Tom Sheppler
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Nashville, TN, United States
Toptal member since December 29, 2020
Tom has over 20 years of broadly based IT expertise across top tier companies. For the past 15 years, he's worked with nearly every aspect of PPM tools, with ten of those years being within PMOs—designing, supporting and enabling processes, planning, roadmaps, governance, and financials. Additionally, Tom has managed projects and programs for nearly eight years, and he has five years of experience as an Agile product owner utilizing SAFe, Scrum, and Kanban methodologies.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Practices
- Agile Product Management
- Clarity PPM
- IT Project Management
- Project Management Office (PMO)
- Project Portfolio Management Platforms
- Team Leadership
- Team Mentoring
Work Experience
Tools and Reporting Lead
Chevron
- Led the mixed transition project team to transition legacy reports to a new platform.
- Created and executed the transition project plan for the identification and migration of more than 100 reports.
- Mentored newly formed teams on Agile practices and methods.
SDLC Operations Transition Lead
T-Mobile
- Managed the transition team to take over operations and provide support for legacy SDLC tools.
- Coordinated support activities, measured, and ensured SLAs were met. Reported to the client management on a weekly and monthly basis.
- Trained and mentored the team in tooling and support practices.
- Assisted the ITSM implementation team with sprint scheduling, deployment readiness, and UAT processes.
- Served as the primary point of contact for legacy support escalations.
PPM Tools and Processes Owner
Asurion
- Managed daily operations and tasks for a globally dispersed team of (up to 10) developers, operations resources, and QA and BA members.
- Designed and implemented a streamlined project governance model for faster stage-gating of projects.
- Designed and managed the development and rollout for the Project Ideation intake model for new project request evaluation.
- Spearheaded development and roll-out of a custom workforce management and capacity planning model.
- Led the app-dev team in the conversion from waterfall to Agile methodologies using Scrum and Kanban.
- Created, maintained, and executed the product roadmap for PPM tools to support technology and business unit goals.
- Planned and led the 27-month program for the full Clarity PPM re-architecture and redesign.
- Served as a trainer, coach, and/or mentor to users, PMs, developers, support, business, and executives concerning tooling, processes, and best practices.
- Supervised the yearly finance year-end/AOP processes from the PPM Tools perspective, ensuring smooth cut-over and timely and accurate year-end reporting for CAPEX audit compliance.
Solution Architect
Independent Work
- Restructured client PPM implementations, including new processes and automated jobs, to improve tool performance and reliability.
- Trained and mentored staff in tool support and administration.
- Contributed content to online library resources of PPM reports, training documents, white papers, and processes.
- Formalized my Agile expertise by obtaining a certified scrum master certification.
Security Analyst
Cisco
- Served as a mediator and liaison for geographically separated teams from two companies, coordinating work and process alignment between them.
- Formed and executed a project plan to clear a 2-year backlog of bugs and feature requests in eight months.
- Implemented streamlined processes for future engagements between the two teams.
PPM Tools System Manager
PayPal
- Shared the responsibility for scoping, planning and coordinating regular and successful product releases.
- Co-led the development and successful execution of the PPM Tools application roadmap.
- Served as a system architect for Clarity PPM on the IT Tools Advisory Board, providing best practice recommendations and solutions in response to incoming requests and business requirements.
- Served as subject matter expert (SME) and mentor to developers on the PPM Tools team.
- Led the migration and upgrade of the existing legacy PPM solution to the new Clarity platform, entailing data migration, new hardware, and new business processes which entailed an extensive collaboration with IT, business, and dev teams.
PPM Tools Administrator
Expedia
- Designed and implemented the IT project audit process that saved the company $10 million per annum in previously missed R&D tax credits.
- Co-led the Clarity PPM Implementation project, meeting tight deadlines and strict functional requirements for SOX compliance.
- Participated in and provided recommendations for design, development, and roll-out of the new product development lifecycle (PDLC) process.
Project History
PPM Tools Re-architecture Program
Led successful design and deployment of complete system over-haul with hardware, software, integration, and business process components.
Skills
Tools
Rally, Jira, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Team Foundation Server, Microsoft Power BI
Paradigms
Scrum, Testing, Agile, Agile Product Management, Kanban, Requirements Analysis
Platforms
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Other
Clarity PPM, Microsoft Clarity, Project Portfolio Management Platforms, Microsoft Office, Agile Practices, IT Project Management, IT Support, Software Development, Project Management Office (PMO), IT Management, Team Leadership, Team Mentoring, Business Analysis, Project Management, Roadmaps, Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Technical Product Management, SQL, Jira Administrator, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), IT Program Management, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Product Development, IT Strategy, Business Process Analysis, Vendor Management, Agile Leadership, Stakeholder Management, Business Requirements, Business Process Re-engineering, Process Analysis, Process Optimization, Product Owner, Product Roadmaps, Business Process Improvement (BPI)
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring