Philippe Lambert, Project Manager in Casablanca, Grand Casablanca, Morocco
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Philippe Lambert

Verified Expert  in Project Management

Project Manager

Location
Casablanca, Grand Casablanca, Morocco
Toptal Member Since
June 5, 2020

Philippe is a certified senior IT program and project manager with over 20 years’ experience in IT and a combined technical/business analysis background. Using both agile and waterfall, Philippe is particularly proficient in managing complex projects with multicultural teams, including eCommerce and eGov digital projects, large custom development projects, and challenging integration projects. Philippe works as a freelancer because it drives him to constantly innovate and give his best.

Project Highlights

Integrated Sales Information System for Moroccan Railroads with CRM, BI and Yield Management
As a program manager, I successfully completed this $20 million railroad sales information system project with 80 contributors and ten sub-contractors, big bang deployment resulting in 1,000 end users and 100,000 tickets sold per day.
Train Ticket eCommerce Site with WordPress CMS, Supporting Exponential Growth of Online Sales
This eCommerce site allowed Moroccan Railroads to grow its online sales exponentially while launching its high-speed trains. I managed and deployed several versions of the eCommerce website, using scrum and several technical teams.
Mail Sorting Automation - Integrating software with industrial Machines | AI Postcode Recognition
Program completed below budget, now used for nearly all mass-mailing in Morocco. I managed from tender to production the mail sorting automation program for the Moroccan Post, integrating industrial machines, vendor software, and custom code.

Expertise

Work Experience

Freelance Program Manager | Agile Project Manager | Senior Business Analyst

2014 - PRESENT
Moroccan Railroads (ONCF)
  • Completed a US $20 million railroad sales information system project with 80 contributors and ten sub-contractors, with a big bang deployment, 1,000 end-users, and 100,000 tickets sold per day.
  • Converted a large program from Waterfall to Agile, using scrum, daily meetings, Jira and Trello Kanban tables, speeding up releases to production and improving team morale. Structured documentation and workflows with SharePoint and Office 365.
  • Deployed several releases of the responsive eCommerce website for train ticket sales (https://www.oncf-voyages.ma), using WordPress and React, to support an exponential increase in online sales. Acted as the scrum master of this module.
  • Managed from requirements to production the core sales system custom development project involving several teams and a very challenging relationship with one major subcontractor. Developed with Microsoft .NET, SSIS, and T-SQL on SQL Server.
  • Assisted as a business analyst to specify the customer loyalty application for custom development. Used UML and Pencil for wireframes.
  • Managed the specification, personalization, and implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 365 on premises, with an SSIS interface to the core sales system to support marketing campaigns.
  • Managed the yield/revenue management project, to optimize the number of seats within each price bucket. Based on BlueYonder's (previously JDA) RPO (Rail Price Optimizer). Involved close remote collaboration with distributed teams.
  • Supervised the business intelligence project and its integration with the core sales system, using Microsoft BI, including SSIS and SSRS, and QlikSense.
  • Managed and supervised several training projects for (up to 1,000) end-users and technical staff, involving in-house, partner, and freelance trainers, and several full-remote training sessions (WordPress, Dynamics CRM).
  • Scoped and organized the change management project with specialized consultants to prepare end users for both the new system and the new pricing/sales principles. Included interviews, presentations, training, and publications.

Professional Services Unit Manager | Web Project Manager

2013 - 2013
Archos Technology
  • Led a team of 40 developers, QA testers, and technical project managers on a portfolio of custom development, web portals (Microsoft SharePoint, Drupal, PHP), and business intelligence projects.
  • Managed a web portal project for the Ministry of Finance (www.finances.gov.ma), with my team and with freelance experts. The portal is in four languages and based on Microsoft SharePoint.
  • Participated in several RFP responses for projects with public administrations and insurance companies.

Program Manager | Senior Project Manager | Senior Business Analyst

2009 - 2012
BULL Morocco
  • Managed a multi-year mail sorting automation program for the Moroccan Post, involving custom development (Microsoft .NET), vendor software, and industrial machines. Projects completed within budget and on, or before schedule.
  • Integrated multicultural teams (Japan, USA, Europe, Morocco) and successfully managed the interaction between the local customer and foreign suppliers.
  • Managed end user and technical training and hired a training methodology expert to optimize the training approach.
  • Managed an online income tax return and payment portal for the Moroccan Tax Administration. The project's budget was 3,000 man-days with a 9-person team. Built as a custom Java enterprise, integrating EDI data transfers, and online payment.
  • Managed third-party maintenance for the information system of the Moroccan Tax Administration, with a 12-person team. Built as a custom Java enterprise with an Oracle database. Included the incremental country-wide deployment of the system.
  • Coached several junior project managers, showing them in particular how to understand the forces at play in the project, and figure out practical solutions and compromises.
  • Assisted as a senior business analyst, specifying an online registration module for the Tax Administration, using UML and Microsoft Visio for wireframes.

