Usman Hafeez

Usman Hafeez, PMP Phone: (773) 934-3010Email: uhafeez1@gmail.com

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with over 15 years of business and IT experience in Project Management, Business Analysis, Business Intelligence, Business Development, Software Development and Quality Assurance Strong leadership, entrepreneurial, analytical and problem solving skills honed through years of working in all types of organizations, from small start-ups to large corporations Experienced in all phases of Project Management including project initiation, planning and design, executing (leading on site and overseas development teams), monitoring and controlling, and project closing (implementation and post-implementation support). Managed projects involving local as well as remote overseas development teams successfully Strong entrepreneurial drive demonstrated in starting multiple corporations in a wide variety of industries Solid background in the entire software development life cycle (SDLC) as a developer before moving into business analysis and project management roles Technical strengths include leading projects using Waterfall and Agile software development methodologies. Master of Business Administration, Bachelor in Computer Engineering

WORK EXPERIENCEKaizen Technologies, Inc. February 2010 to PresentProgram Manager/Senior Project Manager/Delivery Manager ConsultantProviding IT Program/Sr. Project/Delivery Management consulting involving the planning, organizing, and managing of resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives by effectively applying PMP methodology and enforce project standards, utilizing both Waterfall and Agile methodologies in the development of mobile and non-mobile applications.Clients include:

Nokia Provided Program Management for the Agile Program Management Office (PMO) Responsible for a portfolio of concurrent initiatives/projects within Mapping Content technology Developed new processes to ensure consistency in program and project deliveries, including the identification of areas of improvement in processes and communication Worked on improvements to the clients documentation work flow within SharePoint, which served as the document repository of choice

Leapfrog Online Provided Delivery Management for cross-functional teams using Agile processes to deliver projects in Internet Marketing utilizing Business Intelligence (BI) for desktop, tablet and mobile experiences Accountable for a portfolio of initiatives/projects for multiple delivery teams, which involved communicating the project vision, objectives, and status across the organization as well as mitigating risks and managing issues that arise Assessed delivery metrics to improve teams' processes and implemented process changes Coached internal and external teams on Agile Processes Led daily stands (Agile Scrum) for multiple teams Analyzed and documented teams throughput and shared with business leadership

Sears Holdings, Inc. Provided Senior Project Management/Program Management/Delivery Management services for mobile technologies in the retail industry, including mobile web and applications for iPhone, iPad, and Android mobile devices Identified and reduced bottlenecks in the software development process for faster project implementation, including in project intake, project estimation, coordination between user experience design and business analysis, development and quality assurance Participated in the adoption of Agile Scrum methodology, with small integrated teams involved in iterative releases with flexibility to change Worked as Scrum Master, facilitated sprint planning sessions, spring reviews and retrospectives, demos, as well as conducting daily scrums, progress tracking, burn down chart reporting, and assist with keeping the product backlog groomedmk

JP Morgan Chase Bank Monitored, tracked, and reported on project deliverables through each stage of the project life cycle (Concept, Initiation, Requirements, Design, Build, Test, Implementation and Project Closure) to ensure projects are completed on time and within budget Managed coordination across multiple concurrent releases. Manage program schedule, cross-team dependencies, issues, risks, action items, overall status, and management reporting across all the releases for a given work stream Responsible for the ownership and accountability of the delivery of business requirements and change requests in accordance with overall plan Responsible for meeting all key milestones and managing interdependency between releases Leading/participating in meetings at the management, operational, and project level related to project status, risks, issues, action items, or change controls Escalate issues & obtain/ensure resolution to stakeholders as needed

Paramount Homes, AdBook LLC Effectively applied PMP methodology and enforced project standards Develop detailed project plans including multiple deliverables, dependencies, time lines and key milestones Primarily utilized Agile software development methodology, using iterative and incremental development Manage day-to-day operational aspects of the projects and their scope Review deliverables prepared by development team before passing to client Manage work performed by overseas development team Gather requirements and preparation of requirements documentation, revised as appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements Employed Business Intelligence in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data for decision support and process optimization Used a Digital Dashboard to displayed information gathered from the Data Warehouse Hire development staff for website and social media content development to increase web traffic and sales

