Client: State of Indiana (DWD)

Responsibilities

• Leading cross-functional teams in the planning, execution, and delivery of multiple IT projects within the state of Indiana, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and timelines.

• Currently overseeing the full project lifecycle, from initiation to closure, ensuring adherence to project scope, schedule, and budget constraints.

• Developing and maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders at various levels of the organization, including state government officials, department heads, and technical teams.

• Implementing project management best practices and methodologies, such as Agile or Waterfall, to optimize project outcomes and foster continuous improvement.

• Actively managing project risks and issues, employing proactive mitigation strategies to minimize impact on project delivery.

• Fostering a collaborative and inclusive team environment, promoting communication, knowledge sharing, and accountability among team members.

• Utilizing project management tools and software to track project progress, facilitate communication, and generate actionable insights for decision-making.

.• Providing regular project status updates and reports to senior leadership and key stakeholders, ensuring transparency and alignment with strategic objectives.

.• Conducting ongoing post-implementation reviews and lessons learned sessions to identify areas for improvement and enhance future project performance.

• Staying abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends, leveraging this knowledge to drive innovation and deliver value-added solutions for the state of Indiana.

• Demonstrated resourcefulness and built strong relationships with various stakeholders, while identifying improvement areas and defining good standard practices to improve risk and control issues.

Role: Senior IT Project Manager

Employer: IQ Intelligence IT Consulting Inc January 2020 – April 2023

Client: SUNCOR — Oshawa, ON, Canada

Project: Working as a Project Manager at Suncor for their Pulse Mobile Card Management Systems (CMS) development project. While employing agile and waterfall methodologies. CMS was an enterprise-wide application used by multiple departments for various client management, sales/promotions, and card management services. The project focused on replacing several legacy processes over multiple phases with an in-house developed CRM application.

Responsibilities:

• Manage overall project execution, serving as the main point of contact for stakeholders and senior management for the project.

• Work with Stakeholders to define Project priorities, scope, and deliverables in alignment with Suncor goals.

• Established project governance and prepare detailed project plans within the standards of project management methodologies detailing schedules, resources and daily tasks.

• Maintain accurate timelines and provide regular milestone updates to stakeholders.

• Provide leadership by building and motivating team members to meet project goals.

• Actively look for project risks and identify ways to mitigate.

• Competed project documentation for effective project management tracking and communication standards for Transparency.

• Conducted Agile Ceremonies and Team Lead meetings.

• Possess excellent knowledge of various applications, both internally developed and vendor applications, and understand the risk and control issues that encumber these applications.

• Expertise in establishing and maintaining effective PMO governance frameworks and standardized processes, ensuring consistent project management practices. Proficient in defining, implementing, and improving project management methodologies, templates, and tools for enhanced project delivery.

• Demonstrated resourcefulness and built strong relationships with various stakeholders, while identifying improvement areas and defining good standard practices to improve risk and control issues.

• Experienced in automating repeatable tasks to reduce administrative work and improve efficiency, while creating and distributing status reports and maintaining a knowledge map for quick reference.

• Possess a strong understanding of infrastructure around managing vendor applications, including networks, firewall, and encryption.

• Support Product Managers on product strategy, road maps, as needed.

• Work collaboratively with Product Managers to plan out strategic changes and on defining product vision and evaluating customer feedback.

• Support Suncor global strategic initiatives.

Role: Project Manager Consultant September 2018– December 2019

Employer: IQ Intelligence IT Consulting Inc

Client: BMO Bank Toronto, ON

Project: This project was to re-engineer some business and technical processes related to fixed-line, mobile, and broadband BU within the bank. The objective was to ensure that end-to-end customer life cycle management meets global standards. This need has primarily driven the presence of prestigious multinational banks in Toronto, which needed services that were on par with major financial centres around the globe.

