Razorfish

Role: Associate Director of Program Management

Duration: 09/22 - 12/22

Client: Bread Financial

Summary:

Managed a remote creative team (UX, visual design, copy & content, and motion design) and a Product Strategist that came together to form two distinct teams that were simultaneously working on different client objectives.

Project Brief:

Our creative sprint process consisted of a mini discovery > market research > UX > visual design > copy & content > annotations, and we typically had two sprints running in parallel with each team working on a specific client brief. At a high-level, the larger mandate was to:

• bring parity between the website’s account center with the same screens found in the mobile app (which was not live at the time of this effort) for essential pages and user interactions such as navigating the payments journey, viewing transactions and statements, interacting with global alerts & notifications, and ensuring a holistic search, navigation, and sign in experience.

• retire a stand-alone web property by migrating the essential content over to the main .com site. To accomplish this, we assessed the site’s content, conducted market research and competitor analyses, redesigned the page templates as well as the HubSpot lead-gen forms, rewrote the page copy (including accessibility copy), and created annotations for handover to the client’s offshore Adobe AEM development team in preparation for the migration effort.

• design everything in accordance with ADA accessibility standards.

High-level Responsibilities:

• Managed all facets of budget, scope, timeline, risk/issue, and resource management

• Facilitated all internal and client-facing meetings such as daily stand ups, sprint planning, client debriefs (as an informal retrospective) internal working sessions (utilizing Figma over Zoom), client demos (utilizing InVision over Zoom), technical handover sessions, and weekly status meetings

  • Provided detailed meeting recaps that captured all action items, requirements, change requests, and key decisions made

Added Value:

• Defined and implemented the product management process for converting feedback the client provided in InVision into clear requirements in our Kanban board, and how the Product Strategist was to collaborate with the client and our internal creative team on resolving questions and refining our proposed solutions before our biweekly (twice a week) client demos

• Organized and standardized the MS Teams and OneNote spaces as well as the Figma and InVision project spaces, revamped the client-facing status report, brought structure to the daily stand ups and meeting recaps, and aligned the team on the creative process to ensure everyone was on the same page when it came to our ways of working. This resulted in a significant improvement in the organization and quality of the team’s output, and a higher level of team morale and client satisfaction

Perficient

Role: Sr. Project Manager

Duration: 02/22 - 06/22

Clients: Courtesy Products / Access Securepak

Summary:

Managed two remote development teams that transversed onshore and offshore resources for two separate, but interrelated clients under the TKC Holdings umbrella of companies.

Project Briefs:

• Courtesy Products: an eCommerce B2B replatforming project (migrating to Optimizely Commerce Cloud) that also integrated with several punchout partners (e.g., BirchStreet, Avendra) to enable co-branded catalogs and customer-specific price lists, product bundles and promotions. I managed the end of the development phase and all QA, UAT, and pre-cutover activities.

• Access Securepak: was a heavily customized Znode eCommerce implementation that was in a production state. On an ongoing basis, the team was responsible for implementing new features, enhancements, fixing bugs and issues, and configuring complex business rules to control what family members and friends are allowed to purchase for inmates depending on the inmate’s correctional facility in combination with inventory, pricing, and various order limits (e.g., weight, quantity, frequency, shopper-based catalogs unique to various inmate profiles, and more). I managed the post-production support and evolution program with an emphasis on bringing forth major process improvements to the team’s operational model.

