Prabhath Gunawardhana
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Colombo, Western Province, Sri Lanka
Toptal member since June 15, 2021
Prabhath is a business and technology professional with 13+ years of experience managing IT programs and portfolios, product development, software engineering processes, business strategy development, business process improvement, business intelligence, managed services, production support, and operations. Previous positions include head of an IT business unit, head of delivery, and senior software engineer. Prabath's industry experience is backed by an MBA and a BSc in computer science.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Business Process Improvement (BPI)
- Excel 2016
- Microsoft Project
- Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
- Software Development
- Software Project Management
- Training & Training Content Development
Work Experience
Director Program Management
IFS
- Provided leadership to five Scrum teams with developers, testers, business analysts, and DevOps engineers. Introduced practices on Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and coached the team, ensuring Agile transformation.
- Implemented root cause analysis (RCA) and preventive actions for customer-reported defects to reduce the defect count by 80%.
- Improved team velocity by enhancing and streamlining requirement refinement process, dependency, risk, and action item management.
- Improved the delivery of sprint commitments by improving the estimation accuracy and work log updates.
Delivery Manager
Virtusa
- Led an IT project portfolio ($2 million+), involving 60+ IT professionals, to achieve on-time delivery under tight timelines while meeting budget and quality objectives in banking, finance, and telecommunications domains.
- Developed and maintained strong, long-term relationships with customers, building effective customer engagement and developing new business opportunities.
- Conducted daily scrums calls and weekly delivery reviews to monitor project progress, identify risks and issues, plan mitigation strategies, and identify action items to ensure smooth delivery of software.
- Conducted weekly and fortnightly delivery connects to update internal and external stakeholders on project progress, risks, and issues.
- Participated in steering committee meetings and change control boards.
- Managed the SBU-level financial KPIs by assisting other project managers to ensure that the organization's KPIs for revenue and account margins were met.
Head of Delivery
MVV Information Technology
- Provided executive leadership for the MVV IT global delivery center in Sri Lanka, covering project delivery, client support, finance, HR, and operations.
- Led cross-functionally, bridging gaps among functional teams in manufacturing engineering, sales, and marketing.
- Defined, implemented, and audited industry-standard best practices for software project delivery.
- Played a key role in contract preparation, SLA definitions, and client negotiations.
- Produced reports on delivery, finance, and HR, including budgeting, forecasting, and profit and loss analysis, to the group CEO of MVV International.
Business Unit Head
Camms Group
- Led an IT project portfolio ($1 million+), involving 35+ IT professionals, to achieve on-time delivery under tight timelines while meeting budget and quality objectives in the domain of corporate performance management.
- Managed a project team, using Agile Scrum and Waterfall methodologies to ensure that tight deadlines were met with the highest quality while meeting project margins.
- Drove a 300% increase in revenue and optimized the cost of the product customization division, using Microsoft Project Server, Jira, Sage CRM, and Excel.
- Initiated and implemented project and program management best practices for continuous improvement of project delivery.
- Supported project management teams as a member of the PMO to ensure smooth delivery of projects through supportive, controlling, and directive roles.
- Played a key role in budget and resource planning as a member of the management committee.
Senior Software Engineer
DirectFN
- Planned, executed, and monitored the progress of activities related to an internal change management program.
- Designed and developed tools, using Excel VBA, as part of an internal process implementation program.
- Customized, configured, and maintained the internal project management tool.
- Trained 300+ employees, including the senior management, on the internal project management tool.
- Managed organizational process assets and participated in delivery reviews, process definition, implementation, and audits.
Project History
Credit Application Processing Software
Led a team of 40+ IT professionals through end-to-end software delivery, from presales negotiations to go-live and the hand-off to maintenance.
I led the team of 40+ IT professionals, including business analysts, developers, and testers, through the successful development and delivery of credit application processing software for a private banking arm of a group of companies in Singapore.
My client was based in Singapore and the development team was in Sri Lanka. I used my skills in project planning, execution, monitoring, and control, to ensure successful delivery of the software, following the Waterfall approach. My ability to motivate the team helped us achieve the challenging timeline and expected profit margin while maintaining a solid customer relationship by actively engaging with client stakeholders.
Manufacturing Execution System (MES)
Led a team of 10+ IT professionals to redesign and overhaul the existing application to increase maintainability, scalability, and user-friendliness by adopting new technical architecture and technologies and adding functionalities.
