Bohdan Rak
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Lviv, Ukraine, Ukraine
Toptal member since August 5, 2021
Bohdan has an educational background in economics with additional certifications in project management, Scaled Agile and business analysis, and over ten years of experience as an IT program/project manager and scrum master—managing distributed teams from 10-to-80+ engineers/25 development teams. Bohdan excels at tailoring project management methodology to meet stakeholder expectations and ensure the high quality of the deliverables.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Technical Program Manager
Squad
- Managed software development programs to enhance the company's products with new functionality. Programs involved up to 25 development teams.
- Trained and coached junior coordinators and managers in the project management area.
- Tailored corporate program management methodology to the specific needs of the program of own department.
Senior Delivery Manager | Project and Program Manager
Intellias
- Managed a software development program with 85 engineers and transferred the program from team extension mode (managed by the customer) to full ownership mode (managed by us).
- Improved processes vastly (formalization was done using BPMN) throughout the SDLC by harmonizing the work of ten teams that used Scrum and Kanban and creating a unified SAFe-like Agile software development environment.
- Improved communication between stakeholders (customer teams in Germany and the US and a carmaker in the UK) and the Ukrainian team, in particular through the enforcement of weekly status updates to increase transparency and bilateral trust.
- Organized program artifacts, such as management plans, requirements description, scope items, release planning, and so on, in Jira and Confluence—ensuring crucial information is always up to date and easy to find.
- Increased the visibility of long-term resource needs, which maximized team performance and eliminated inherited regular overtime. In particular, I am proud of the timely delivery of the features for the carmaker's first-ever electric vehicle.
- Ensured the timely delivery of quarterly releases and oversaw the program's scope, schedule, budget, quality, and risk management; also improved change management by setting up efficient project estimation and enforcing the change control board.
- Leveraged risk management best practices to communicate contingencies to the stakeholders, prioritize the risks, and align the parties on the risk response strategy and corresponding budgets.
- Worked as a member of the project management office and tailored corporate IT project management methodology, authored "cookbooks" on risk management and budget/timeline estimation, and delivered training on quality management.
- Served as a PM expert and coordinated the service improvement initiative on account consisting of seven scrum teams with a focus on IT project management methodology, technical excellence, and people development.
- Participated in the presales coordination on the elaboration of proposals and RFI/RFP responses, which covered technical solution and project estimation of effort, schedule, and budget.
Project Manager
Perfectial
- Launched Scrum-based development from scratch for two US- and UK-based software startups—exceeding clients’ expectations on the delivery timeline.
- Performed requirements management as a forced measure to compensate for low-quality specifications provided by the customer.
- Organized projects' information hubs using Atlassian-based tools like Jira and Confluence.
- Ensured long-term predictability of the development roadmap.
- Coached engineering teams on Scrum/Agile best practices.
- Contributed to presales activities by elaborating on proposals.
Lecturer
Lviv IT School
- Authored and delivered lectures on project management topics, including project plan development, scope management, schedule management, budget management, risk management, project estimation and scheduling, and project status updates.
- Authored and delivered soft skills lectures on delegation and human motivation.
- Received positive student feedback and was recognized as the best lecturer.
Portfolio Manager | Account Manager
Eleks
- Supervised the service delivery of a portfolio with an annual turnover of $2 million; also performed cross-sales and up-sales and coordinated preparation of commercial proposals.
- Facilitated improvement of a project management approach for portfolio accounts.
- Coordinated the elaboration of proposals and RFx responses and oversaw the project effort, schedule, and budget estimation.
- Developed an Excel-based tool for a project which included an account-level financial performance analysis and contributing to the development of an account management office.
Software Implementation and Support Director
SoftServe Business Systems
- Coordinated the software implementation, user support, and data-center hosting for multinational FMCG companies (with an annual turnover of $1 million).
- Coordinated the redesign of SLA-based L1-to-L3 support service in accordance with ITIL and ITSM best practices.
- Improved the project management approach through the introduction of the PMBOK-based methodology and training the IT project management team on PMBOK best practices.
Administrative Director
SoftServe Business Systems
- Sourced corporate administrative services (financial, legal, HR, other) from the parent company.
- Provided administrative support to over ten offices in two countries.