High-level Responsibilities:

• Managed all facets of budget, scope, timeline, risk/issue, and resource management

• Facilitated all internal and client-facing meetings such as all Agile Scrum ceremonies (e.g., daily stand ups, sprint estimation, sprint planning, sprint demos, and sprint retrospectives) working sessions, training sessions, UAT bug review meetings, technical sessions in prep for Go live, weekly status and monthly steering committee meetings

  • Provided detailed meeting recaps that captured all action items, requirements, change requests, and key decisions made

• Managed all touch point meetings with the punchout vendors to address questions and issues, and to ensure the timely configuration and testing of their platform integrations

• Managed the scoping and implementation of several change requests (CRs) to address the client’s additional design and functionality needs

Added Value:

• Courtesy Products: enforced additional QA, UAT, and end-to-end integration testing prior to Go live to confirm orders placed online and via the punchout platforms were properly reconciled in the client’s SAP ERP system for all involved environments. This proved to be a critical decision and a necessary activity in stabilizing the platform, thus boosting the client’s confidence in adopting their new Optimizely platform

• Access Securepak:

  • Provided Perficient with a templated process to groom the Jira Product Backlog in order to properly decompose, estimate, prioritize, and commit to a monthly Sprint Plan. This set and managed the client’s expectations, got the team into a rhythm, ensured our ongoing commitments were adequately sized to the team’s resource allocation, and prevented the budget from running hot

  • Revisited the Communication Plan and vastly reduced the frequency, duration, and the number of participants of each recurring meeting which resulted in more value-added time for the team leads to work on cultivating the Product Roadmap and provided the development team with more working time to increase their velocity

Creative360

Roles: Sr. eCommerce Project Manager, Product Manager, Business Development SME

Duration: 11/20 - 01/22

Client: Intermatic

Summary:

I managed the client, an onshore team of remote freelancers, an offshore development partner (Adapty), another partner agency (Perficient), and was the liaison to two product companies (Optimizely and inRiver) as part of my primary role to lead this multi-phase, digital transformation and eCommerce replatforming program. I also assumed the Product Manager role on this assignment.

Project Brief:

We elevated Intermatic’s brand and scaled their online, B2C business by completely redesigning the customer-facing website and migrating their on-premises infrastructure from Sitecore’s digital experience platform (DXP) to Optimizely Commerce Cloud. The project took nine months to complete, involved five agencies/partners (Creative360, Adapty, Perficient, Optimizely, and inRiver), had three main system integration touch points (inRiver, MS Azure, HubSpot), and the entire team worked remotely - spread across four different time-zones (EST, CST, PST, IST). The end result was one holistic website provided in three regions (Global, USA/Canada, and Mexico) and languages (English, French, and Spanish).

We planned the release of this program across multiple phases. We successfully completed Phase 1, commenced Phase 1 post-production support and evolution, and conducted the Phase 2 discovery (while also considering Phase 3 requirements) before the client decided to put the program on hold due to budgetary constraints.

• Phase 1: complete the website redesign and migration to Optimizely Commerce Cloud

  • Phase 1 Post-production Support and Evolution: ran in parallel to the planning, coordination, and facilitation of the Phase 2 discovery phase

• Phase 2: the addition of B2C eCommerce capabilities to increase online sales and improve brand awareness

• Phase 3: the addition of B2B eCommerce capabilities to eliminate an antiquated, internal distributor portal

High-level Responsibilities:

• Managed all facets of budget, scope, timeline, risk/issue, and resource management

• Facilitated all internal and client-facing meetings such as Kick off meetings, all Agile Scrum ceremonies (e.g., daily stand ups, sprint estimation, sprint planning, sprint demos, and sprint retrospectives), working sessions, training sessions, UAT bug review meetings, technical sessions in prep for Go live, and weekly status meetings

  • Provided detailed meeting recaps that captured all action items, requirements, change requests, and key decisions made

• Planned, managed, and successfully executed all project phases from a project and product management capacity

• Created and managed the Jira Product Backlog to facilitate development sprints, and all QA and UAT testing efforts

• Designed several Jira workflows to support the efficient flow of different issue types between the development partner and client

• Created and managed all project documentation on Confluence to provide an elaborate and accurate knowledge base for the client

