Michael Rapson
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Toptal member since May 27, 2020
Michael is an experienced business and technology professional who has facilitated and led high-functioning teams to deliver consistent quality. He is known for working collaboratively across levels and constituencies to solve problems through the effective use of systems and technology. Michael's passion and drive to see innovative solutions released quickly to market by leading teams to deliver high-quality outputs make him an asset to jobs requiring experience, excellence, and reliability.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Agile Project Management
- Architecture
- Early-stage Startups
- Fintech
- Startup Accelerators
- Startup Consulting
- Startups
Work Experience
Co-founder
UmbrellaX, Inc
- Set up the agile methodology for the project on the Atlassian product. Led the team to design, build, and integrate a digital marketplace for digital games on AWS with Stripe integration for both sellers and buyers.
- Managed a geographically dispersed team of freelancers to successfully design, build, and release a mobile game on both Android and Apple using the Unity Game Engine, including in-app advertising and leaderboards.
- Tracked and resolved identified risks, issues, and dependencies that could impact successful development and delivery of new software releases.
Technical Management Consultant
Multinational Labour Company
- Supported management during the transitioning of the VP of technology.
- Provided management with improvements to their Agile process and methodology and IT team members.
- Supported the implementation of a password manager to improve security while enabling team members access to manage and maintain the cloud infrastructure.
Technical Project Manager
Accounting Startup
- Managed a large team focused on developing an accounting solution for the client over 12 weeks.
- Led the discovery stage with a core team, including a designer, tech lead, and data scientist, to define and document requirements for the MVP.
- Managed the team using Jira and Confluence with daily standups split across three teams to manage quality and timeframes.
- Worked closely with the client to keep backlog updated and relevant, which allowed the team to focus on delivering a high-quality product with minimal impacts to waste or rework due to changes during the sprints.
Technical Project Manager
Social Media Platform
- Worked with the client to define the tech stack and project timelines based on their initial wireframes and requirements.
- Drafted role descriptions for a designer, back- and front-end developers, and interviewed the developers.
- Collaborated with a cross-functional remote team to ensure that the project remained on track and any issues identified were analyzed and resolved promptly.
- Met with multiple SaaS solutions integrated into the platform to provide core capabilities, such as chat, email, and authentication. Reduced the number of custom components to be built while ensuring that the required functionality was met.
Technical Project Manager
Build with Rebase
- Managed and facilitated end-to-end Scrum process to ensure high-quality outcomes at the end of each sprint.
- Defined and documented detailed technical stack including justifying the technology decisions by weighing the pros and cons against potential alternatives.
- Prepared roadmap to beta, and successfully launched closed beta in under three months!
Agile Technical Project Manager
Support Pilot
- Provided project management capability to an international team focused on building an MVP as a Zendesk challenger over four weeks.
- Set up and implemented Jira, Slack, and Confluence to enable a follow-the-sun development capability.
- Provided technical specifications for integration into Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce, and Gmail.
- Provided recommendations on the technical stack that would deliver the best outcome.
Agile Project Manager
Freelance
- Worked closely with senior stakeholders to define and create project plans and deliverables to maximize the quality of delivery aligned to contractual obligations.
- Leveraged my experience in work programs, including loan origination at three financial institutes to provide business, data, and integration analysis, architecture, project management, and a clear set of tasks and deliverables.
- Set up an agile framework, leveraging an Atlassian-based toolset integrated into Slack to provide real-time collaboration.
- Reported directly to the Chief Operating Officer. Responsible for leading a cross-functional team involved in designing, developing, maintaining, and continuously improving processes across the organization.
- Implemented an organization-wide process repository tool.
- Led the delivery of operational reporting to facilitate the new loan origination system and adhere to regulatory compliance obligations.
- Led the data analysis aspect of the new loan origination solution, working closely with internal and external stakeholders, including off-shore vendors.
- Facilitated scrum meetings and formal brainstorming sessions and managed business requirements, documents, and requirements traceability.
- Provided technical leadership, including architecture integration designs for REST and SOAP service messages, working with two cross-functional technical teams, containing developers, testers, and analysts for a hybrid mobile banking app.
Project History
An Agile-based Help Desk
Launched an agile-based help desk in four weeks, from discovery to MVP.
Led an international team to build an agile (Kanban) help desk, including setting up Confluence and Jira, facilitating workshops, capturing requirements, and recommending the tech stack as well as scrum principals.
We delivered the MVP+, which included core functionality and shortcodes that enabled agents to quickly add predefined answers similar to CMS, like WordPress. Integrations included: Zendesk, Slack, and Gmail. A consolidated inbox was implemented to provide a single view of all tickets regardless of the channel so agents could respond to emails or Slack messages from the same screen. A fully functional Kanban board allowed managers and supervisors to prioritize ticket backlog and agents to focus on the most important tickets.
Startup for Retail Property Millennial App
Launched and managed from ideation through to successful release into production with monthly releases.
This was a startup for a property app integrated with a broker. It was launched and managed from ideation to successful release into production with monthly releases. Managed and led a team of 12 over two years to build a hybrid mobile app.
Digital Peer-to-Peer Marketplace
Led a team to design and build an MVP digital peer-to-peer marketplace
Set up the Agile methodology for the project on the Atlassian product. Led the team to design, build, and integrate a digital-game marketplace on AWS with Stripe integration for sellers and buyers.
2D Mobile Game
Launched and managed the successful release of a 2D-mobile game using Unity Engine. Continued to support fortnightly releases for three months post-release, adding additional capabilities, such as an online leaderboard and an interactive tutorial.
Managed a geographically dispersed team of freelancers to successfully design, build, and release a mobile game on both Android and Apple using the Unity Game Engine, including in-app advertising and leaderboards.
Mobile Banking App
Provided technical leadership, including architecture integration designs for REST and SOAP service messages, working with two cross-functional technical teams containing developers, testers, and analysts for a hybrid mobile banking app.
Managed the technical implementation of the mobile banking backlog, working closely with the product owner to deliver new features, using Scrum focused on quarterly releases. Managed technical features across two cross-functional teams of developers, analysts, and testers. The mobile banking app was built using an industry-leading hybrid framework for iOS and Android.
Social Media Platform for Founders
Worked with a client to define the tech stack and then hired a designer and developers; leveraged SaaS solutions to provide core functionality, such as auth, email, and chat, reducing the time to go live.
A social media platform for startup founders. I defined the tech stack necessary to deliver a platform that met my client’s requirements and then hired and managed the designer and front- and back-end developers to execute the project. I optimized the budget and timelines by sequencing resources to start only once the work became available, with the designer first, the back-end developer, and finally, the front-end developer.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Informatics
University of South Africa - South Africa
Certifications
COBIT 5
COBIT
Skills
Tools
Jira, Confluence, Slack, Visio, Zoom, Figma, Salesforce, Intuit QuickBooks, Auth0
Paradigms
Agile Project Management, Scrum, Kanban, Agile, Agile Product Management, Requirements Analysis, UX Design, COBIT, TOGAF
Industry Expertise
Banking & Finance, Startup Accelerators, Architecture, Games
Platforms
iOS, Android, Blockchain, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Webflow, Zendesk, Azure, WooCommerce
Other
Mobile Apps, Mobile Banking, Mobile, Workshop Facilitation, Discovery, Product Discovery, Technical Project Management, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Discovery Workshops, APIs, Cost Estimation, Project Estimation, Project Timelines, Technical Leadership, User Stories, Process Design, Mortgages, Project Discovery, Project Management, Product Owner, Web Applications, Fintech, Startups, Early-stage Startups, IT Projects, Business Analysis, Startup Consulting, Business Requirements, Functional Requirements, Game Design, Teams, Unity, Discord, React, React Native, CI/CD Pipelines, Node.js, GraphQL, API Integration, Budget Management, Lucidchart, eCommerce, Stripe, HTML5, Helpdesk, Gmail, Desktop Support, Property Management, Management Consulting, Strategy, 2D Games, Consulting, Digital Transformation, Business Architecture, Target Operating Models, MVP Design, Prototyping, Data Analytics, User Experience (UX), Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
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