Project Manager

Keshava Prasad Chandraiah

C: 531-***-****

ad6scl@r.postjobfree.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/keshava-p-chandraiah/

Summary:

20+ years of experience in Telecommunication, Banking, Healthcare, Manufacturing, State Agency, and Property Insurance domain.

12+ years of project managing experience in managing moderately complex Software development projects from concept through the final implementation in Agile / Hybrid/Waterfall.

Managed portfolio and delivered multiple projects for the Network transformation, Platform Automation, Cloud Migration, SDWAN implementation, Fraud & Security controls implementation, Data Modernization, End to End ML Ops platform and realized the business benefits of $20M as planned.

Experience in working as Project manager, Release Train Engineer, Tech Project Manager and Program Manager

Experienced in end-to-end Project/Program management (PM) in Cloud Migration, App Modernization, Data Analysis and build Machine Learning models

Handling C-level stakeholder third party Vendor Mgmt, Contract Administration, Training and mentoring PM skills

Project Planning & Control - Project charter, Project Scope, Steering committee, WBS creation, Kick-off meetings, PMR (Performance Management Review), Baseline Documentation, Procurement and Change Control Board.

Financial & Operations – Control and managing Earned value management (EVM), Budget Management, Revenue Forecasts, Financial plans, Long Range Planning (LRP) Invoicing and Reconciliations

Supported in adopting extreme programming (XP) methodology like TDD and BDD (Cucumber). Transformed team to adopt DevOps, implement Data Governance (Purview), Azure Synapse Data Lakehouse and MLOps platform

Have working experience in DevOps Tools like SVN, Git, GitHub, Ant, Maven, Jenkins, Nexus, SonarQube, Chef, Linux, Shell Scripting, Python and Docker.

Data Science – Hands on expertise in applying advanced statistical analysis and machine learning techniques to extract actionable insights from complex data sets using python, pandas, ML models

Helping teams in getting the benefits of being agile, use of Cloud, Containers, Kubernetes, Microservices, APIs, Gen AI and has a passion to learn and implement new technologies.

Expertise in understanding all phases of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) across various domains and proficient in analyzing the Business pain and assisting in Solution development.

Creation and customization in JIRA, Rally, ADO on new/existing projects, spaces and build plans

Technical Skills:

Project Management Framework: Waterfall, Agile, Scaled Agile (SAFe), Hybrid Agile

Project management Tools: MS Project, MS Teams, Smartsheet, Share Point, JIRA, Rally, Confluence, MS 365, GSuite, Planview, Tasktop ADO DevOps and CA Clarity PPM

DevOps Tools (CI/CD): SVN, GIT, Maven, Jenkins, JMeter, SonarQube, Chef, Ruddick, Ansible, Concourse CI/CD

Database: My SQL, SQL server, DB2, Snowflake

Data Engineering: Azure Data factory, Synapse Datalake, Customer Data Platform (CDP)

Scripting Language/Webservers: Python3.2.1, bash, Apache 2.0, Tomcat

Cloud Technologies: AWS DevOps, Azure DevOps, Openstack, GCP

Data Science: Python, NumPy, pandas, matplotlib, seaborn, SciPy,scikit-learn and TensorFlow

Technologies: JavaScript, Microservices, APIs, Docker, Kubernetes (K8S) and Terraforms

Education:

Master’s in Technology (Computer Engineering), Visveswaraya Technological Univ., India in 2012

Bachelor’s in Engineering from Bangalore University, India in 2001

Certifications:

PMP certified from PMI Valid up to 2027, certification#1794039

Certified Scrum Master (CSM) from Scrum Alliance valid up to 2026 cerification#790094

SAFe Agilist Certified from Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) valid up to Jun’2025 certification#493*****-****

Green Belt certified in Genpact certification#161150

DB2 UDB 700 from IBM

Professional Experience:

Client: State of Georgia – Department of Education (GaDOE) March 2023 – till now

Role: IT Project Manager

Project Description: State of Georgia Department of Education working with Microsoft to accelerate Data

Modernization Initiative (DMI) involving upgrading to Ed-Fi standards, Development of cloud framework to support data and Analytics platform and build modern data lake house platform leveraging Agile methodology and principles.

