RASHID MAHMOOD AKHTER

PROJECT MANAGER - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Result-oriented IT professional with PMP and Scrum Master certifications and over 14 years of experience in various technical and functional roles. Managed implementation of over 40 projects through entire software development life cycle (SDLC). Areas of expertise include project planning, monitoring, estimations, WBS, scheduling, requirements management, risk management, QA planning and user acceptance. Implemented and taught methodologies and frameworks including RUP, Agile and Extreme. An effective communicator with ability to interface with technical and non-technical personnel. Managed offshore projects for clients in USA, Europe, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE:

• Project Planning & Monitoring
• Size & Effort Estimations
• Requirements Management
• Software Processes and Metrics
 
• WBS & Activity Planning
• Risk Management
• Budget Control
• Earned Value Analysis
 
• RFPs, Vendor Management
• Management Reporting
• SDLCs, RUP, Agile, Scrum
• MS Project

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE ───────────────────────────────────

Infinal Technologies, New Jersey (Feb 2008 to Present)
Project Manager, Feb-2008 to Present
Managing multiple projects with onshore and offshore teams through entire SDLC. Projects include a custom ERP for a large business group in the Middle East and an automated publishing tool for a US based financial publishing company.
• Prepared resource, cost, risk and quality assurance plans for multiple projects using conventional and Agile software development frameworks.
• Supervised an expert system project developed for preemptive maintenance of large motors and generators for Aramco; A global petroleum enterprise.
• Managed development of a sophisticated automated publishing and distribution tool for Data Communiqué a US based financial publishing company. Application users include Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Private Bank, Morgan Stanley and River Source Institutional.
• Performed business analysis and prepared software requirement specifications for an ERP system for Abahsain group which is a large commercial enterprise with presence in Middle East and Canada.
• Performed 3rd party technical reviews and prepared reports for an online limousine renting solution LimoWiz for a US software consulting company.

Askari Information Systems, Pakistan (Nov 2000 to Feb 2008)
Development Manager, Jan-2006 to Feb-2008
Promoted to Development Manager: Managed entire software development and QA operations with a team of over 40 IT professionals. Responsible for on-time delivery, quality and cost control for all software projects and products. Performed estimations, scheduling, resource allocation and team compositions.
• Established PMO resulting in high productivity and successful implementation of several projects including custom applications, ERP and Web portals for clients like Save-The-Children US, Ericsson Pakistan Ltd, International Rescue Committee, UNDP and Interior Ministry.
• Streamlined organization’s QA systems & software development processes leading the organization to Microsoft Gold Certified partnership and ISO-9001 certification.
• Developed and implemented formal processes and metrics for effort estimation, project planning, monitoring and tracking. Enhanced existing SDLC to incorporate Agile development methodology.
• Supervised specifications, design and development of a highly successful HR management product which resulted in significant contribution to company’s revenues.
• Developed IT security policy for a large cement manufacturing concern.

Project Manager, Jul-2003 to Dec-2005
Promoted to Project Manager: Managed over 30 local and international software projects through entire SDLC. Responsibilities included writing functional and technical specifications, planning and tracking status of projects and reporting variance in schedule, budget, milestones, risks and quality to management.
• Managed multiple teams of 5-12 software engineers to deliver projects with very high success rate.
• Projects included Know-Your-Customer for financial institution’s division of MashreqBank Dubai, Expense & Activity Monitoring system for UNDP and a terrorist profile system for Interior ministry.
• Managed major components of a custom developed ERP system designed for manufacturing industry.
• Supervised projects using SQL Server, Crystal Reports, UML, PHP, ASP, VC++ and VB technologies.
• Introduced new reusable object oriented software architecture which substantially enhanced productivity.
• Resolved versioning issues in several products by implementation of formal version control procedures.
• Provided guidance to team members and conducted formal technical reviews for Architecture, Database, UI designs and UML modeling. Actively involved in requirements management and client interactions.

Senior Software Engineer / Team Lead, Nov-2000 to Jun-2003
Learned company’s SDLC and participated in analysis, design, development, documentation, and testing. Lead code reviews and ensure quality of code at all times. Provided estimations, risk assessments, and project status reports to management.
• Supervised a team of 7 engineers for development of a medical claims processing system for UNDP.
• Implemented a suite of projects for Ministry of Interior using a highly reusable 3-tier architecture.
• Managed a project for automatically extracting photographs and other data from paper forms through an object and optical character recognition based techniques.
• Developed an advanced search engine component, conducted performance tuning and stress testing for an innovative business web portal “FastScout” for Logic Development Incorporation USA.
• Supervised development of Executive Information System using Crystal Reports for an ERP application.
• Led an in-house project “CMM Based Assessment for Internal Process Improvement.

PAEC, Pakistan (May 1995 to Nov 2000)
Senior Scientific Officer, Scientific Officer
Developed intuitive software applications for data analysis and scientific experiments involving machine interfacings, micro controllers and specialized hardware devices using C, C++ and various flavors of assembly.
• Converted CERN code libraries for making them useable for the scientists and programmers.
• Developed software for analyzing data for an experiment on Hyperfine Structure Studies of Tantalum. Experiment was later published in paper Z. Phys. D 41, 159-163 (1997).
• Programmed MCS-51 microcontroller for various projects.
• Won 1st prize in Educational/Entertainment category in a national software competition.

EDUCATION ─────────────────────────────────────────────

MS Computer Science, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan
M. Sc. Physics, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Pakistan
Post Graduation in Computing Systems, Computer Training Center, Pakistan

PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS & TRAININGS ────────────────────────

• Certified Scrum Master, Rally Software / Agile University, New York
• Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute (PMI)
• IT Business Management, Osaka, Japan
• Certificate course in Dot Net
• Starting Quality Initiative in a Startup Software Organization
• Certificate Courses in VC++

Read Less