National Merit Scholarship Corporation February 2008 to August 2009IT Specialist/Project Manager Managed and directed multiple IT projects concurrently Evaluated vendor qualifications and product proposals to determine acceptability of offers, based on formal bid solicitations Provided technical assistance in specifying IT work requirements, product specifications, conducting market surveys and evaluating vendor quotes Responsible for negotiating the scope of the IT projects, plan and direct the work, maintain the schedule, tracking and reporting on the progress of the project to management and assuring the quality of the work performed Developed detailed project plans including multiple deliverables, dependencies, time lines and key milestones Wrote project proposals which included costs, benefits, timetables and implementation strategies Negotiate with and influence others in order to gain their commitment to pursue new initiatives and technologies Analysis of the effectiveness of existing systems including the feasibility of pursuing alternatives for improvements to the system

Allstate Insurance April 2007 to February 2008Business Analyst Responsible for proactively building working relationships with business partners to identify opportunities for improvement Interacted with business stakeholders to elicit and verify business requirements through formal and informal sessions; ask probing questions to promote full understanding of the scope and scale of the business needs Translated business requirements into functional and technical requirements, test plans and training materials; conducted formal and informal training sessions Actively participated in creating project estimates, cost benefit analysis, and the work plan; tracked progress to plan and adjusted approach to maintain commitments

OnPar Technologies September 2005 to February 2007Operations Officer & Co-founder Managed overseas development team by determined appropriate software architecture and communicated requirements, followed by quality assurance testing Gathered business and functional requirements to write documents such as the business plan, marketing material, memorandum of understanding for joint partnerships, and technical specifications for software developers Consulted with client companies to identify end-user needs and customized technology solutions to meet those needs Assisting in establishing and overseeing the execution of a comprehensive marketing strategy to increase the customer base Played a prominent role in the development of the strategic business plan to advance the mission and operational goals. Ensured that all administrative, financial and planning functions of the organization were performed at a high level of proficiency, thereby minimizing time and cost expenditure Assisted in developing and directing the accomplishment of objectives, procedures, and work standards for the organization

U.S. Cellular, Inc. July 2001 to December 2003Programmer/Analyst III Assumed key development and leadership role in the design, development, implementation and maintenance of unbilled minutes' functionality into the Interactive Voice Response system (IVR) which allowed customers to access minutes usage data through Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). Defined high level designs and detailed program specifications that met the set of requirements for the project. Acted as technical team leader for new development and enhancement Performed necessary analysis steps in application development including defining system scope and objectives through research, and fact-finding with others to develop an over-the-air activation system for cell phone users. Aided in completing significant portions of system analysis and design Development of code, testing, and preparation of technical documentation for new reporting system. Provided assistance in training technical support staff on new functionality and on-going application support

OverX, Inc. August 2000 to May 2001Software Developer Developed programs in Java, JavaServer Pages, XML, C, and JavaScript for software development to demonstrate core technologies, as well as added further functionality in C and Java to existing software Chief designer and programmer of High Availability technology to server through the use of a NAT (Network Address Translation) and clustering solution, written in C Programmed a servlet written in Java and web data written in JSP and HTML to develop a web site that demonstrated the company's core technologies. Demo coded for use in an interactive manner by potential customers over the internet Programmed a data retrieval servlet in Java to retrieve data in XML format from server and display in a user-friendly and interactive manner. Data display using JSP, CSS and XSLT style sheets used in order to convert data from XML to HTML for ease of display on web browsers Tested advanced technologies using DegaGnu testing software Researched new technology for implementations with software

Connect, Inc. July 1999 to August 2000Software Engineer Reviewed and developed programs in C for wireless communication devices Altered existing software to introduce new wireless terminals to be supported by wireless NCU product Wrote software to implement new functionality to keyboards and scanners for various wireless terminals Coordinated with development counterparts in finding, reproducing, and troubleshooting bugs Driving and resolving issues blocking testing and the release of the product Developed test plans for wireless devices

COMPUTER SKILLS Languages: PHP,C#, Java, C/C++, ProC, JSP (Java Server Pages), JavaScript, XML, HTML, XSLT, CSS, SQL, Shellscript, Tcl, MC68000 Assembly Language, FORTRAN, BASIC Operating Systems: Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista & 7, Macintosh OS X, UNIX (Solaris), Linux (Redhat) Software: Microsoft Project, Microsoft Office Suite (Word, FrontPage, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio), Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Visio, JBuilder 4, Code Warrior 4, PowerBuilder 7.0, Microsoft Visual J++ 6.0 and 1.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 and 1.52, Borland C++, Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 and 7.0, Mathematica, Matlab

EDUCATIONProject Management InstituteProject Management Professional certificationAwarded May 2009

DePaul UniversityMasters of Business AdministrationAwarded December 2005, GPA: 3.76/4.0

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)Bachelor of Science in Computer EngineeringAwarded May 1999