Chris is available for hire

Chris Sykes

Verified Expert in Project Management

Project Manager

Location

Madison, WI, United States

Toptal Member Since

May 29, 2020

Chris is a passionate agile practitioner who believes in the power of a motivated team to achieve amazing things together and build fantastic software solutions. As a waterfall project management trained professional who went agile early in his career, Chris sees the benefits of having someone who is focused on clarifying the big picture while facilitating collaboration between customers and project team to drive project success.

Jira Scrum Agile Project Management Web Technical Project Management Agile Leadership Kanban Jira Administrator

Project Highlights

API Integration Management Program

Designed and led a program for managing and delivering web API integration projects for a global manufacturing company.

Web-based Software Update Platform for IoT Devices

Led an agile team to rewrite a software update platform that updated IoT device software on a global scale.

Expertise

Agile Leadership Agile Project Management Discovery Workshops Jira Product Development Scrum Technical Project Management Trello

Work Experience

Product Owner

2019 - 2020

Entegral

Defined the vision and direction for the company's flagship SaaS offering.
Served as a product owner in a team to prioritize the backlog, lead the team through bug fixes, as well as provide roadmap and vision for the future of the product.
Negotiated a work management process with customer support and the development team maintaining the product they supported.
Utilized SMART objectives to facilitate measurable outcomes to strive for the development of the product my team worked on.
Performed user-acceptance testing on all all user stories to assure quality before deploying the work.
Regularly refined backlog to remove any unnecessary user stories to keep the team focused on the highest business value work.
Led a development team workshop strategizing how to lift the company's flagship SaaS product to the GCP platform from the legacy architecture it was on.
Partnered with the scrum master to help the team define the working agreements and definition of done.
Partnered with Scrum Master to help coach the team to grow into a high-performing team.
Prioritized product backlog to balance to accommodate technical debt and customer requests.

Agile Project Manager

2016 - 2019

Johnson Health Tech

Mediated the relationship between a development team and a key stakeholder to improve trust and constructive communication.
Provided servant leadership to a scrum team to drive better self organization and growth into a high-performing team.
Designed and implemented a process for managing a new API integration program alongside a development team.
Worked with international third-party clients to deliver API integrations on time as agreed in a statement of work.
Balanced multiple projects while leading teams through the scrum process.
Coached personnel in the organization how to leverage scrum and agile best practices.
Built relationships between other engineering departments and my own department to drive better collaboration on software.
Facilitated requirements gathering workshops with engineers and stakeholders.
Presented new ideas and approaches about project management to the upper management team.
Led teams with remote engineers as well as co-located engineers.

Co-op IT Project Manager

2015 - 2016

Sub Zero Group

Helped to establish project management documentation best practices in the IT department.
Contributed to the development of a new process for completing proof-of-concept projects to vet new tools and software for IT.
Developed mitigation strategies for identified project risks and performed risk analysis identified risks.
Collaborated with vendors and assured statement of work on contracts was adhered to.
Utilized Microsoft Project to manage projects, resources, and scope.

Graduate Assistant in Project Management

2014 - 2015

University of Wisconsin-Platteville Distance Learning Center

Managed a project that implemented ImageNow software to help the campus transition to a fully digital record-keeping strategy.
Developed and managed project timelines to deliver the scope on time.
Communicated with stakeholders and the project team to assure that the project was focused on the correct work at the correct time.
Leveraged project management best practices to define a business case for a database improvement project.

Project History

API Integration Management Program

Designed and led a program for managing and delivering web API integration projects for a global manufacturing company.

I was tasked with taking over integration projects that allowed third-party clients to integrate web APIs to send and receive specific data for their applications and customers using our IoT devices. The program needed to serve clients around the globe, and remote engagements were necessary for all projects to run through the program.

I was the agile project manager in charge of establishing a standard practice for all projects, as well as negotiating the schedule and scope for the project after the product management team completed the initial discovery. I then worked with a small team to build and deliver the scope alongside our third-party partner.

Much of the integrations involved RESTful APIs and testing them out on devices to ensure we met the quality standards of our clients. I led both my team as well as the client's personnel to build their part of the integration effort.

Web-based Software Update Platform for IoT Devices

Led an agile team to rewrite a software update platform that updated IoT device software on a global scale.

I led an effort to rewrite an enterprise software program that was utilized by engineers to test and deliver developed software updates to IoT devices around the world that customers had bought. I worked directly with key stakeholders and the development team to gather the project requirements, establish a timeline for the project, and build a project backlog to work through until the product was fully released.
I led discovery exercises, such as story mapping and goal development for the project. I also worked with the team to estimate the user stories and epics that came out of requirements gathering to form an MVP for the product. As the team built out functionality in the MVP, we demonstrated it to our internal customers to gain their feedback to incorporate into the product.
The final result was a lightweight, web-based application that managed the deployment of software updates across the various environments that the engineers built them in. Cycle times for updates were reduced and quality of updates increased as a result of the more simple, streamlined experience the application's UI offered as well as its more robust performance utilizing RESTful API architecture.