Responsibilities:

Developed a strategic approach to engage and interact with Student Information System (SIS) vendors for state wide Ed-Fi implementation

Co-ordinate and develop data modernization plans for Data Collection, Data Engineering, ML Ops platform Team

Adopted a Scrumban way of working to track and monitor the activities using Azure DevOps board

Collaboratively worked with vendors, leadership level and internal teams to develop Organization Change Management (OCM), Project Charter, Personas & Journey maps, Tech document framework, Local Education Agency (LEA) engagement plan

Ensure Data collection cycle completed on time for funding calculation and reporting

Worked with Tech Team to develop project health metrics across PMO using PowerApps

Replatform and Rehost key DOE applications as per Ed-Fi standards

Modernize Data collections procedures, policies and associated law

Establish sandbox environment including servers, Azure data lake and associated cloud technologies

Create student data lake house with transformation pipeline for data lake stages1, 2 and 3

Establish Azure DevOps (ADO) Continuous Integration (CI)/Continuous deployment (CD) pipeline for data estate,

data science, Power BI paths.

Build pipelines for MLOPS for automated testing, monitoring and retraining

Engage district and school leaders to adopt and integrate analytics into their leadership practice and decision making

Longitudinal cause and effect analysis across all descriptive data such as attendance, withdraws

Relationship management between schools, districts, other states and key stakeholders

Data governance by creating holistic up to date data map of data landscape with automated data discovery, data classification, and end to end data lineage

Worked with Data Scientist to develop Early Warning System (EWS) model for student graduation completion

American Express – Sunrise, Florida February 2022 – March 2023

Role: Sr Project Manager

Project Description: Modernization and migration of Customer Value Portal (CVP), Global Phone Sales Application (GPSA) Customer Treatment Tool (CTT) and Servicing Offer management Systems (SOMS) which enables delivery, fulfillment of inbound servicing calls and new card product offers. Customer Value Portal – To replace the .net services with OneData functions to improve platform stability and performance. MIS Modernization – To migrate legacy data capture, reporting process to One stream solution. CVP and Value Generation (VG) Enhancements – User Experience (UX) enhancements and optimization as needed post – CVP roll out

Responsibilities:

Drive program, release level and enterprise improvement and standardization activities using SAFe as the primary framework

Coordinate with product, business, technical products and solutions for features

Coordinate with product, business, technical, and other partners to prioritize, plan, and execute development schedules in line with product development initiatives and regulatory needs

Work with marketers to align campaigns and new initiative using smartsheet

Ensure accurate reflection of project budgets, forecasts and actual within project and program management tools

Monitor and communicate progress of project delivery by cost, forecast, schedule and assessment of risk/issues

Ensure effective change control procedures and process are efficiently used to retain control on scope, schedule, and cost

To facilitate PI Planning readiness by fostering a Continuous Exploration process which drives the synthesis of a Vision, a Roadmap, and Backlogs, and through Pre- and Post-PI Planning meetings

To Coordinate and facilitate the PI planning, Agile Release Train (ART) ceremonies, managing dependencies across teams in the ART, and provide visibility into the health of epic/feature delivery and the overall program increment

Create and roll out automated Agile charter for CVP train to ensure SDLC compliance.

To work on Operational risk events (ORE) on the card member impacts from technology systems are broken.

To work with IRIS team for exceptions are up to date and also with Disaster recovery team to resolve vulnerabilities

Responsible for optimizing the flow of epics/features and the value delivered by a smaller Agile Release Train (ART)

To Ensure impediments to epic/feature delivery are resolved quickly and protects the teams from outside disruptions to delivery

Build a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised and resolved

Drive features on Line of Business (LOBs), Business Health (BH) and Platform Health (PH)

Ensures impediments to epic/feature delivery are resolved quickly

Support in managing financials for the Program and assist with resource planning

Co-Ordinate and work with SRE (DevOps), CCPs (Customer care persons) on the feature deployment, manage release dependencies and align Tech teams

To build a strong customer data platform (CDP) for Marketing Analytics team to decide on marketing campaigns.

