Christopher Young
Atlanta,GA
Summary
Experienced Project and Release Manager; effective in leading and directing software development applications and infrastructure projects from inception to launch. High-achieving management professional possessing excellent communication, organizational and analytical capabilities; with more than 15+ years of progressive management experience and repeated success in developing project initiatives, directing project plans and achieving revenue performance targets. A results-driven PM who performs financial analysis and forecasting, while devising innovative solutions to resolve business and technology challenges.
Overview
25
25
years of professional experience
Work History
Sr Release Manager / Project Manager
Cognizant (client - Cox Communications)
02.2022 - Current
- Document and manage solution code & environment dependencies
- Develop and maintain Trial & Launch Entry / Exit Criteria
- Developed a yearly Release Schedule and orchestrate the Release Plan to move projects into Production
- Create and facilitate the Production Release Readiness Reviews
- Facilitate Technology resolution of Market Trial defects
- Facilitate Technology Council and Launch Readiness Council Preparations
- Participate and facilitate Go/No-Go and CAB (Change Activity Board) meetings
- Develop, plan & track post-launch validations and monitoring plans (including KPI’s)
- Support post-launch Warranty period
- Support and work with various methodologies to include Lean-Agile, Scrum and SAFE Agile.
Cloud Operations Deployment Coordinator/Sr Release Manager
FINEOS
02.2019 - 02.2022
- Create release management standards to be followed
- Educates external vendors on the release methodology and strategy
- Collects feedback from the users of release management standards and identify the need to modify or retire a standard based on the feedback
- Demonstrated experience with AWS Cloud migration and governance while moving Healthcare companies claims from on-premise into the Cloud
- Facilitates emergency releases from production incident identification to incident closure after release
- Use of JIRA on a daily basis to track tickets, issues, deployments, report creation, etc…
- Coordinate and schedule key change to production activities with the Customer
- This includes the tracking of all elements with team leads as the project moves through testing regions into production
- Used Control-M as an automation tool in order to manage and schedule batch processing jobs as well as scheduling and processing business workflows over platforms and applications
- Facilitated release planning meetings with key stakeholders to identify and plan deployment activities
- Ensures that issues and risks are identified, understood, and dealt with in a manner that mitigates risk to scope and schedule for lower and production environments
- Mentor less senior Release Managers ensuring skill levels and quality of support are top-notch
- Defines and documents the release recommendation for each release and/or change to production
- Includes release scope, schedule, deliverables, and roll back plan
- Reviews release recommendation with key stakeholders
- Attended change management events such as Change Management Boards and deployment planning meetings to collect data and information pertaining to the release
- Facilitate and participate in Go/No-Go and CAB (Change Activity Board) meetings
- Supported annual internal SOC1 and SOC2 compliants for auditing purposes
- Manage the cost of the releases and activities to budget
- Manage the cost of 3rd party items (AWS, New Relic, JBOSS).
Director, Release Management
BRMI (client - Defense Logistics Agency)
12.2017 - 02.2019
- Manage defects to ensure they are assessed and resolved in a timely manner to meet organizational goals
- Conduct weekly defect analysis meetings to assign, assess and prioritize defects
- Meet with customers to ensure CR (Change Request) are captured to depict business and functional requirements
- Oversee the QA team creating test cases being formulated to meet functional and business requirements
- Own the Release Management lifecycle which includes scheduling, coordinating and the management of releases across the enterprise for multiple applications across various portfolios
- Oversee the implementation and tracking of Regression, Integration, Performance and End-to-End Testing
- Manage the BI Team to include ETL Developers, QA Personnel, BA’s and Engineers to successfully assess defects and meet business goals
- Conduct weekly status meetings with internal teams, customers and IT Leadership personnel
- Ensure that hardware and software systems are fully deployed, implemented and functioning
- Plan the roll-out process and the sequence of new systems and platforms
- Interface and communicate with Test Manager, Dev Managers, IT Ops and the PMO on a daily basis
- Lead the effort of defining the IT strategic direction for release management tools for IT to ensure the process requirements of release management are built in
- Familiarity with CI/CD using “Ui Path” for Robotic Process Automation.
Sr Project Manager
PeopleNTech
Atlanta, GA
08.2017 - 12.2017
- Coordinate internal resources and third parties/vendors for the flawless execution of projects
- Oversee the coordination and completion of projects on time within budget and within scope
- Assist in the definition of project scope and objectives, involving all relevant stakeholders and ensuring technical feasibility
- Set deadlines, assign responsibilities and monitor and summarize progress of project
- Prepare reports for upper management regarding status of project
- Create testing Policies and Procedures and Best Practices
- Manage changes to the project scope, project schedule and project costs using appropriate verification techniques
- Measure project performance using appropriate tools and techniques
- Oversee the implementation and tracking of Regression, Integration, Performance and End-to-End Testing
- Work with the QA Lead developing test cases to ensure they are mapped to requirements
- Lead teams in managing Agile and Waterfall Projects for Software, Infrastructure and Security related initiatives.