- Performed budgeting of expenses and cash flow (with an annual turnover of $2 million).
- Held and managed all-company gatherings for the company day and New Year's Day.
- Coordinated the launch of two remote software development centers with the capacity of 35 and 55 employees. This included supervising the renovation of the premises and coordinating office support, IT support, legal, and more.
Consultant
MAFCON (Munk, Andersen & Feilberg)
- Helped a Danish IT company to launch their own development center in Ukraine by assisting them on our joint journeys that usually started with market studies and a fact-finding tour, up to the launch of own premises and recruitment of key personnel.
- Performed market, feasibility, and due diligence studies with a focus on IT, wood-working, metal-working, and textile industries.
- Organized over 50 fact-finding tours to the Ukraine for EU-based companies seeking low-cost opportunities in Ukraine.
- Worked on over five recruitment projects for managerial positions in Ukraine and Poland.
- Supported the company's IT environment, contributed to the development, and later maintained the company's website.
Project History
Embedded Navigation for a Premium Automaker
Managed the software development program with 85 engineers in three remote areas; took over the responsibility from the previous team, redesigned processes, and communications for smooth and predictable team performance, and assured timely delivery.
The project was delivered to a German company, one of the world's leading mapping data and navigation solutions vendors. The company wanted to build the entire embedded navigation system for a premium British automaker.
The objective was to integrate all the navigation functions into the vehicle infotainment device based on the customer's proprietary SDK, including routing, guidance, POI search, map updates, and more. The project scope also covered the design and implementation of a unified human-machine interface that allowed the distribution of the same navigation experiences across a vehicle's head-unit, head-up, and rear-seat displays and the driver's mobile devices. The synchronization of the driver's routes, maps, and personal details was powered by the cloud.
Moreover, the navigation solution was made e-vehicle ready by developing an algorithm that considers charging stations and remaining battery life when building routes.
I was entirely responsible for the program's full software development lifecycle, starting from requirements elicitation up to the delivery of the binaries for integration with the car's infotainment system.
Client Portfolio Transformation
Helped with bringing customer's portfolio on track in regards to predictability and quality through implementation of 20+ transformation initiatives incl. tailoring of PM methodology, assessment-based improvements, and custom-built training.
Our client was a government-owned company in Saudi Arabia. I was temporarily assigned to coordinate portfolio transformation, which was initiated in response to a decrease in the customer satisfaction level.
I coordinated 20+ sub-initiatives to improve the service's quality through improvements in IT project management methodology, operational aspects, team management, etc. The challenge was to assure the efficiency of changes across seven projects, each developing a unique separate solution.
I created a tailored IT PM methodology that was further customized to meet each project's needs. The methodology covered scope management, schedule management, budget management, quality management, risk management, and so on.
Based on architectural, QA, and Spotify-inspired "health check" assessments, I elaborated detailed improvement plans and coordinated them.
In addition, we delivered a custom training program to the portfolio team.
We used Confluence to track the initiative's scope and open action items for scrum masters and keep written status updates. A separate project dashboard (listing each initiative) provided recent status updates for the stakeholders' convenience.
Project Management Office
http://www.intellias.comDeveloped a corporate project management methodology that included creating a set of templates, elaborating on "cookbooks" concerning the practical aspects of project management, and authoring training on quality management.
As a part-time project management expert, I contributed to various activities of a project management office.
Project Management Office Goals:
• Assist the company's transformation from team extension services towards high-value offerings, such as custom software development.
• Increase the effectiveness of the project managers' work.
• Support the company's ISO 9001 certification.
My Contributions:
• Created a "runbook" on project estimation, which covered the effort, schedule, and budget estimation of IT projects.
• Composed a "runbook" on risk management.
• Tailored a PMBOK-based project management methodology that described mandatory processes grouped in process groups. It was supported with an extensive template library for project artifacts covering the whole IT project management cycle from project charter to change log, risk log, and so on.
• Built a template library that also included a description of 20+ suggested metrics along with Excel-based charts.
• Authored training on quality management for Agile software development projects.
Commercial Proposals for Service Providers in Auto and Telecom Industries
http://www.intellias.comCoordinated the elaboration of commercial proposals and RFI/RFP responses to Tier 1 and 2 service providers in the automotive and telecom industries.