Collaborate, influence, and negotiate with Marketing leaders, Technology teams, external vendors, and stakeholders to drive outcomes that achieve Marketing's objectives across a portfolio of projects.

Proficiency with process management and value stream management tools, such as Tasktop Integration Hub, and Tasktop Viz.

Proficiency with tools designed for process and data analysis, management, modeling, and visualizations, such as iGrafx, Minitab, PowerBI, Microsoft Office Suite, and Visio.

Proficiency in Value stream management frameworks and tools, such as Flow Framework, Flow Metrics, and Tasktop.

Support the portfolio management decision process through the creation of project charters, scopes, risk assessments, budgets and IT Value (ROI, IRR) discussions.

Serve as the interface between IT and business units on projects to ensure collaboration and coordination between all stakeholders.

Identify and anticipate risks and issues. Facilitate resolution, mitigation, and appropriate escalation to senior management

Provide assistance to maintain and update the project management framework and disciplines necessary to support a PMO

Creating project plans, schedules, managing changes, Budget allocation and co-ordination with all project leads

Manage the project budget, validating estimates, cost variance tracking, and managing project resources effectively.

Lead and coordinate cross-functional, cross-departmental, cross-company, often virtual teams that are responsible for all aspects of a project, from initiation to closure

Facilitate discovery sessions with key stakeholders in order to ensure clarity of project scope, roles and responsibilities.

Consult with business leaders to define project goals, objectives, and scope.

Work with project sponsors and the vendor to determine project plan, project schedule, and identify resources needed.

Verizon - Alpharetta, GA January 2021 – February 2022

Technical Project Manager/Senior Scrum Master

Program: SPAN – System to Programmatically Action & Notify

Program Description: Develop a new system/platform to improve linkage between the existing threat detection systems and facilitate consistent and customizable actions to protect user accounts.

Responsibilities:

Execute projects in various line of business, at local/multi-national level, ensuring that all related activities are executed in accordance with company procedures, project objectives, applicable quality standards, security requirements, cost and scheduling targets

Grasping the big picture, conceptualizing, developing, implementing solutions & partnering closely with Business Leaders and Stakeholders.

Develop and deliver strong security transformation roadmap for Sim Swap capability for Verizon Consumer group (VCG) and Verizon Business group (VBG).

Develop a new security system/platform for threat detection system called SPAN-System to Programmatically Action and Notify.

Architect, design and implement of Enhanced Gateway" for proactive, enterprise wide risk scoring, securing and recovering account takeover recovery system

Execute projects in various line of business ensuring that all related activities are executed in accordance with company procedures, project objectives, applicable quality standards, security requirements, cost and scheduling targets

Facilitate technical discussion between Core team and value Team to develop releasable features using Clarity and Jira.

Helping the Product Owner in prioritizing the Product Backlog and writing the User Stories.

Keeping the Product Backlog updated as per the latest inputs from Stakeholders in agreement with PO.

Facilitating the Daily Standup meeting and Setting up retrospectives, Sprint Review and Sprint Planning meetings.

Played an important role as change Agent, motivating change and making it happen.

Helping teams by providing various ideas, suggestions for continuous improvement.

Have proven ability to work collaboratively with testers, developers and other team members in testing complex projects and in the overall enhancement of software product quality

Skilled at ensuring the importance of agile artifacts (Backlogs, Burn Downs, Sprint Task boards) and the benefits that they bring to the team, the PO and the stakeholders are well understood and appreciated.

Conducted Agile/scrum trainings internally within the organization.

Procurement of resources, Software licenses, SDWAN lab set up materials server, cables and Cloud agreement

Track and communicate team velocity and other KPIs in relation to the plan and published progress reports

Organize and facilitate to build user stories, estimating, release planning, sprint planning, daily stand-up meetings, iteration reviews, retrospectives and other related meetings.