Sr Release Manager / Project Manager
Discover Technologies
01.2016 - 06.2017
- Supporting the DCMA (Defense Contract Management Agency); I was responsible for the overall coordination and the managing of the release during deployment into production
- This includes the compilation, assembly and delivery of source code into finished products or other software components for IWMS (Integrated Workload Management System)
- Serves as Point of Contact for all scheduling, planning and dependencies to the pre-production deployment plan and schedule
- Work with Requirements Coordinator and Program Manager, incorporating defined increments, capabilities and epics into the release plan
- Ensures that the dependencies are solved according to the schedule of their release
- Verify capture of customer acceptance/signoff on deliverables
- Collaboration of agile and lean approaches and incorporating development and operations during the lifecycle
- Review artifacts with Configuration Manager and Test Coordinator to ensure that production readiness and quality of IWMS are maintained for all releases going from development to production
- Implemented Deployment Readiness Reviews as a new R&D Initiative prior to pushing software changes and infrastructure changes into Production
- Review reports from Configuration Manger to ensure that the development environments and Integrated Development Environment are properly synchronized and providing a stable framework for development, deployment, audit and accountability for software components
- Identify opportunities to make tactical improvements to the release management process while continuing to drive to an Agile deployment model, with Continuous Integration to provide automated deployment and versioning and Test Driven Development
- Document and communicates all changes for a release in release notes that are published to both the internal team and the client
- Create release management standards
- Educates external vendors on the release methodology and strategy
- Collect feedback from the users of release management standards and identify the need to modify or retire a standard based on feedback
- Support deployment by monitoring each phase of the release, coordinates validation of the release with the Test Coordinator as it progresses through various milestones and test phases, alerts appropriate stakeholders of errors or issues that need to be addressed
- Set yearly and multi-year release schedule that coincides with the mapping of the organizations business and functional goals
- Facilitate Go/No-Go Reviews prior to migrating into the next environment
- Participate/Present at the CAB (Change Activity Board) reviews.
Sr Technical Project Manager
Nextgen Informational Services
08.2014 - 12.2015
- Working as a Sr Project Manager within AT&T’s Business, Network and Corporate Solutions IT (BNCS-IT) Centralized Project Management Team (BNSCPMT); as well as in charge of developing testing standards writing procedures and Managing testing aspects for all BNSCPMT AT&T IT Projects
- Responsible for developing a plan for the project and creating a schedule for its release
- Manage project schedules, budgets, assets, requirements and testing
- Set dates for product testing, beta release, final release and other important project milestones well ahead of time, and then guide the team to meet those goals
- Manage the project staff according to the organizational policies and practices and ensures all project personnel understand the scope and objectives of the project
- Monitor the progress of the project, make any necessary adjustments and review the quality of the completed work on a regular basis
- Meet with clients to take detailed ordering briefs and clarify specific requirements of each project
- Delegate project tasks based on junior staff members’ individual strengths, skill sets and experience levels
- Track project performance, specifically to analyze the successful completion of short- and long-term goals
- Meet budgetary objectives and make adjustments to project constraints based on financial analysis
- Manage and coordinate risk assessment and analysis to determine criticality of each risk
- Review and manage UAT (User Acceptance Test) test objectives and scenario creation to ensure alignment with business and system requirements
- Manage and coordinate Unit Test, Integrated System Test, End to End Test and Performance Testing
- Monitor and Coordinate all issues and defects and work with appropriate teams for defect mitigation and resolution
- Manage local and offshore QA teams to implement quality procedures and standards and specifications while assessing and ensuring customer requirements are met
- Work with AT&T Testing tools to monitor system performance by gathering relevant data and producing statistical reports.
Project Manager/Lead Sr Release Manager
Newbrook Solutions, Inc.