• Created all client-facing presentations and project artifacts from scratch, including but not limited to Kick off presentations, User & Functional Requirements Documents, Sprint Planning Roadmaps, System Integration Diagrams, Business Process Diagrams, RAID Matrices, Environment Landscape Diagrams, Communication Plans, Change Management Logs, Action Item Trackers, Status Reports, Questionnaires, and a detailed Scope Statement for the Phase 2 SOW

• Managed all touch point meetings with the partner agency and product companies to address questions, follow-up on development tasks, and to track the timely resolution of dependent risks and issues

• Created the overall approach to conduct end-to-end testing as well as the high-level test case objectives for the client to elaborate on and execute as part of their UAT efforts

• Reviewed the team’s work prior to all sprint demos to ensure acceptance criteria was met and adhered to a certain level of quality

Added Value:

• Phase 1:

  • Provided Creative360 with a mature framework to scope, plan, and execute website redesign & eCommerce replatforming projects in addition to all of the presentation templates I created from scratch

  • Tracked and delivered all critical success factors (CSFs)

  • Established the operating model for post-production support and evolution, and trained the development partner and client on the process to continue its operation in my absence

  • Conducted a site audit prior to Go live and provided content recommendations to improve the product imagery, product descriptions, how products were merchandised, as well as how to better convey the Intermatic story on their About Us page - all through the lens of capitalizing on the site’s internationalization and personalization capabilities

• Phase 2:

  • Determined the project’s mission statement, defined key performance indicators (KPIs) that were specific to elevating an eCommerce business, designed Optimizely B2C product demos that were presented to the client to review functionality and qualify scope, and redesigned the client’s Order Management & Fulfillment process to provide Intermatic’s customers with an eCommerce user experience that is on par with today’s standards

• Engaged on business development and sales calls as a subject matter expert (SME) to qualify the project brief and scope, and to construct a holistic solution along with a high-level budget, timeline, and resource plan for several request for proposals (RFPs) that Creative360 was invited to respond to

iX.co

Role: Sr. Project Manager

Duration: 11/19 - 07/20

Clients: XFL / NASCAR / One World Observatory / illuminarium / AS ROMA / ECHL

Summary:

Assigned to one of iX’s flagship accounts, the XFL, to manage the ongoing maintenance and evolution of their Corebine (iX’s proprietary content management system [CMS]) implementation and online, digital content strategy. I also stepped in and assumed the Product Manager and Delivery Manager roles on this assignment.

Project Brief:

On the macro level, I was brought in to standardize the project delivery and product management processes, and to be the glue between the client and iX’s internal Customer Success and Product Management functions. On the micro level, we were implementing enhancements, fixing bugs and issues, addressing ongoing training needs, answering questions, and prioritizing new feature requests to customize the platform. Furthermore, each sprint had a high sense of urgency (think: the game must go on!) as certain features and content updates needed to be completed prior to the season launch and/or in time for each football game.

High-level Responsibilities:

• Managed all facets of budget, scope, timeline, risk/issue, and resource management

• Facilitated all internal and client-facing meetings such as all Agile Scrum ceremonies (e.g., daily stand ups, sprint estimation, sprint planning, sprint demos, and sprint retrospectives), working sessions, training sessions, UAT bug review meetings, and weekly status meetings

  • Provided detailed meeting recaps that captured all action items, requirements, change requests, and key decisions made

• Cleansed the Jira Product Backlog to allow for effective backlog grooming sessions between our internal Product Manager and the client’s primary Product Owner

• Assigned clear roles and responsibilities for the team leads (our offshore Delivery Manager and Tech Lead vs. our onshore Product Manager and Technical Architect) to streamline operations and avoid previously created confusion

• Managed all touch point meetings with the client’s partner agencies to address questions, follow-up on development tasks, and to track the timely resolution of dependent risks and issues

• Evaluated new client requests with the Product Engineering team to measure product-market fit, and then determined target release dates by prioritizing those requests against other features that were being scheduled in the Product Roadmap

