Bill Rinko-Gay
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Saratoga Springs, NY, United States
Toptal member since June 7, 2021
Bill is a senior project, program manager, and agile coach who has worked with teams ranging from a few people to a $22 million program with multiple parallel workstreams. He rescued the NYC Department of Sanitation's project by teaching their team Scrum to deliver a complex, real-time planning system in only 14 months. With extensive experience in Agile, traditional, and hybrid methods, Bill coaches teams to create better software. He regularly speaks on PM topics at industry events.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Agile Transformation
- IT Project Management
- Quality Assurance (QA)
- Scrum
- Scrum Coaching
- Scrum Master
- Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
Work Experience
Program Manager
NYCHA
- Helped the organization migrate from a home-grown tracking tool built in SharePoint to ServiceNow's PPM module for project planning and tracking.
- Managed several enhancements to Maximo, which is an asset management and work order tracking system. The enhancements are made to meet the requirements of the HUD monitor, who is overseeing a NYCHA transformation.
- Took on program management of several pillars, which are areas of focus for the HUD monitor. All IT needs for each pillar are my responsibility to prioritize, schedule, and see to completion.
- Created a process for organizing the work of several programs to assure the work is prioritized and scheduled correctly.
- Helped the ITQA manager improve her process to streamline testing and approval of new functionality.
- Provided consulting services to the PMO manager to help improve PMO maturity. Mentored junior project managers to ensure more reliable project support.
- Helped the CISO develop a process for tracking and resolving cybersecurity issues that are raised to NYCHA.
Program Manager
NYC Department of Social Services
- Created the work breakdown structure and project plan, leading multiple workstreams.
- Led all phases of the software design from analysis to implementation.
- Managed the go-live implementation, including training, user acceptance testing, and data migration.
- Managed the warranty period and maintenance and operations contract for the first phase to go live.
- Coached the development team in better quality practices and schedule management.
- Coached all project team members from contributor to senior manager in the use of Jira and Confluence.
- Developed the business process for the maintenance and operations phase of the contract.
Senior Project Manager
NYC Department of Education
- Created an approach for the design and implementation of a critical system enhancement.
- Managed a reporting and data warehousing project to allow compliance reporting.
- Mentored junior project managers to support the PMO director.
- Coached all team members in Agile values and principles to improve quality and delivery.
Agile Coach
Moody's Investor Services
- Coached a workstream, including client and subcontract resources in scrum execution.
- Coached product owners and scrum masters in the role and techniques to improve project success.
- Coached project sponsors to understand how to support scrum teams, how to participate in sprint reviews, and how to evaluate the product backlog.
- Coached the entire program in a successful scrum of scrums.
- Coached the technical team on how to interact with the scrum teams for successful infrastructure planning and rollout.
Agile Program Manager
NYC Department of Sanitation
- Coached a new team in Scrum process and Agile concepts, delivering SMART in 14 months and leading three major enhancements.
- Spearheaded DevOps and continuous integration with automated delivery.
- Managed the refactoring of the project into microservices on containers using Rancher.
- Piloted Agile for a New York City agency, leading the first truly Agile contract from inception to delivery.
- Developed a process for product ownership in a top-down managed agency.
- Administered and managed the local instance of Jira and Confluence. Created workflows and views.
- Managed a data lakes contract with a team from MongoDB. Helped write queries for MongoDB. Supported MongoDB reporting.
Scrum Coach
Macmillan Higher Education
- Piloted Scrum and delivered on time with full client satisfaction a major enhancement to LaunchPad, their learning management system.
- Rolled Scrum out to all projects in the US organization. Coached one team on the use of Kanban.
- Trained team members in scrum roles. Coached scrum masters and product owners.
Senior Project Manager
NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications
- Established a chain of ownership for data used in the city's TRIREGA-based building energy management system.
- Organized a business process modeling program for the existing process.
- Delivered the capability to track the process of closing off unused heating oil tanks.
- Coached the development team in setting daily goals to improve efficiency.
- Managed the business process mapping for the Department of Central Administrative Services (DCAS).
Agile QA SME and Scrum Master
Bridgewater Associates
- Created an agile QA program for a major research initiative, focusing on the definition of done and shift-left testing.
- Served as scrum master for a data management support group.
- Created a configuration management database to track system dependencies.
Project Manager
NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications
- Conducted a common intake for NYC Business Express. The system allowed businesses to apply for licenses and certificates across NYC agencies from a single portal.
- Administered a content management system used to provide information about required licenses and certificates. Implemented an urgent upgrade to begin support for multiple languages.
- Implemented an Agile development paradigm for work to be completed with new licenses or permits in verticals rather than technical layers to ensure on-time completion of certain ones.
- Executed UAT and resolution of issues for on-time delivery.
- Managed integration of systems from other city agencies for a seamless transfer of application information and application status.
QA Manager and Scrum Coach
NYC Office of Payroll Administration (OPA)
- Managed a team of 40 testers responsible for test scheduling, test planning, test review and verification, automated regression testing, test execution, bug tracking, requirements traceability, and system readiness certification.
- Identified opportunities to improve the efficiency of the software development and testing to assure higher quality releases in the same timeframe.
- Reorganized the existing test team to integrate the test planning, test execution, and test automation rather than having each of these functions performed in silos.
- Implemented Scrum to handle interim bug-fix releases between major releases.
- Refocused the relationship between the QA team and the development team, working with two consulting companies, to improve communications and enhance defect reproduction and resolution.
