Charlene Parks

Project/Program Management Lead / Principal

• Responsible for business development opportunities and the day-to-day operations.
• Oversite over recruiting staff and oversee the recruiting lifecycle.
• Onsite program consultant for deployment of technologies such as Kronos, Oracle HCM Cloud, PeopleSoft, etc.
• Responsible for managing and guiding internal initiatives. Ensure robust business management systems and adherence.
• Oversee program financial performance to ensure quarterly goals are met or exceeded
• Provide leadership assuring that the necessary program reviews are in place for compliance with
• customer requirements.
• Prepare and manage manpower and budget plans to achieve optimum results.

Senior Consultant IT Project Manager, State of Michigan

2018 – 2020

• Onsite Senior-Level project consultant working with the State of Michigan to work on IT projects within the Department of Technology, Management, and Budget (DTMB). 
• Exhibited advanced experience managing programs of projects, complex projects or multiple projects.
• Demonstrated and advanced understanding of project management methodologies.
• Utilized experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals with a significant degree of creativity and latitude.
• Worked under limited supervision with considerable latitude for the use of initiative and independent judgment. 

Consultant Program Manager, Ford Motor Company

2017 - 2018

• Onsite Program Consultant onboarded for deployment of technologies such as Kronos, Oracle HCM Cloud, PeopleSoft, etc.
• Responsible for managing and guiding programs through all phases of the program management process
• Ensure robust business management systems and adherence in the Program Management Office.
• Developed and ensured adoption of processes that support program goals and business needs
• Oversee Program financial performance to ensure quarterly goals are met or exceeded
• Provide leadership assuring that necessary program reviews are in place for compliance to customer requirements: coordinate/facilitate management reviews and support leadership team meetings.
• Manage all aspects of associates’ activity as to provide growth and foster development and motivation.
• Prepare and manage manpower and budget plans to achieve optimum results.

Senior Project Manager / PMO Lead

Accomplishments

• Worked closely with the Vice-President of IT Engineering to provide strategic and tactical guidance implementing project management processes.
• Recognized for providing coaching, mentoring, and leading core project resources – internal/external developers, vendors, and stakeholders.
• Successfully controlled an inherited at-risk program due to misalignment with the strategic business objectives through managerial courage, the use of negotiation skills, and building strong relationships with peers and project teams.
• Quickly made an impact to the organization as a PMO leader through creation & implementation of a Project Management Best Practices and an SDLC processes – methodology and processes consisted of a hybrid approach utilizing Waterfall, Agile, and RUP.

Project/Program Responsibilities

• Delegated tasks to project and program resources and monitored the day-to-day progress of IT Program roadmap initiatives.
• Worked with technical leads to develop project schedules, timing estimates, and resource allocations.
• Release planning, creating deployment and production support plans.
• Effectively maximized program/project productivity by setting clear expectations and proactively communicating metrics, status reports, project schedules, issues, and risks to internal/external stakeholders and leadership to improve transparency and communication of project health to key stakeholders.
• Created and implemented change control policies and procedures, IT governance model, and issue/risk mitigation management processes.
• Instrumental in the adoption of a program management approach to managing interdependent projects - allowing project managers to identify, evaluate, and exploit benefits that were previously unavailable.
• Budget management at Program and Project-level for internal/external resources.
• Established and implemented key performance metrics and project health reports/scorecards for IT Portfolio.
• Managed technical resources and responsible for managing reoccurring team meetings.
• Offshore and onshore vendor and IT services supplier management.

IT Program Manager (Consultant)

Creative, innovative thinker with key accomplishments including:

• Establishing and implementing an IT Steering Committee to align business objectives with the strategic direction of the organization.
• Instrumental in implementing the Agile development model, processes, tools and systems to support methodology.
• Training sessions and documentation on the PMI project management methodology, as well as Agile best practices. Process improvements through SWOT, fit-gap analysis, and best industry practices.

As key member of the IT Leadership Team, my responsibilities included:

• Working very closely and guiding Executive-Level Management.
• Ensuring the successful integration of several projects. Adjusting resource allocation, scope and implementation approach.
• Executive communication management through dashboards, burn down charts, metrics, and bi-weekly meetings.
• Translating functional business requirements to IT development team for solution design.
• Leveraging sound business and  technical  expertise  to manage the software development life cycle from initiation to closure.
• Manage program and critical project’s scope, schedule, cost and track project status using appropriate life cycle methodology and PMO standards and processes.
• Third party vendor management from procurement to contract management.
• Responsible for identification, mitigation and communication of project/program risk management activities.
• Communicating status, issues, and risks with project sponsors, leadership and executive team.
• Managing business analyst's requirement quality and test strategies and prioritizing work to be completed.

Senior Project Manager (Consultant)

As a Senior Project Manager in the PMO, my responsibilities included:

• Leveraging sound business and  technical  expertise  to manage the software development life cycle from initiation to closure.
• Managing project scope, schedule, cost and track project status using appropriate life cycle methodology, as well as PMO standards and processes.
• Facilitation and creation business requirements and conversion to systems requirements.
• Led status meetings and provided project status to all levels of the organization.
• Served as a liaison between project owners and stakeholders. Worked closely with functional resource managers, business analysts, and technical professionals to define requirements, build productive project teams, and ultimately deliver solutions that effectively address such defined requirements. Utilization of project management tools to effectively plan, manage, analyze, execute, and close projects.
• Coordinating communication regarding project scope and direction between applications, infrastructure, vendors and management team.
• Established client expectations and achieved a level of understanding of business requirements that ensured successful client communication and project implementation. Established and maintained internal and external project direction and control.
• Identified and managed issues and risks mitigation plans. Defined, created and monitored metrics for project implementations.

Senior Technical Project Manager

Recognized as a “Top Performer” quickly after onboarding. Successfully implemented and managed several concurrent technical projects that included Stock Plan Administration software implementations, mass asset transfers, and data migrations.

Responsibilities included:

• Intermediate to advanced utilization of SQL queries to extract and manipulate data.
• Usage of SSIS, T-SQL, SSAS, and Oracle PL/SQL experience Oracle RDBMS.
• Managing client relationships, ensuring that they and our internal team members understood and performed their responsibilities while maintaining a high-level of client satisfaction and continuously assessing project risks.
• Establishing and meeting project goals, assigning and  directing the work of others, and managing multiple requests with minimal direction.
• Led project reviews to assess schedule, processes, assess risks and facilitate communication and negotiation.
• Owning delivery of project requirements from inception to delivery.
• Served as the primary contact for assigned corporate clients throughout the implementation process, maintaining a client-focused, yet firm approach.
• Ability to make good quality decisions based on a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience and judgment.

Senior Technical / Software Implementation Manager Support

Interfaced with the customer and internal staff to ensure all ISO 9000 certification customer software support issues were understood, resolved, and delivered in a timely manner.

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

ITIL 4 Foundations Certification

Master of Business Administration, Specialization in Project Management

Bachelor of Science in Information Technology

Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt

Certified Scrum Master

Project Management Professional (PMP) Certified

Program & Portfolio Management Trainings