• Supported the Visual Designer, Product Manager, and QA Engineer with reviewing InVision designs to ensure all user states and interactions were designed in their entirety

Added Value:

• Notably designed/redesigned all internal and client-facing processes which improved the team's operational model, salvaged the account and client perception, and strengthened iX’s overall project delivery framework

• Oversaw a variety of CapEx/OpEx/Maintenance projects (~1.1 million in 2020 revenue) that were managed by the Customer Success team

  • Clients included AS Roma, ECHL, and Legends (One World Observatory and illuminarium)

• Redesigned the process to onboard new clients in using the Corebine CMS which also improved how accounts transitioned from Commercial Operations to Project Delivery

• Created a new Production Release template to support bimonthly (twice a month) feature and content updates to the client’s production environment vastly reducing human error and operational flaws in the release management process

• Created a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for the team to provide technical support during live events, to be on-call for ad-hoc questions, and to perform live content updates on behalf of the client

• Conducted an internal, month-long audit on interdepartmental processes and compiled a report for the VP of Global Professional Services which resulted in the basis of an operational excellence initiative for the Professional Services, North America business unit

• Provided program-level oversight to the NASCAR account by coaching the assigned Project Manager through creating Client Briefs, Project Charters, and Project Plans for two concurrent WordPress development projects and one augmented reality (AR) client pitch

EY Doberman

Role: Program Manager

Duration: 07/19 - 09/19

Client: SYPartners

Summary:

Managed the discovery and visual design phases for a website redesign proof of concept (POC) project.

Project Brief:

SYPartners and EY Doberman collaborated on several client engagements in the past. While recognizing the chemistry and complimentary services amongst their teams, they decided to try and formalize a partnership and collective creative process. To do so, they agreed to collaborate together as if they were one agency to redesign the SYPartners website with the goal of industrializing that collaboration process to bring to new clientele as a bespoke consulting and design offering. We conducted several creative-led workshops and then jumped right into creating several designs for SYPartners to user test with various internal and external stakeholders.

High-level Responsibilities:

• Managed all facets of budget, scope, timeline, risk/issue, and resource management

• Facilitated all internal and client-facing meetings such as daily stand ups, client debriefs (as an informal retrospective), working sessions, and weekly status meetings

  • Provided detailed meeting recaps that captured all action items, requirements, change requests, and key decisions made

• Steered the creative direction based on SYP’s initial requirements and the design review feedback we received to ensure their voice was heard and conveyed correctly in our creative deliverables

Valtech

Role: eCommerce Program Manager

Duration: 10/18 - 03/19

Client: D'Addario

Case Study: Provided by Valtech here

Summary:

Led the discovery, information architecture (IA), content strategy, UX, and visual design phases for an eCommerce B2C/B2B website redesign project.

Project Brief:

This was a multi-phase engagement. The primary goal of Phase 1 was to migrate to Optimizely Commerce Cloud and the primary goal of Phase 2 was to complete the website redesign and introduce eCommerce functionality. I joined the project at the end of Phase 1 and brought that initiative across the finish line, and then spearheaded the discovery, information architecture (IA), content strategy, UX, and visual design phases for Phase 2.

The first major challenge with this project was that another agency produced the initial creative for the website redesign, but D’Addario wasn’t in love with it so we had to find the right balance between keeping some of the initial elements that the client liked with redesigning everything else. The second major challenge we faced on this project was how D’Addario augmented our team with their own resources to complete the creative (IA, UX, and visual design) and development work streams. So, we had multiple folks across the client and agency designing and developing the solution which eventually became politically difficult to navigate when it came time to strategize, plan, triage, present, and approve the work.