Working towards removing the impediments in the project and resolving the conflicts effectively

Facilitated in establishments of team Working Agreements, Definition of Ready, Definition of Done, Sprint Commitments, and Working Transparency

Assist tracking the execution of features/capabilities and manage risks and dependencies.

Improve the flow of value through value streams by improving and assessing the practices associated with DevOps and Release on Demand in the Continuous Delivery Pipeline

Encourage collaboration between teams and System and Solution Architects/Engineering Work with Product and Solution Management, Product Owners, and other stakeholders to help ensure strategy and execution alignment.

Comcast, Mount Laurel, NJ February 2019 – January 2021

Senior Project Manager

Project: B4B SDWAN

Project Description: This project involves design and architecture for new features and services. It requires to design and development of software components for new features, defect fixes and enhancements. It also needs to adopt DevOps pipeline for SD WAN services. It requires developing and execution of test plans for new released of SD WAN features and defect validation. The project also deals with development of Automation tooling and scripting.

Responsibilities:

Responsible for tracking project milestones and making necessary adjustments to the project plan or resources to maintain customer commitments.

To communicate project status and risks to all project stakeholders and manages the change process for each assigned project.

Able to actively participate in the creation and maintenance of a unified Product/Tech initiative roadmap that aligns with business goals

Expertise experience in working with a diverse cross-functional team architecture, engineering, test planning, testing, deployment.

Provided end-to-end project management throughout the lifecycle of a project or set of projects by directing the efforts of project team(s) using dotted-line authority to deliver a completed project and/or service.

Provide full accountability for managing concurrent high complexity projects which may span multiple regions, functions and/or business units.

Conducted user story grooming sessions and release planning sessions with the entire scrum team.

Conducted Iteration planning meetings and effectively worked with team to put together Iteration schedule for the project.

Develop and maintain all project manager deliverables throughout the project lifecycle.

Identify project risk, develop a project risk management plan and actively manage risk throughout the project lifecycle.

Manage interaction between the customer, vendors, and the internal project team to ensure that appropriate relationships exist to produce positive project outcomes.

Works cross departmentally to establish priorities and delivery dates for all projects based on bandwidth and business objectives.

Manage the project change control process, status reporting, project estimating, monthly cost accounting and vendor invoice processing.

Develops and/or monitors vendor deliverables in compliance with binding statements of work.

Drive program/release level processes for an Agile Release Train demonstrating stellar servant leadership, coupled with domain knowledge and technical savvy

Facilitate Program Increment planning meetings with leadership, business stakeholders, and product management and delivery teams on the Agile Release Train(s).

Drive relentless improvement via Inspect and Adapt workshops; assess the agility level of the ART and Solution Train and help them improve

Encourage collaboration between teams and System and Solution Architects/Engineering

Work with Product and Solution Management, Product Owners, and other stakeholders to help ensure strategy and execution alignment

Facilitated meetings with Tech Leads and Architects to ensure the new features are aligned with the Einstein360/Comcast Standards. Part of the Team in developing Concourse CI/CD enterprise wide platform

Managed project delivery teams from Initiation phase to Closure phase to ensure consistent, high-quality project management discipline for all technology related initiatives and endeavors.

Coached team members on agile processes, ensured the efforts are logged in Rally, stories are tagged, and the tasks are updated properly.

Measured the velocity of the team and ensured that the load is only 90% of the team’s velocity.

Ensure that the delivery of products or services from the projects within a program is to the appropriate levels of quality, on time and within budget, in accordance with the program plan.

Lead the team of developers and guide them to practice SAFe framework

Work with Product Manager to prioritizes the features to be considered in the next planning cycle

Responsible for program and BAU/NT2.0 portfolio management activities.

Coordinate with cross functional teams, and vendors to define and manage project scope, schedule, and overall plans.

Responsible for maintaining the project Capex/Opex budget. Effectively optimized costs by involving project stake holders in detailed discussion on the cost/scope review.

Assess plans and manage project risks including mitigation & contingency plans, manage issues, escalations and problem resolutions.

Act as a liaison with client and IT leadership, providing communication and status regarding the progress of the project.