I led a team of 10+ developers, testers, and analysts to redesign the existing application and implement a stream of new functionalities to support customers. While acting as a project manager, I supported the team in developing work estimates, work planning, technical decision-making, and conducting ceremonies while following the Agile Scrum methodology.
I also managed and liaised with the stakeholders, including customer stakeholders in Sweden, the United States, and China, and provided product leadership to internal teams by understanding the clients’ priorities for the functionalities in the backlog.
Online Contract Change
Led a team of 60+ IT professionals through end-to-end software delivery activities, from planning to go-live to the handoff to maintenance.
I led a team of 60+ IT professionals, including business analysts, developers, and testers, to develop and deliver a portal for customer contract changes for a major telecommunications company in the UK.
With my client based in the UK and the development team in Sri Lanka, I established a strong relationship with the client by building their trust in my project team through proactive and clear communications on the delivery, issues, and risks.
I used my extensive knowledge and skills in project planning, monitoring, execution, dependency identification, and risk management throughout the project lifecycle to complete this complex and challenging engagement on time and with the highest quality. We followed the Agile methodology, and I used scrum of scrums to discuss any issues and risks and take mitigating actions, especially related to interdependencies among eight other external technical teams from different organizations that were part of this program.
Education
MBA in Business Administration
University of Colombo - Sri Lanka
Bachelor of Computer Science (BCSc) in Computer Science
University of Colombo School of Computing - Colombo, Sri Lanka
Certifications
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Skills
Tools
Microsoft Project, Excel 2016, Microsoft Excel, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, Jira, Slack, Trello, SonarQube, SQL, Asana
Paradigms
Agile, Scrum, Waterfall Delivery, Agile Project Management, Agile Leadership, Agile Product Management, Agile Software Development, Kanban, Agile Workflow, Lean Project Management, Requirements Analysis, DevOps, Azure DevOps
Other
Software Project Management, Software Development, Business Process Improvement (BPI), Training & Training Content Development, Technical Project Management, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Project Management Professional (PMP), Waterfall Methodology, People Development, Operations Management, People Management, Training, Executive Reporting, Excel VBA, Project Management, Scrum Master, IT Project Management, Operational Streamlining, Business Delivery Management, Planning, Estimation & Planning, Procurement, Agile Coaching, Sprint Planning, Project Tracking, Project Coordination, Project Scheduling, Process Optimization, Digital Transformation, Project Estimation, Project Management Office (PMO), PMO Development, Digital Project Management, Best Practices, Coaching, Process Improvement, Reporting, Event Planning, Project Planning, Event Tracking, Project Reporting, Agile Product Delivery, Web Development, Product Discovery, Project Management & Delivery, Team Leadership, Web Project Management, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Gantt Chart, Mentorship & Coaching, Certified Project Manager, Web Platforms, Technical Product Management, Stakeholder Engagement, IT Product Management, Training Content, Project Timelines, PMO, Backlog Grooming, System Implementation, Delivery Management, Distributed Team Management, Reports, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Dashboards, Workflow Automation & System Integration, Microsoft Teams, Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Budgeting, Recruitment, Risk Management, Business Process Analysis, Change Leadership, Stakeholder Management, Consulting, Operations, Product Roadmaps, Vendor Management, Software as a Service (SaaS), Technology Strategy & Architecture, Cloud, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Mind Mapping, Product Owner, Process Automation, Mentorship, User Experience (UX), Roadmaps, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), User Journeys, Mobile App Development, Discovery, Proof of Concept (POC), Feature Backlog Prioritization, New Products, Startups, Hybrid Project Management, IT Projects, Mobile Applications, Product Development, Project Discovery, Backlog Management, API Integration, APIs, Performance Metrics, Microsoft 365, OpenProject, Business Administration, Computer Science, Product Management, Contract Negotiation, Presales, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), CI/CD Pipelines, CMMI Level 5, Employee Training, Human Resources (HR), Business Process Modeling, Project Evaluation, Software Implementation, Issue Management, Process Design, .NET, Financial Risk Management, Production Engineering, Team Management, Task Management, Teamwork, Progress Reporting, Continuous Improvement, Test Automation, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Microsoft Project Server, Sage CRM, Program Increment Planning, Manufacturing, Jira Administration, Workflow, Field Service Management, Business Analysis, Discovery Workshops
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