Ashar Waseem
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Ashar is an experienced professional who specializes in software product management. With an MBA from the University of Cambridge, he has excelled in various roles ranging from software development to program and product management. Applying his technical, leadership, and business skills to diverse projects in multiple domains, from embedded software to cloud and mobile solutions, Ashar is passionate about identifying and solving customer problems by building tech solutions.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Senior Product Owner
MMT Digital
- Released the MVP of a dashboard that visualizes clients' internal services availability data by working with their senior stakeholders to gather requirements and translate them into product backlog to be implemented and released by the engineers.
- Built a project health check dashboard using Power BI to improve the visibility of ongoing project status by collaborating with executives to understand their needs and working with project teams to collect the required data.
- Led the creation of a process to collect success stories from all the teams working with different clients to create a central repository so that it could be shared with prospective clients.
Director
Digi Merchant LTD
- Formed an eCommerce company selling arts and crafts products through online marketplaces such as Amazon by selecting the products using data analytics tools, sourcing them from China, and selling them in the UK.
- Reached monthly sales of £15000 by establishing a brand and increasing the product reach through digital marketing on social media and online marketplaces.
- Formulated the business strategy by analyzing market trends and competition, creating a business case and financial models, and expanding from 1 SKU to 5 SKUs within a year.
- Expanded to European markets to increase product reach.
Product Manager
Ramtech Electronics
- Managed the REACT app and web portal that connects with devices to collect data and provide valuable insights and notifications to users, increasing revenue from £50 to £500 thousand in a year.
- Aligned the product strategy with the executive stakeholders and used it to build a product roadmap.
- Identified opportunities to integrate the REACT APIs with third-party software solutions, expanding the product reach to new customers.
- Improved UX by running design sprints with relevant stakeholders to better understand the users' pain points and get quick feedback from prototype testing.
Head of Product
Localing
- Created a platform called Localing to help small businesses during COVID-19. Won CamVsCovid hackathon out of 120 participants.
- Came up with the strategy and aligned on Localing's value proposition through internal discussions and help from Accelerator mentors.
- Defined the scope of the MVP by testing the assumptions through customer research and interviews.
- Built the roadmap, managed the backlog, and successfully executed to build the MVP.
- Managed to get an agreement from the local councils to onboard some local stores in the area.
Program Manager
ASSA ABLOY
- Launched a new mobile app to enhance customer experience, decreasing the software upgrade time for a million installed readers from 20 to 5 minutes by collaborating with a cross-functional team of 15.
- Reduced a cloud-based customer portal's average response time by 80% by managing the end-to-end product development process.
- Directed the minimum viable product validation of an API-based IoT solution with key customers, resulting in the approval to continue the development of the solution with a budget of $1 million.
- Led the SAFe lean portfolio management process implementation for a business unit comprising 500 members by training and collaborating with 30 senior managers and executive team members on the new process.
- Improved program productivity by 20%, resulting in $700 thousand in annual savings by creating and executing the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) plan and coaching 50 members about the new process.
- Increased monthly software deliveries by 100% by simplifying the release processes, generating $30 thousand in monthly savings.
MBA Consultant
Speed Invest
- Worked with fund executives to scope the focus areas from three diverse regions.
- Identified five startups within procurement automation that could capitalize on emerging trends due to COVID-19.
- Researched industry and narrowed down the companies based on investment criteria.
MBA Consultant
Prime Ventures
- Created market expansion strategy and feature roadmap for Prime’s portfolio company, WOLF social app, leveraging increased media consumption trends due to COVID-19 to grow user base by 10x in the EU market.
- Interviewed the existing users to understand their needs that the product could solve.
- Presented the strategy to the company's executives and fund stakeholders.
Technical Product Manager
Ericsson
- Secured customer trials enabling the company to gain a 10% share in the 5G market in China, worth $520 million, by managing the product backlog of four teams from the ideation phase to deliver the first 5G radio platform software.
- Introduced state-of-the-art radio security features by partnering with four engineering teams across three continents with a budget of $2.4 million.
- Prevented the recruitment of two teams by instituting a new backlog sharing process to optimize capacity utilization of firmware teams, saving $2 million annually.
- Reduced the average lead time for fixing internal bugs from 15 to 5 days by implementing a new process in the organization, decreasing customer-reported issues by 16%.
