Kelly is available for hire

Kelly Provost

Verified Expert in Project Management

Project Manager

Location

Columbus, OH, United States

Toptal Member Since

April 25, 2019

Kelly's 20+ years of experience as a project manager and business analyst allow her to balance project details with strategic direction. She can effectively work with all members of the functional and executive teams to maximize value. Kelly has participated in multiple Agile transformations across large enterprises and smaller companies and can help bridge the gap between traditional project expectations and Agile-delivered value.

Project Highlights

BMW Financials: Regional IT Alignment

Led multiple teams in a program to bring all North and South American countries onto one set of systems.

Ohio Department of Commerce: Licensing System

Led discovery, design, and development of a licensing system. Managed the Agile transformation for Dept. of Commerce.

IGS Energy: Offshore Contact Center Set-up

Managed local and remote teams in setting up the company's first offshore contact center.

Expertise

Agile Coaching Agile Project Management Business Analysis Jira Administrator Remote Work Consulting Scrum Master Stakeholder Management Vendor Management

Work Experience

Project Manager | Agile Coach

2019 - PRESENT

Toptal Clients

Functioned as a project manager, scrum master, agile coach, or other flexible roles as needed by clients.
Managed projects and project prioritization with both internal teams and vendors, as needed by clients.
Enabled client team members to function more effectively by increasing the effectiveness of the project pipeline.
Provided recommendations for project process improvements.
Advised on tools and administration to support new processes.
Functioned as a Jira administrator managing workflows, integrations, automation, and reporting.
Functioned as a liaison between globally dispersed teams and team members.

Project Manager | Scrum Master | Business Analyst

2018 - 2019

Ohio Department of Commerce

Functioned as a PM, SM, and BA for a new liquor permitting system; ran sprint planning, retrospectives, daily stand-ups, and sprint to plan metrics to management.
Managed all aspects of the project including requirements, development, testing, migration, training, and pilot roll-out.
Led prioritization, sprint retrospectives, and process improvements.
Provided dashboards and metrics on velocity and resource capacity.
Created and led presentations on project direction and status to management.
Used JIRA and Confluence to feed a development process utilizing Azure DevOps.
Led the client Agile transformation including training and coaching for all roles.
Designed department-wide agile and documentation processes.
Configured and administered JIRA and Confluence for the department.

Project Manager | Scrum Master | Business Analyst

2015 - 2018

BMW Financial Services

Functioned as PM, scrum master, and BA for a multi-million dollar international project for a large financial services organization and for an interdepartmental government project.
Wrote user stories, acceptance criteria, test cases, and user documentation and training for both new internally developed and customized, packaged applications.
Facilitated the client shift from waterfall to agile methodology.
Managed large-scale data migration to the new systems.
Led prioritization, sprint retrospectives, and process improvements.
Functioned as SME on integrations with other apps and agile teams.
Provided dashboards and metrics on velocity and resource capacity.
Created and led presentations on project direction and status to an international audience.
Used JIRA and Confluence to feed teams working on SAP, .Net, and Core.
Used HP ALM for testing, test management, and tracking.

Business Analyst

2014 - 2015

Infor

Functioned as a business analyst, QA, and pre-sales for a new cloud-based application for Contract Lifecycle Management that integrated with several other cloud applications.
Managed prioritization of requirements in the backlog.
Wrote user stories, acceptance criteria, test cases, end-user documentation, and end-user and internal training. Scripted demos for prospective customers.
Functioned as SME on integrations with other cloud apps to be able to test end to end across implementations and make recommendations and best practices to customers.
Guided requirements and UI flows to be responsive for desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Project Manager | Business Analyst

2012 - 2014

Thirty-One

Functioned as a business analyst, project manager, program manager, and QA for the sales and events IT team.
Managed IT priorities within each department and across departments.
Led IT team on high profile projects including three annual sales conventions hosting over 20,000 sales consultants across two countries.
Wrote user stories, acceptance criteria, test cases, end-user documentation, and communications to the business on changes including impacts, timing, and associated process changes.
Functioned as IT liaison for the business owners within sales, marketing, operations, and the contact center, handling application development, infrastructure, and vendor projects as well as internal business process improvement.
Managed velocity, iteration, and resources planning for all efforts including large projects, enhancements, and production support.
Used TFS for requirements tracking and traceability.

Project Manager | Business Analyst

2007 - 2012

IGS Energy

Functioned as a scrum master, business analyst, and team lead, managing IT priorities within and across multiple departments including high-profile projects such as setting up a contact center in Manila, Philippines.
Wrote user stories, acceptance criteria, and test cases for a team of up to 15 developers and five QA.
Wrote end-user documentation and communications to the business on changes including impacts, timing, and associated process changes.
Functioned as IT liaison for the contact center, handling application development, infrastructure, and vendor projects as well as internal business process improvement.
Managed velocity, iteration planning, and sprint burndown for each iteration including large projects, enhancements, and production support.
Used TFS for requirements, traceability, and bug tracking.