Manager of the Offshore Software Development Center

2007 - 2009
BULL Morocco
  • Created an offshore development center for Bull projects in Europe and the United States, including team recruitment, software tools configuration, and definition of processes.
  • Managed the 20-person team and their assignments; one team of J2EE developers working for Bull France and on local projects, and one team of freelance telecommunication billing experts working for Orange in Africa.
  • Conducted responses to offshore and local RFPs, including offshore sourcing tenders by large corporations in France.

Technical Project Manager | Business Analyst | Product Manager | Technical Designer

2002 - 2007
BULL Morocco
  • Managed the development and deployment of the central taxpayer database for the Moroccan Tax Administration, including data migration from a mainframe system. The project's budget was 2,500 man-days with a 20-person team, on a J2EE/Oracle platform.
  • Acted as business analyst, participated in the high-level software design process for the Tax Administration Information System, using IT "urbanization" techniques (defining the system's high level architecture as if it was a city).
  • Managed the detailed specifications of the rule engine for tax calculation, the central reference database and the data exchange with external systems, using UML with a team of four junior business analysts.
  • Managed the Tariff Engine product for Moroccan Customs, including data migration, production environment setup, and training. Collaborated with the vendor in China to adapt the product, and directly handled several technical tasks.
  • Managed one module of the payroll system project for the Moroccan government employees and military. The module included software design and development of payment and accounting modules, using Oracle Forms.

Presales Engineer | Software Trainer | Remote Web Developer

2001 - 2002
Mediapps
  • Performed technical consulting missions, sales demos, and training sessions throughout Europe on Mediapps' proprietary software for building enterprise portals, on Java, Microsoft IIS, and Lotus platforms.
  • Acted as a technical coordinator for partner companies in Germany, Benelux, Italy and Spain, assisting with the sales and configuration of the product.
  • Developed the web information portal for the German company DKV Euro Service, working remotely from Morocco, using the Java Server Pages (JSP) technology.

Document Management Expert | Java Developer

1999 - 2000
Steria
  • Provided product expertise and technical assistance in the design and deployment of a Documentum (now OpenText) enterprise content management system for France Telecom (now Orange), aimed at structuring all software documentation.
  • Designed training material and performed end-user training on pilot customer sites throughout France.
  • Programmed in Java for the European Customs, creating a secure Internet-based system to fight counterfeiting.

Business Analyst | Software Designer | VB Developer | ECM Technical Expert

1997 - 1999
DECAN (French Software SMB) for the United Nations, NY, USA
  • Designed a Documentum/Oracle document management system for the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, to store all international treaties and to produce SGML/XML-based publications made available on the UN website (treaties.un.org).
  • Developed in Visual Basic the customization of the document management system, to automatically OCR and integrate scanned documents, and automatically generate XML files loaded into Adobe FrameMaker.
  • Gained a beneficial initial work experience on how to get things done within a large and complex organization, how to work within a multicultural environment, and on achieving high-quality standards for official publications.

Integrated Sales Information System for Moroccan Railroads with CRM, BI and Yield Management

As a program manager, I successfully completed this $20 million railroad sales information system project with 80 contributors and ten sub-contractors, big bang deployment resulting in 1,000 end users and 100,000 tickets sold per day.

Functional scope of the program: Ticket sales in train stations and online/mobile, onboard inspection, BI, customer relationship management (CRM), and yield/revenue management.

Responsibilities included program oversight, functional architecture overview, project plan management, recruiting, coordination of vendors and sub-contractors, risk mitigation, contract and scope management, budget/cost control, quality control, metrics/KPIs reporting. Transitioned the program from Waterfall to Agile using scrum, stand-up meetings, Jira and Trello Kanbans.
Development tools: Microsoft .NET, T-SQL, SSRS, SSIS, Azure Cloud, AWS.
The program also included many end-user functional and technical training, a change management project, and the creation of extensive technical and functional documentation.

Train Ticket eCommerce Site with WordPress CMS, Supporting Exponential Growth of Online Sales

https://www.oncf-voyages.ma

This eCommerce site allowed Moroccan Railroads to grow its online sales exponentially while launching its high-speed trains. I managed and deployed several versions of the eCommerce website, using scrum and several technical teams.