High-level Responsibilities:

• Managed all facets of budget, scope, timeline, risk/issue, and resource management

• Facilitated all internal and client-facing meetings such as the Kick off meeting, all Agile Scrum ceremonies (e.g., daily stand ups, sprint estimation, sprint planning, sprint demos, and sprint retrospectives), working sessions, and weekly status meetings

  • Provided detailed meeting recaps that captured all action items, requirements, change requests, and key decisions made

• Led a distributed, cross-functional 20 person team through seven concurrent work streams (product management, analytics, UX, visual design, content strategy, technology, and QA) that had strong dependencies for multiple client stakeholders

• Coached a junior Project Manager to oversee updates to the Phase 1 project (with a separate maintenance team) while I was leading Phase 2 with a new core team

Added Value:

• Improved cross-functional team communication and planning (especially between the UX and visual design folks and then between the entire creative team and the technology team) to strengthen our internal handoffs by gaining alignment on the creative ideation & technical feasibility of our solutions before they were presented to the client

• Took charge in reducing team conflict, rebaselined the project, and adjusted the overall approach to solve for how the contract was severely under-scoped and over-promised by the sales team before any of us on the core team joined the project

• Introduced an approach to design the major page templates from an “all-inclusive” perspective so they can easily be scaled down depending on the content needs of the particular page in question

• Advised the Product Manager on how to create Jira tickets for each page template, broken down by content components

• Provided the overall approach and logistical details to conduct user testing on the proposed IA and UX for different customer journeys

Valtech

Role: Sr. Experiential Producer

Duration: 03/18 - 06/18

Client: L’Oreal - Open Innovation Team

Video & Imagery: here

Summary:

Produced L’Oreal’s island booth for the 2018 VivaTech conference in Paris, France while working remotely in NYC until two weeks prior to the conference.

Project Brief:

This was literally one of those “wow and delight” briefs where Valtech was tasked with managing the inception and creative direction of the physical space as well as the UX, visual design, content strategy, and testing of the digital experiences that took place within that physical space to encapsulate L’Oreal’s “bathroom, retail, and salon of the future”.

I was contacted by the Account Director, Sara Berenice, who I previously worked with on the Rolex account to come lead this project for them. I always wanted to do an experiential project and was also ready to embark on the freelance journey so I left Fluid to accept this challenge. It was an amazing experience and everything we delivered exceeded L’Oreal’s expectations.

High-level Responsibilities:

• Managed all facets of budget, scope, timeline, risk/issue, and resource management

• Facilitated all internal and client-facing meetings such as daily stand ups, working sessions, client demos, and weekly status meetings

  • Provided detailed meeting recaps that captured all action items, requirements, change requests, and key decisions made

• Facilitated calls with Publicis Live (FR) to answer their questions, to brainstorm on creative solutions to meet some of the client’s ad-hoc requests, to discuss updates that were required to our SketchUp files, to convey our choice of colors, materials, and L’Oreal branding elements we wished to have displayed throughout the space, and to determine which devices (e.g., LCDs, iPads, etc.), power, WiFi, and audio visual requirements we needed to complete the overall fabrication of the island booth

  • Note* Publicis Live (FR) managed the procurement of materials as well as the on-site build with their experiential design & fabrication partner

• Led the integration of Modiface's AR/AI technology with Memomi's digital mirrors by having our Content Strategist curate unique “looks” that visitors could virtually “try on” as they interacted with the digital mirrors in each of the bathroom, retail, and salon pods

  • Supported our Account Director in obtaining the necessary client approvals on our curated looks so the Memomi team had enough time to implement everything in their software

  • Oversaw the QA process to ensure our curated looks, and the L’Oreal products that supported those looks, actually surfaced and functioned in the digital mirrors as we designed them to

• Co-led the coordination of L’Oreal's “Open Innovation” team (the office of the CDO) and nine of their brands so they could craft their brand narratives, showcase their products, and guide visitors through the digital experiences in each of the bathroom, retail, and salon pods

Added Value:

• Introduced process, structure, and visibility into the development of internal and external-facing creative, logistical, and technology-based artifacts while keeping the constraints flexible enough to accommodate the consistent changes that were introduced by the client