Business Analyst

2006 - 2007

Sterling Commerce (now IBM)

Represented business user interests in the enterprise data warehouse, analyzing and testing requirement.
Managed team priorities, by function, around projects, enhancements and bug fixes.
Led end-user training efforts on both new users and upgrades and enhancements to the data warehouse and its tools; created appropriate documentation.
Identified, assessed, and documented business requirements, recommending business priorities, and advising the business on options, risks, and costs.
Analyzed impact of proposed solutions across the business and contribute a business or process perspective during design reviews.
Developed a data warehouse-specific testing process with appropriate documentation and ensure its application throughout all projects, enhancements and bug fixes.

Project Manager | Business Analyst

2003 - 2006

J.P. Morgan Chase

Served as liaison between IT and business.
Conducted business process modeling and locate process improvements.
Identified, assessed, and documented business requirements, recommending business priorities, and advised business on options, risks, and costs.
Analyzed impact of proposed solution across the business, develop use cases to explain/demonstrate business requirements/specifications to IT team and contribute a business or process perspective during design reviews.
Facilitated implementation of new functionality through training sessions, demos, and the development of appropriate documentation.

Business Analyst

2002 - 2003

Paros Business Partners

Served as liaison between IT and business, analyzing and communicating requirements.
Conducted business process modeling. Identified, assessed, and documented requirements, recommended priorities, and advised on options, risks, and costs.
Analyzed impact of proposed solution across the business, develop use cases to explain/demonstrate business requirements/specifications to IT team and contribute a business or process perspective during design reviews.
Developed and executed test plans, test scenarios, system integration test scripts, and ensure testing results correspond to the business expectations.

Project History

BMW Financials: Regional IT Alignment

Led multiple teams in a program to bring all North and South American countries onto one set of systems.

Discovery:
Performed analysis of the systems used within the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Made recommendations on a regional alignment approach.

RFP Process:
Worked through the proposal process and vendor selection. Settled on a split approach for in house development of a CRM and a packages solution using SAP for accounting.

Project:
I functioned as project manager for CRM and data migration projects as well as the scrum master and business analyst for several agile teams building the CRM and customizing SAP.

Project Administration:
Set up Jira and Confluence for program documentation and processes. Set recommendations and standards for the organization of Confluence and workflow of cards through Jira.

Project Rescue:
A development team on a parallel project was behind. I worked on the analysis of situation and end goals and created a plan to get functions released to production as quickly as possible with minimal churn to the customer.

Ohio Department of Commerce: Licensing System

Led discovery, design, and development of a licensing system. Managed the Agile transformation for Dept. of Commerce.

This project created a new cloud-based licensing system including notifications, workflow, and internal and external portals. It also included a data migration from a mainframe. Many manual processes were eliminated internally and we addressed concerns from external customers who did not previously have visibility into the permit approval process and renewals. This project also included integrations with several other government agencies.

This project introduced Agile to the department. I set up Jira and Confluence, designed standards, and documented best practices for using them. I trained the project management office, product owners, and developers on Agile and coached them through the process using the project as an example.

Thirty-one Gifts: Annual Conventions

Directed the IT events team in support of large sales convention.

Managed an IT team on high profile events projects including three annual sales conventions hosting over 20,000 sales consultants across two countries in two weeks.

We designed and built functionality including:
- Registration: to register users, charge for the events, apply rewards, and let them select specific classes to attend.
- Welcome package build: to assign items to an attendee based on the previous year's performance, provide totals for purchase, organize data, and create pick lists for warehouse fulfillment.
- Badge creation: to assign attendees a barcode and print badges.
- On-site check-in: to check in an attendee, retrieve their welcome packet, and track their check-in for future giveaways.
- Class attendance: to scan badges upon entry for attendance.
- Awards presentation: to use the attendee and attendance data, as well as pre-supplied award data, to generate targeted audience content at awards banquets.

IGS Energy: Offshore Contact Center Set-up

Managed local and remote teams in setting up the company's first offshore contact center.

Managed team members across multiple departments on a project to set up a contact center in Manila, Philippines.

The project included:
- Analysis of current processes to determine the best scope of the remote call center
- Analysis of current systems for the technical feasibility of use overseas
- Creation of to be processes detailed the split and interaction between contact centers
- Creation of new call routing to support multiple call centers
- Creation of documentation related to the split and also specifically for the new call center
- Coordination with new call center vendor to train staff
- Managing the initial cut-over