- Increased transparency of the QA process to aid in executive decision-making.
Certification Lab Manager
ICSA Labs
- Managed each certification team. Teams were responsible for specific certification lines such as anti-virus software or network firewalls.
- Systematized delivery so that the process was more predictable and manageable.
- Made testbed maintenance more efficient by standardizing on specific equipment and assuring that spares would be available.
- Managed upgrades to the certification processes as the certification workgroups made decisions to change the requirements or the tests.
- Created the labs' ISO-2001 process and saw it through to registration.
Project History
Sanitation Management Analysis Resource Tracking (SMART)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu0-N8kkdowDelivered a system to plan NYC Sanitation activity for 6,000 employees after a consulting company had failed.
SMART had been in development for three years and had failed UAT. DSNY decided to re-launch with internal consultants. I was brought in to manage the project and to teach the team Scrum. Our first MVP was delivered in 14 months. Over subsequent months we implemented DevOps, microservices using containers (Rancher), and shift-left QA processes.
The final phase, SMART 3, was implemented as an independent development contract. This was NYC's first fully Agile contract with bi-weekly deliverables and invoicing. I acted as project manager and scrum master, responsible for resource management, budgeting, scheduling, risk management, and release planning. Smart 3 was initiated and successfully deployed in 11 months.
LaunchPad Scrum Pilot
https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/launchpad/Used a project to change the underlying infrastructure of a product to pilot Scrum for Macmillan Higher Education. We met the twin success criteria of a time-boxed product launch and created a scrum toolkit for the wider scrum rollout.
I showed the product owners how to create and manage a backlog. We worked out the MVP and the acceptance criteria. I then coached them in working with their scrum team to achieve success.
I guided the scrum team to create a definition of done to include all testing. We split the product backlog into sprints, then implemented sprint planning, daily scrums, sprint reviews, and sprint retrospectives to ensure we would deliver. We also implemented a continuous backlog refinement activity. I had to show several techniques to the QA team to allow them to test user stories within each sprint.
At sprint reviews, we demonstrated potentially releasable software and achieved sign-off from the product owner.
At the end of the project, we received authorization to train the other teams in Scrum. I became the agile coach for five scrum teams and provided guidance for the support team to set up a Kanban process.
NYC Business Express – Common Intake
Took over a project to allow businesses to apply for permits and certificates online. I delivered the improvements allowing four groups of permits and certificates working with four city agencies, all on time.
When I began, the development agency had a history of being late with incomplete requirements. I used my IT knowledge and problem-solving skills to deliver our projects according to plan.
When I first started, I learned that the development team was developing in architectural layers. This meant that each release was an all-or-nothing deployment. Using Agile principles, I taught the team to develop one group of certificates or permits at a time so that we could show them for UAT in a phased manner to simplify testing. This also led to improved quality and a better relationship with the agencies we were supporting.
At one point in the project, the Mayor's office insisted that public-facing City software start accommodating translations in six languages. After the scope of one of our releases was already agreed to, I used an agile collaborative approach to implement a section of our software supporting the six languages.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering
Cornell University - Ithaca, NY, USA
Certifications
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Project Management Professional (PMP)
PMI
Skills
Tools
Jira, Confluence, Atlassian Suite, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Visio, HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), Google Workspace, Rally, Artifactory, Bitbucket, SQL, Trello, IBM Rational ClearCase, IBM Rational ClearQuest
Paradigms
Scrum, Agile, Agile Project Management, Servant Leadership, Testing, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Management, Continuous Integration (CI), Requirements Analysis, Kanban, E2E Testing, User Testing, Change Management
Platforms
SharePoint, Rancher, Amazon EC2
Industry Expertise
Financial Services
Other
Microsoft Office, Project Scheduling, IT Project Management, Release Management, Project Planning, Scope Management, Scrum Master, Sprint Planning, Sprint Reviews, Sprint Retrospectives, Backlog Management, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Quality Assurance (QA), Software QA, Project Management, Proactive, Hybrid Project Management, Government Contracting, Enterprise Software, Program Management, Project Timelines, Quality Management, Work Breakdown Structure, Agile Coaching, Technical Project Management, QA Testing, Integration Testing, System Integration Testing (SIT), End-to-end Implementation (E2E), Test Planning, QA Test Plan Management, Test Scenarios, Test Cases, Defect Management, Variant Configuration, Scrum Coaching, Requirement Traceability Matrices, Web Applications, Project Management Professional (PMP), Customer Service Management (CSM), Consulting, IT Consulting, Web Consulting, Hybrid Frameworks, Workshop Facilitation, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Certified Project Manager, Waterfall Methodology, Agile Sprints, Digital Project Management, Agile Certified Practitioner, Smartsheet, Risk Management, Resource Management, Communication Management, Product Owner, Budget Management, Contract Management, Agile Transformation, MongoDB, NoSQL, Business Analysis, System Integration, Stakeholder Management, Customer Support, Agile Program Management, Implementation, Test Automation, Automated Testing, System Requirements, Feature-driven Development (FDD), APIs, REST APIs, Integration, IT Security, Certifications, ServiceNow, Cybersecurity, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Product Ownership, Digital Innovation, Earned Value Management (EVM), HP UFT, Mingle, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Clarity PPM, Data Lakes, Discovery Workshops, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Content Management Systems (CMS), Business Plan Consulting, Functional Testing, Customer Journeys, SaaS, Software as a Service (SaaS), SaaS Product Management, Antivirus Software, Network Security, Requirements & Specifications, Roadmaps
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