The current version is built with React, uses WordPress as a headless CMS, and integrates with the core sales system through SOAP web services. The project included performance testing (with GTmetrix) and optimization, responsive testing (with BrowserStack), and security testing.

Mail Sorting Automation - Integrating software with industrial Machines | AI Postcode Recognition

Program completed below budget, now used for nearly all mass-mailing in Morocco. I managed from tender to production the mail sorting automation program for the Moroccan Post, integrating industrial machines, vendor software, and custom code.

The integration projects were executed in collaboration with partners in Japan, the USA, and Europe. I successfully integrated these multicultural teams and managed the interaction between the local customer and these foreign suppliers. The projects included AI for automatically determining the postal code on envelope pictures, which was particularly challenging in a context in which postal codes aren't widely used, and addresses are loosely structured. Extensive learning was necessary and resulted in a very high recognition rate. We also included UX-optimized video coding software allowing technicians to quickly determine the postal code on envelope pictures, plus the associated user training.

eGov: Online Income Tax Return and Payment Portal

Successfully managed the implementation of the online income tax return and payment portal for the Moroccan Tax Administration, while meeting the challenge of optimizing it for very high demand during peak days. Now in production and widely used.

I managed the project life-cycle from functional specifications to acceptance testing and acted as the business analyst for the registration module, using the UML methodology and Microsoft Visio for wireframes. The module developed based on these specifications and is currently used in production. The portal was created in French and Arabic. The system uses EDI data transfer with partners. I also created a web-based communication package for the portal end-users with a specialized web design firm.

Tax Administration Core Information System - Taxpayer Database and Data Migration

Managed the custom specifications, implementation, acceptance, and production deployment of the first release of the software, then later managed the third-party maintenance for the whole system as well as its country-wide deployment.

The first release of the system included the central taxpayer database and the extensive and complex data migration from the previous system (mainframe) to the new one. The project was executed with a 20-person team and a 2,500 man-days budget. I managed the third-party maintenance phase for the complete system with a 12-person team and the progressive country-wide deployment of the system.
Technologies used were Java Enterprise and Oracle.

Customs Tariff Engine - Business Analysis, Customization, Training, and Deployment

Successfully managed the implementation of the tariff system for Moroccan Customs, including the configuration of vendor software, data migration, production environment setup, and user training. Deployed it into production.

This project covered the implementation of the tariff system for Moroccan Customs and its deployment into production, integrating a specialized software product. I handled the business analysis of the customs’ tax system and regulations, the software's technical implementation, software customization with the editor in China, customer training, customer support, and management of the data migration sub-project. The core calculation engine was entirely reprogrammed in C by the vendor to meet the systems load and speed constraints.

Multilingual Information Portal for the Ministry of Finance

Within a very tight schedule, I successfully managed the implementation of a multilingual information portal for the Moroccan Ministry of Finance based on Microsoft SharePoint.

With a team of ten developers and technical experts, the project consisted of creating a new version of the Ministry of Finance's information portal. The portal uses Microsoft SharePoint as its CMS and supports several languages, including Arabic.

Document Management System for the Publication of all United Nations International Treaties

http://treaties.un.org

Specified, developed, and launched the UN's EMS to shorten the international treaty workflow from multiple years down to months.

For the United Nations' Office of Legal Affairs, this system stores all international treaties and produces SGML/XML-based publications made available on the UN website. I designed the Documentum/Oracle document management system and developed in Visual Basic the customization of the document management system to automatically OCR and integrate scanned documents, and to automatically generate XML files loaded into Adobe FrameMaker.

eLearning course for software testers

Created and published an eLearning course to help software testers prepare for the ISTQB Foundation certification, based on Moodle, Adobe Captivate and WordPress.

This 8-hour online course was meant for software testers preparing for the ISTQB Foundation certification. Created with Powerpoint and Adobe Captivate and integrated into Moodle, it was published on a WordPress/WooCommerce site and publicized using Google Adwords. The course was composed of slides with voice-over, quizzes and test exams. In addition to the online content, a physical card deck was produced as an educational game add-on.
1994 - 1997

Master's Degree in Computer Science

TelecomParis, France - Paris, France

JUNE 2018 - PRESENT

Professional Scrum Master (PSM I)

Scrum.org

DECEMBER 2015 - PRESENT

ISTQB Software Testing - Foundation Level

ISTQB

NOVEMBER 2011 - NOVEMBER 2016

PRINCE2 Practitioner

APMG-International

JANUARY 2006 - JANUARY 2022

Project Management Professional

PMI

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