06.2010 - 08.2014
- Within the IT PMO (Information Technology, Program Management Office) led the development of software applications using a secure cloud-based data store within the Defense Intelligence Agency’s cloud environment
- Instrumental in developing PIP (Project Improvement) initiatives, one of which saved the government over $1.2 million dollars a year
- Provided a comprehensive range of IT project and program management capabilities using project management processes
- Managed schedules, budgets, assets, and overall project organization to ensure requirements and project deliverable dates were clearly communicated, understood, executed upon, and met
- Planned and prioritized all deliverables and resources working across project(s) based on scope of work and project goals
- Monitored project risks and scope creep to foresee/identify potential issues and proactively identify solutions to address them in advance
- Managed client expectations, ensured delivery of the highest quality service, and solicited and acted on client feedback
- Communicated and documented project status and strategic recommendations to clients, and senior management on a regular basis; escalated issues accordingly via the appropriate channels
- Managed UAT (User Acceptance Testing) with clients prior to deployment
- Worked to devise and establish the organizations quality procedures, standards and specifications
- Developed and monitored continuous improvement processes, aiming to reduce the number of defects and improve levels of quality
- Responded to ad hoc request in a timely fashion in support of mission critical tasks
- R&D activities undertaken to develop new products and improve existing services
- Instrumental in writing SLA (Service Level Agreement) between DIA and other agencies
- Supported Newbrook Solutions with capture management activities by assisting the company to win additional business
- Participated in and led SCRUM sessions with the project development team
- Incorporated the practice of DevOps by working with the operations and development teams together throughout the lifecycle of the project from development to production
- Familiarity with GIT and TFS; worked with the project team and development teams for source code management, requirements, project management, testing and release management
- Worked closely with various vendors to initiate and support new business development
- Oversaw and managed other Release Managers to ensure they followed identified release management activities, policies and processes
- Maintained ownership of the Release Management lifecycle which includes scheduling, coordinating and managing releases across the enterprise for multiple applications
- Ensure coordination of build and test teams so that policies and best practices were followed
- Search and report product release dependencies throughout projects
- Help cross-program planning to oversee dependencies and solve conflicts
- Conduct and influence actively program development, management, testing along with operations on release and development processes.
Project Manager/Senior Systems Engineer
Raytheon Systems Company
08.1999 - 06.2010
- Led the implementation of geospatial tools/applications supporting national security initiatives
- Worked as Systems Engineering and Integration (SEI) Project Lead for overseeing systems from its initiation phase through to production
- Served as the Interim Chief of the Systems Engineering and Integration Division, managing all project/program managers and their specific projects
- Initiated, led, planned, implemented, and coordinated activities of single or multiple technical projects of various sizes and complexities
- Completed requirements analysis, assessed impacts, and integrated projects into an operational baseline
- Responsible for project planning, scheduling, risk assessment and risk mitigation, resource management, and quality management
- Managed Software Application and Infrastructure related projects
- Oversaw the purchase, delivery and installation of hardware, including managing the installation of cabling and determining the necessities for heating and cooling of data center floor
- Served as member of the Test Resource Forum (TRF), which met to address any testing conflicts among various enterprise wide segments
- Formulated presentations and briefings and clearly provided project status to all levels of the organization
- Used independent decision-making skills with regards to commitment of project resources, planning, implementation, and progress of projects
- Oversaw Quality Assurance of various systems and participated in Regression Testing and User Acceptance Testing
- Provided use cases and constructed straw man schedules for projects
- Worked with the Test Team to conduct various levels of application testing prior to deployment
- Formulated Rough Order Magnitude estimates (ROMs), Basis of Estimates (BOEs) and Cost Proposals for new projects.
Education
Masters of Science - Management Information Systems
University of Maryland, University College
05.1999
Bachelors - Business Administration
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
05.1987
Skills
- CI/CD
- Cloud Migration
- Risk Analysis
- Quality Assurance
- Requirement Analysis
- DevOps
- Agile Methodologies
- Release/Project Management
- SDLC
- Version Control
- Client Relations
Industries
Federal Government, Healthcare, Travel, Banking, Telecommunications an d Hardware/Software
Additional Skills And Expertise
MS Office, MS Project, ASDS (Automated Standard Delivery System), Visio, Track It, HP QC, JIRA, Confluence, Icescrum, Perl, K2 Deployment Tool, PVCS, ChangeGear, Cloud Computing (AWS), Service Now, CI/CD, DevOps, Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, Root Cause Analysis, JBoss, Azure, and GIT Fed Gov’t., Travel, Banking, Communications, HW & SW, Healthcare
Professional Development
- Certified Scrum Master
- Six Sigma Specialist
- Total Quality Management Certified
- Fundamentals of Leadership Course
- Program Leadership/Program Planning Course
- Ethical Leadership Course
- Frontline Leadership Course
- PMP Boot Camp (PMP Certification Preparation)
Timeline
Sr Release Manager / Project Manager
Cognizant (client - Cox Communications)
02.2022 - Current
Cloud Operations Deployment Coordinator/Sr Release Manager
FINEOS
02.2019 - 02.2022
Director, Release Management
BRMI (client - Defense Logistics Agency)
12.2017 - 02.2019
Sr Project Manager
PeopleNTech
08.2017 - 12.2017
Sr Release Manager / Project Manager
Discover Technologies
01.2016 - 06.2017
Sr Technical Project Manager
Nextgen Informational Services
08.2014 - 12.2015
Project Manager/Lead Sr Release Manager
Newbrook Solutions, Inc.
06.2010 - 08.2014
Project Manager/Senior Systems Engineer
Raytheon Systems Company
08.1999 - 06.2010
Masters of Science - Management Information Systems
University of Maryland, University College
Bachelors - Business Administration
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
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