Collaborated with PMs on touchpoint calls and Developed Project, charters, plans, and budgets

Coordinated and conducted design planning meetings with the scrum team to identify requirement fallouts.

Citizen Property Insurance Corp – Jacksonville, Florida September 2018 – February 2019

(State of Florida)

Role: Value Stream Architect

Project Description: Optimizing operational and development value streams using various lean-agile practices and tools. For operational value streams, the architect leads and enables enterprise-wide adoption of lean methods and tools designed to reduce waste and improve flow. For development value streams, architect designs value stream architectures and integrates the software development tool chain using a stream management platform

Responsibilities:

Create end-to-end visibility of all software delivery value streams from customer requests through delivery and the customer feedback loop. Model development value streams and optimizes the tool and artifact networks.

Define integration strategies with other VSAs, and work with product owners and enterprise architecture to create roadmaps and backlog items

Vendor Management, Budget handling, SOW preparation, Presentation in conference, assisting in preparation of MOUs and MOAs

Improve operational value streams. Collaborate with value stream leaders and enterprise business solution architects (EBSAs) to design, measure, and improve operational value streams.

Support the EBSAs and business leaders in modeling operational value streams. Ensure the operational and development value stream efforts align with each other and enterprise priorities.

Enable value stream management best practices. Serve as the subject matter expert of the existing and future value stream architecture for an agile release train.

Provide strategic and technical oversight to multiple agile teams to help the teams align to the architectural constraints for the release train and enterprise. Socialize best practices in value stream management, design robust and scalable value stream management integrations, and approve toolchain integration designs

Design and facilitate assessments and workshops for teams. Lead and contribute to communities of practice and other workgroups. Consult for and mentor individuals and groups.

Continually improve the performance of each operational and development value stream. Identify bottlenecks and apply continual improvement tools to reduce waste and improve flow.

Develop current and future state process simulations and conduct complex data analysis

Work with agile teams, agile coaches, and release train staff to organize people and processes to optimize the flow of value.

Maintain owned products. Maintain relevant value stream management and process management systems and products.

Responsibilities include configuration, administration, design, optimization, and troubleshooting.

Knowledge of value stream management frameworks and tools, such as Flow Framework, Flow Metrics, and Tasktop

Strong knowledge of value stream management principles and best practices.

Target – Minneapolis, Minnesota March 2017 – September 2018

Scrum Master

Project Description: Project is development of additional module of ecommerce website of Target. Our team job is to adopt DevOps for existing applicationand also to integrate the current developing module. Site will be developed in 4 stages- Development stage, testing (QA) stage, staging (advanced testing) stage and production

Responsibilities:

Ensure strategic alignment for the train across organizations and teams

Lead the team to adopt DevOps and facilitate in applying SAFeframework

Work with Product Manager to prioritizes the features to be considered in the next planning cycle

Facilitate the team and Product Manager to successfully plan and execute the Program Increment (PI)

To drive Scrum projects in ART in coordination of major feature releases and ongoing delivery of value to customers

Facilitate and work on continuous improvement of periodic ART Reviews

Escalate impediments, manages risks, dependencies and resourcing needs

Mentor and coach Scrum Team on Agile/Lean/SAFeprinciples

Track and communicate team velocity and other KPIs in relation to the plan and published progress reports

Alcon, a Novartis Company Dallas, TX and Switzerland July 2015 – March 2017

Project Manager/Scrum Master

Project: Spares parts Inventory Management (SPRINT)

Project Description: To develop an analytical tool for all Global Affiliates which can facilitate their Supply Chain operations in the area of Demand Forecasting, Inventory optimization, Order management of their parts.

Responsibilities:

Ensure strategic alignment for the train across organizations and teams

Execute projects in various line of business, at local/multi-national level, ensuring that all related activities are executed in accordance with company procedures, project objectives, applicable quality standards, security requirements, cost and scheduling targets

Grasping the big picture, conceptualizing, developing, implementing solutions & partnering closely with Business Leaders and Stakeholders.

Preparing consolidated project plan for the new projects and obtain approval from key stakeholders.