Software Developer | Scrum Master | Project Lead
Ericsson
- Completed a nine-month-long radio integration involving ten teams, with a $5 million budget, successfully and on time by managing internal and external stakeholders, planning milestones, and mitigating risks.
- Improved the team's output by 10%, generating $100 thousand in annual savings by introducing digital backlog management tools and coaching the team to take ownership of scrum ceremonies.
- Delivered embedded software for radio base stations end-to-end, including systemization, coding, unit, integration, and system testing.
Project History
REACT Mobile App for Emergency Notification
Managed the end-to-end delivery of an emergency notification B2B app, increasing revenue by four times in a year.
As the product manager, I formulated the product strategy, identified the customer problems through regular interactions, and filtered the insights into the product roadmap. My responsibilities included prioritizing the backlog and testing the ideas, overseeing the execution, and coordinating the user testing. I worked with the technical and sales team by updating their training material and the marketing team by sending release updates to customers.
Platform Software for 5G Radio
Delivered embedded software for 5G radios by managing the product backlog for four teams, enabling on-time delivery of the first 5G radio.
This project was particularly complex because it involved developing a next-gen chip design that enabled the foundation of beamforming features to reduce latency.
I was tasked with breaking the new architecture into user stories in the backlog along with architects and product champions and planning the work in collaboration with project managers and other product managers to continuously manage risks and ensure on-time delivery.
Mobile Identities
Led the development of the HID Mobile Access app enabling access control and door opening using a mobile phone instead of physical cards.
I managed the product to build a mobile app for storing credentials in the phone using Bluetooth or near-field communication (NFC) to connect with the readers, authenticate the ID, and open the door. I managed the backlog and releases for the team working on the reader firmware updates to support mobile phone authentication and the app development team to manage the mobile ID.
Education
Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA)
University of Cambridge - Cambridge, UK
Master's Degree in Embedded Systems
Uppsala University - Uppsala, Sweden
Certifications
Certified SAFe Lean Portfolio Manager
Scaled Agile
Certified SAFe Program Consultant
Scaled Agile
Certified Scrum Master
Ericsson
Skills
Tools
Jira, Zoom, Confluence, Office 365, Atlassian Suite, Slack, Figma, QuickBooks Online
Paradigms
Scrum, Agile, Agile Project Management, Agile Product Management, Agile Software Development, Continuous Delivery (CD), B2B2C, Mobile App Design, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), Marketplace Platforms
Industry Expertise
Marketplaces
Other
Windows, Microsoft Teams, Management, Product Management, Scrum@Scale, Product Ownership, Backlog Grooming, Backlog Management, Project Management, Product Roadmaps, Excel 365, Program Management, User Stories, Requirements & Specifications, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Project Scheduling, Sprint Planning, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Roadmaps, Sprint Retrospectives, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Feature Roadmaps, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Engineering, Team Leadership, Developer Relations, Product Delivery, New Product Development, Resource Allocation, Product Development, Miro, Strategy, Software Design, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Lean Portfolio Management, Cloud, Mobile, Release Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Test Management, Time Management, C++, User Surveys, SurveyMonkey, Financial Modeling, Business Cases, Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Discovery, Business Model Canvas, APIs, Root Cause Analysis, Project Planning, Software as a Service (SaaS), User Research, User Feedback, Customer Research, Validated User Research, Quantitative User Research, Startups, New Products, Mobile Applications, New Product Business Cases, Feasibility Studies, Technical Product Management, Leadership, Agile Leadership, Technical Project Management, Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Services, Product Strategy, SaaS, Technical Writing, Documentation, User Requirements, Business Models, Product Discovery, A/B Testing, Lean Startups, Enterprise Software, Early-stage Startups, Market Research & Analysis, Product Coach, Product Strategy Consultant, Consumer Applications, Go-to-market Strategy, Hiring, Technical Hiring, Market Research, Monetization Models, Monetization, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Operations, Lean Product Manager, Social Media, User Experience (UX), Web Applications, Use Cases, Business Strategy, Product Growth, Digital Product Management, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Digital Product Development, Mobile UX, Customer Experience, Web & Mobile Applications, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ionic, Protractor, Marketing, Qualtrics, Webhooks, App Design, Architecture, Product Marketing, Customer Acquisition, Budgeting, Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), Two-sided Marketplaces, Competitive Analysis, Board Presentations, SWOT Analysis, Product Analytics, Google Advertising, Product Sourcing, Amazon FBA, Company Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Accounting, Amazon Seller Central, Market Fit, Consulting, Client Management
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