Ingo Schobert - Manager - IT Innovation and Quality
- 1. Ingo Schobert Email: [email protected] Objective / Summary I am a highly motivated and energetic IT Manager, Lead Business Analyst, and Lead Quality Analyst with excellent diagnostic skills and extremely detail oriented work ethics. I have more than 10 years of hands-on project management, over 8 years of application development, and over 6 years of Business Analysis experience, with an immense flexibility in regards to project methodologies (from Agile to Waterfall), project estimation (from Three Point Estimation to Bottom-Up Estimation), project realization (from executed as planned to fast tracked), and overall IT structure adaptations (from Matrix to Functional Organization). Professional Experience Michael C. Fina Michael C. Fina is a leading global incentives and rewards company, specializing in employee recognition. Committed to creating memorable experiences for customers and their employees, MCF serves more than 900 organizations in over 100 countries which entrust them with the design and the effective management of their employee recognition strategies. Manager – IT Innovation and Quality 9/14 – Present Lead Michael C. Fina’s Business Analysts, Software Quality Assurance team, and Configuration group . Improved interdepartmental collaboration and communication by streamlining procedures and processes. Lead IT Business Analyst and Lead IT Quality Analyst 11/10 – 9/14 Lead the Functional Team on a multi-year corporate IT project, team members included various directors, managers, and subject matter experts. Generated Business and Functional Requirement Documents, Technical Specifications and Functional Wireframes for various projects. Trained and mentored in-house and 3rd party Business Analysts and QA Testers. Managed and guided on-shore and off-shore 3rd party software development vendors on requirement comprehension, preparation of automated test scripts, identification of manual test needs, and test execution. Responsible for final sign-off on quality of work performed by software development vendors. Participated in the planning, design, and testing phases for a mobile smart phone application to be used as companion to a main web application. Worked in Agile and Waterfall methodology settings, as well as hybrid combinations between them (Waterfall type documentation on start-up going turning over to Agile Sprints during implementation). Excelled in project timeline forecasting and identification of potential project road blocks before they could occur. Instrumental in improving interdepartmental relationships between IT and its internal corporate customers by conveying a sense of trust and reliability, and appropriate expectation management. Possession of an extensive technical background allowed for the creation of requirements that fulfill the business needs and are technically feasible without having to re-adjust customer expectations during the development process. Researched, analyzed, and recommended various software tools ranging from wireframe creation to load testing. Initiated and performed the company’s first load test. Worked as project manager in times of duress, to provide leadership and support, in order to help the company with achieving its goals. Core team member in the vetting process for a suitable software development vendor to support our project development needs. Reduced an initial selection pool of over 400 vendors to 3 which were presented to the company leadership. Madison Performance Group Madison Performance Group is one of the nation's leading performance improvement companies, partnering closely with Fortune 1000 clients to design and execute customized web-based global leading-edge incentive programs that
- 2. increase sales and boost performance. These programs allow the participants to either redeem reward points for goods and services or having them deposited on program specific Debit Cards. Product Development Lead (Manager for IT Application Development / IT Project Manager) 1/06 – 7/10 Used project life cycle methodologies from Waterfall to Agile in a very dynamic work environment. Functioned as a member of an informal Project Management Office but also lead multiple projects as the sole responsible manager, often worked on multiple projects running in parallel. Coordinated work efforts with Data Architects, Business Analysts, Network and Hardware teams, and Vendors and Clients alike to achieve timely and cost-effective project completions. Core team member on projects that required the interaction with 3rd party vendor applications, ranging from debit card balance management to participant age verification. Participated in the creation of Request for Proposal, Statement of Work, Project Requirement, and Wireframe documents, analyzed all Requirement Documents for technical feasibility. Managed the Application Development Group, performed evaluations, monitored and fostered their progress, and utilized their expertise and input to create better applications. Supervised the use of best practice methods to optimize product performance, shorten project duration, and guarantee adherence to common standards. Consistently succeeded in fulfilling tight deadlines for projects on fast track, usually caused by imposed date constraints or delays in delivery of external project components. Developed many project duration and effort forecast estimates with great accuracy. Analyzed and communicated important project information, for example risks, to project, program and portfolio stakeholders to supply them with a realistic expectation of the project’s impact, cost, and completion date, etc. Used the decomposition method, bottom-up estimating technique, and human resource plans to create a more accurate milestone development and project percent complete status reporting. Identified potential bottlenecks before they could occur, for example during the critical path analysis and early / late - start / finish dates identification period. Identified the need for and the execution of proof-of-concept (proof of technology) developments. Provided expert judgment in various areas, from project feasibility assessment to third party component / interaction analysis. Managed the implementation of various web identification models, like Federation Servers, SAML, SSO, and .NET Forms Authentication. Projects include applications ranging from web sites with minor exposure of less than 50 users externally to major web and web service applications with 200,000 users and annual client budgets of over $ 30,000,000 for these applications. Senior .NET Developer 7/03 – 12/05 Designed and implemented new corporate applications as the company’s sole .NET Developer and spearheaded the transition from existing ASP/VB6 applications to .NET. Designed, developed, and maintained a .NET Windows application that is instrumental to the company’s operations. It maintained its full functionality even after an unexpected data volume increase of over 1,000% occurred. Developed a corporate Web Portal in ASP.NET, with ADO.NET business and data tiers, as well as T-SQL stored procedures. Full project life cycle development of multiple client applications utilizing .NET technology in Visual Studio 2003. Used .Net Localization to create the company’s first multilingual client web site in English and Spanish. Evaluated sample code for .NET from MSDN and translated components from C# to VB.NET to ease usability for VB 6 developers. Evaluated various reporting software options, including Crystal Reports and SQL Reporting Services. SetFocus, LLC .NET Developer - Master's Program 3/03 - 6/03 Incorporated academic elements into real life projects during this hands-on highly intense software development course, including being the team leader for the development of a multi-tiered IT Recruiter Placement Application. Tri-Power Consulting Services, LLC 4/98 - 2/03
- 3. IT Consultant for the following Companies: Colgate Palmolive Project Manager / Senior Developer & System Analyst Generated over $1,500,000 in revenues for Tri-Power Consulting Services by converting a 1 week 1 consultant project into a 4 year relationship with up to 5 consultants through dedication, commitment, and innovative programming skills. Managed, interviewed, and trained all consultants from our firm. Analyzed, designed, developed, deployed, and maintained the Microsoft Excel Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) front-end components of a sales account management application that received corporate wide recognition. The tool, part of the Customer Relationship Management suite, was used in the United States by over 280 sales accounts which handle over 80% of the entire business. Furthermore, the Finance department used the data generated from this tool for scheduling and validation of spending information. Functioned as the hands-on manager and lead developer for the front-end VBA development team and served as the primary contact between IT, Sales and Finance regarding design requirements and expectation management. Responsible for the full Project Life Cycle of over 50 standard reports and support tools and functioned as a technical advisor for 50 additional reports in Microsoft Excel as output of SAP's Business Information Warehouse (BW). Created standards and wizards for the entire reporting suite, including projected and actual data reports with drill and filter capabilities. Supported the training of end-users for BW and the sales account management tool. PSEG Developer Generated multiple workgroup-level Microsoft Access databases, utilizing VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), for the Environmental Department of PSEG. Databases were used for monitoring and regulatory purposes and served as core information for filings with the NJDEP (New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection). Boerschinger Consulting Industrial Engineering Consultant 4/93 - 6/95 Analyzed the production work flow for 2 major concrete processing companies. Generated team merit bonus systems resulting in reduced production time while improving the product quality. Achieved a 45 percent efficiency increase in the manufacturing process. Skilled in analogous and parametric estimating methodologies. Technologies Familiarity with Development Methodologies and Tools: Agile, Waterfall, Jira, iMacro, ProtoShare, Axure, Bugzilla, Balsamiq, Loadstorm Familiarity with Programming Languages: VB.NET, C#, T-SQL, HTML, XML, jQuery, AJAX, VBA, C, C++, Ruby on Rails, Perl Familiarity with Databases: PostgreSQL, MS SQL Servers 7/2000/ 2003/2008, MS Access 95/97/2000 Familiarity with Operating Systems: Windows 95/98/2000/XP/NT/Vista/7, Windows Server 2000/2003, Linux Familiarity with Reporting: Microsoft SharePoint, .NET Reporting Tools, SQL Reporting Servers via Replication, Crystal Reports 9/10, SQL 2000 Reporting Services, ActiveReports, Microsoft Excel Awards / Recognitions Received over 15 corporate recognitions at Michael C. Fina, mostly for Above & Beyond Performance and Creativity & Productiveness Received over 40 corporate recognitions at Madison Performance Group, mostly for Outstanding Leadership, Above & Beyond Expected Performance, and Customer Focused Behavior Graduated Valedictorian from SetFocus with 97%
- 4. As a Consultant, received Colgate Palmolive’s prestigious "You Can Make the Difference Award," traditionally only given to employees Graduated Valedictorian from DeVry University with a GPA of 4.0 President of DeVry University’s local Honor Society Graduated Valedictorian from the State Technical College of Saarbruecken with a GPA 3.95 Education SetFocus LLC Parsippany,NJ .NET Developer, Master's Program DeVry University North Brunswick, NJ Associate Degree in Applied Science, Computer Information Systems REFA Institute of Industrial Engineering Darmstadt, Germany Associate Degree in Industrial Engineering, Industrial Engineering State Technical College of Saarbruecken Saarbruecken, Germany Associate Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Automotive Engineering Other Skills Fluent in German, oral and written