As project and delivery manager, I coordinated technical teams on the elaboration of commercial proposals aimed at various IT services, including:
• developing custom web-based applications
• migrating from on-premise to public clouds
• provisioning on-site dedicated development teams
ERM Solution
http://www.getmetis.com/Launched from scratch a Scrum team for a UK-based startup and coordinated the delivery of an MVP that exceeded the customer's expectations concerning the timeline and quality.
TEAM SIZE: Ten Engineers
The client was a UK-based startup aiming to launch a SaaS platform for corporate planning and performance management. The key objective was to develop a reliable management instrument to help small- and mid-size companies to collect corporate data, track performance, monitor projects, manage and control people, time, and funds in the most intelligent way.
A special focus was put on the development of a feature-rich user interface and advanced user experience. This included developing the API, front end, database, mobile website, and web app.
Initial preparation (feature list, low-fidelity wireframes) was done by the customer, and I launched the Scrum team and linked the team to customer reps located in the UK and Australia. We were also in charge of UX/UI development, coding, testing, deployment, and infrastructure support.
At the initial stage, I also trained the development team and customer representatives on working with Scrum and successfully launched Scrum-based development with all the prescribed roles and events. Later, I contributed to the polishing of requirements (customer's responsibility) and elaboration and prioritization of user stories.
1-week Outdoor Gathering with 2,500 Participants
Coordinated a 15-team committee, and within nine months, organized a 1-week outdoor scout gathering for 2,500 participants.
Being a member of the Ukrainian Scout Organization "Plast" since 1993, in 2011-2012, I served as a project director for a 1-week outdoor gathering (i.e., a jamboree), hosting 2,500 participants for the celebration of the organization's 100th anniversary.
Having joined the project at the very early stages, I organized a steering committee comprising 15 volunteers, each managing a separate service such as camping, entertainment, transportation, catering, etc. Being quite restricted in time, in nine months, we successfully mapped it out, which involved alignment on success criteria with project stakeholders, the definition of goals, and detailed planning for each of the 15 teams, along with preparing for and eventually handling the event.
During the 1-week event, about 500 volunteers were involved; this is the organization's size that I managed.
Web Portal | Pro Bono Work
http://www.plast.org.uaLaunched and supported a versatile web portal in times when WordPress and Facebook did not even exist.
For more than a decade, I've done pro-bono development and hosting administration of my scout organization's web portal. Starting as a website for the local unit, eventually, the project was recognized as a country-level organization's official internet representation.
For many years, the portal served as the primary communication hub for the members of my organization. It provided a wide range of services, including:
• news feed
• knowledge base and articles repository
• forum (phpBB-based)
• photo gallery (Coppermine-based)
• online shop
• mailing lists
Although the obtained skills and knowledge were never commercialized directly, they make me feel fluent when addressing challenges in the information technology realm.
Education
Graduate Degree in Business Analysis
Lviv IT School - Lviv, Ukraine
Master's Degree in Economics and Management
Lviv Polytechnic National University - Lviv, Ukraine
Certifications
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
SAFe 4 Agilist
Scaled Agile, Inc.
Skills
Tools
Jira, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Confluence, Google Sheets, Trello, Google Docs, Google Slides, PM2, PhpBB, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft PowerPoint, Splunk
Paradigms
Scrum, Agile Software Development, Change Management, Agile Project Management, Kanban, BPMN, PMBOK, Lean
Platforms
Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure
Other
Project Management, IT Project Management, Scope Management, Schedule Management, Budget Management, Quality Management, Risk Management, Program Management, Project Estimation, Status Updates, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Agile Program Management, RACI, Finance, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), People Management, Request for Proposal (RFP), Business Analysis, IT Business Analysis, Business Process Modeling, PHP, MySQL, Coppermine, Presales, Request for Information (RFI), Software Implementation, Key User Support, IT Service Management (ITSM), ITIL, Recruitment, Sourcing, Office Support, Human Resources (HR), Events, Legal, Market Research, Consulting, Management Consulting, Due Diligence, Feasibility Studies, IT Support, Web Programming, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Recipes & Cooking, Motivation, Stakeholder Management, IT Program Management
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