Conduct status meeting on a periodical manner, monitor & track the project progress, identify the risk factors, plan mitigation plan, adjust the project plan with corrective actions.

Resource forecasting, planning and allocation – determine optimum mix of internal, recruit and contract (partner) resources.

Monitored and managed the dependencies on other teams and external projects to ensure potential issues are resolved.

Spearheaded efforts related to planning, execution, and delivery of all projects on time, in budget, and within scope according to business priorities.

General Electric (GE) Houston, Mexico and Poland April 2012 – June 2015

Project Manager

Project: Engine Life Cycle tracking information and Evaluation (ELITE)

Project Description: It deals with developing an application for Aero engines for AMS by integrating legacy data from current multiple information systems across global regions. This application will facilitate to input the service data and gathered data in the system will be primarily used for Business Analytics, Forecasting, Sourcing, Procurement and Inventory management of service parts and this information is also utilized by various business units such as reliability team, condition based monitoring team (CBM), customer facing team for analysis, pricing, marketing etc. Second phase of this project involves automation and digitization of whole process application of new technologies.

Responsibilities:

Analyzing the basic requirements of the project and reviewing all the project proposals; identifying scope & mapping requirements of resources; developing program WBS, establishing budget & ensuring cost effective execution as per schedule.

Worked on Merger and Acquisition of GE to Genpact, also subsidiary of GE to Genpact

Manage expectations and relationships with senior stakeholders. Rollout project management system to effectively track project management operations Review, analyse, and report on the effectiveness and efficiency of existing systems.

Project Planning & Control - Project charter, Project Scope, WBS creation, Kick-off meetings, PMR (Performance Management Review), Baseline Documentation, and Change Control Board.

Financial & Operations – Control and managing Earned value management (EVM), Budget Management, Revenue Forecasts, Financial plans, Invoicing and Reconciliations

Risk and Issue Management, supporting the Program Manager to drive open issues to closure and assist in mitigating actions that will reduce residual risk to a minimum

Have proven ability to work collaboratively with testers, developers and other team members in complex projects and in the overall enhancement of software product quality

Develop and manage transition plan, including roadmap, work plan, budget, timeframe, responsibilities and accountabilities

Elicited business requirements by facilitating JAD sessions, interviewing, document analysis, observation, brainstorming and to create business requirement document (BRD), functional requirement specification (FSD), system requirement specification (SRS) and source target mapping (STM).

Manage and configure AWS services as per the business needs (ELB, SNS, EC2, Route53, RDS, S3, Cloud Watch, IAM, and VPC.

Good Hands On experience in Version Control Tools like SVN and GIT

Tecumseh Products Company August 2010 – March 2012

Project Manager

Project Description: To develop an analytical application in Java for Supply Chain operations in the area of Demand Forecasting, Inventory optimization, Order management of their parts

Responsibilities:

To manage projects from definition phases through to successful delivery.

To control project costs, deliver within budget. Preparation of timely and accurate PMO reports

Prepare and maintain the project plan and track the schedule to deliver on time.

Escalation of any project related issues and highlight the risk in advance.

Manage overall project health including timelines, milestones, deliverables, issues and risks

Identify, resolve issues and conflicts within the project team.

General Motors, Affiliated Computer Services, a Xerox Company, Detroit March2008 – August 2010

Business Analyst

Project: Global Quality Tracking System (GQTS)

Project Description: To develop a system to track Global supplier quality for power train parts of various models and upcoming programs.

Responsibilities:

Gathering, analyzing, define, and document business requirements

Translate project requirements into use cases, objectives and tasks

Monitor project progress by tracking activity; resolving problems; publishing progress reports; recommend actions

American Express – Tata Consultancy Services, Phoenix, US April 2007 – March 2008

Software Engineer

Project: AMEX-PHX-BNX

Project Description: It is migration project from Mainframes to SAP of a banking application and support the existing application for 24/7. To implement TCS-BANCO banking module for AMEX.

Responsibilities:

Carrying out enhancement activity through change request like business and maintenance request

Analysis of problem Tickets and to fix a solution.

Contact this candidate