Responsibilities:

Establish and maintain effective relationships with the customer and key stakeholders of the project

Project scoping, defining project requirements and specifications, and preparing project plans for execution

Project governance and oversight of various projects consisting of Scrums and multiple Sprints

Managing the Scrum planning, Sprint cycle, Scrum release, and Storyboarding/requirements processes

Liaison between the various stakeholders in various business units and the development teams

Coordinating between on-site and offshore teams and managing the development process from on-site

Discussing stakeholder's needs, and requirements and conducting interviews to assess the high-level LOB needs

Use case modeling, requirements gathering, prototypes, and POC preparation

Responsible for the stakeholder management of the entire project

Formulating CMS strategy, best practices, and process frameworks for implementation within the LOBs

Map the current Business process for multiple services/products within Bank

Identify key stakeholders and map E2E bank processes

Collect Functional and Technical Design Documents

Ensure program procedure and train stakeholders for process sustainment

Use case generation and documentation

Ensure program procedure and train stakeholders for process sustainment

Manage change control documentation for compliance

Design technical business-specific documents

Develop processes for issue management, control development, and document risks

SQL query development/query optimization

Role: Project Manager Consultant Dec 2016 – July 2018

Employer: IQ Intelligence IT Consulting Inc

Client: WALMART CANADA — Edmonton, AB, Canada

Project: Plan, schedule and execute all stages of enterprise software, hardware and system implementations. Assessed business implications for each project phase and monitored progress to meet deadlines, standards and cost targets. Role also included using waterfall methodology and Agile/SCRUM methodologies and cross-functional coordination.

Responsibilities:

Managed team tasks and time, improving customer experiences.

Provided employee coaching and training in customer service and sales techniques.

Recruited and retained top talent.

Implemented loss prevention practices to minimize shrinkage.

Designed work schedules for optimal customer service and labor costs.

Evaluated employee performance and provided feedback and coaching.

Set team performance standards to meet company objectives.

Acted as a liaison between technology and business groups, communicating technical requirements and non-technical details.

Provided project leadership in an Agile development environment.

Transformed business requirements into user stories and refined user stories with acceptance criteria.

Supported the technical team during the build phase.

Facilitated Agile Scrum ceremonies and activities including self-organization, daily planning, stand-up meetings, sprint priorities, product backlog management, task responsibility, velocity tracking, risk analysis, change management, technical design, enhancement, sprint review, testing plans, burn-out charts, retrospective sessions, feedback promotion, and agile engineering best practices.

Analyzed trends and data, mitigated risks and performed change management in a rapidly changing business environment.

Adapted processes and tools for each project, using Agile and waterfall approaches, road map creation, job breakdowns, and schedule planning as needed.

Focused the team on business goals and monitored progress to ensure timely completion of project milestones and achievement of results.

Engaged in frequent face-to-face client communication, going beyond the typical Project Manager role.

Role: Project Manager Feb 2012 - Nov 2016

Employer: IQ Intelligence IT Consulting Inc

Client: BP (British Petroleum) Calgary, AB, Canada

Responsibilities:

• Defined and documented project requirements, in collaboration with the business, leading to streamlined business processes.

• Translated business needs into functional requirements and communicated with business users to establish initial high-level requirements.

• Facilitated Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions and interviews, to keep team members informed of project goals, status, and resolve issues and conflicts.

• Created and updated extensive communication networks, including reports, project status reports, and presentations, to ensure efficient flow of information.

• Conducted daily Scrum meetings, Sprint planning sessions, and Sprint retrospectives to ensure project progress and team collaboration.

• Prepared key project deliverables such as Project Charter, Epics Features Decomposition, and Risk and Privacy assessment documents.

• Partnered with software architects, developers, and designers to ensure application conformity with customer requirements.

• Worked closely with developers to resolve technical issues and provide feasible solutions.

• Documentation of acceptance criteria, high-level test plan and test cases, and discrepancies between requirements and expected results.

• Played a critical role in the preparation of detailed project plans, work assignments, high-level estimates, and target dates.

EDUCATION

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (M.B.A.) IN GENERAL CHHATRAPATI SHAHU JI MAHARAJ UNIVERSITY — Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN HUMAN RESOURCE CENTENNIAL COLLEGE — TORONTO, ON

BACHELOR OF COMMERCE IN COMMERCE CHHATRAPATI SHAHU JI MAHARAJ UNIVERSITY — Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

CERTIFICATIONS

PMI – PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL PMP®

SCRUM ALLIANCE – CERTIFIED SCRUM MASTER CSM®

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