Rob McCartney, Project Manager in Dublin, Ireland
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Rob McCartney

Verified Expert  in Project Management

Project Manager

Location
Dublin, Ireland
Toptal Member Since
May 8, 2019

Rob is a PMI-ACP certified IT project manager with over 20 years of successful project delivery experience. He has worked with a wide spectrum of industries including insurance, telecom, banking, edTech, internet, CRM, aircraft leasing, and finance software. Coupled with a personal commitment to excellence and attention to detail, he attributes his success to his capacity to create strong and empowered project teams.

Project Highlights

Third Party Payment Service Onboarding
Led a project to onboard a new online payments service for a Fortune 500 internet services company.
Finance Data Mart Product
Scrum master and project manager for a finance data mart project.
ERP Program Data Migration
Led the data migration project for an ERP transformation program.

Expertise

Work Experience

PMO Advisory

2018 - PRESENT
Zeevo Group
  • Facilitated the setup of an initial PMO for a finance IT department.
  • Led an internal IT finance product-build project as both the Scrum master and project manager.
  • Oversaw a third-party payment services integration project in the role of project manager.
  • Directed a major data migration project as part of an IT transformation project.
  • Executed a full systems data path discovery project as both the business analyst and project manager.

Program Director

2015 - 2018
Smartbox Group
  • Created and led a team of senior project managers and business analysts.
  • Led the design and implementation of an internal IT project to create a product information management system.
  • Oversaw a major ERP transformation program to deliver Microsoft AX on Azure.
  • Led a major project to implement a Salesforce.com CRM for the Smartbox Group.
  • Managed delivery from multiple Scrum teams.

Operations Program Manager

2013 - 2015
Apierian
  • Oversaw the project and program management for the launch of a SaaS edTech startup.
  • Designed and built a scalable and secure content marketing platform on AWS and WordPress.
  • Grew a team of content creators, developers, and UX specialists, to generate and publish 50 -100 high-quality articles a day.
  • Led the Kanban based design and development of an iOS and Android mobile application which hit #1 in the local iOS App Store.
  • Led the development of 20 online learning courses partnering with third-party technology providers for question types.

Project Manager

2010 - 2012
Sage
  • Delivered a sophisticated CRM transformation program centralizing the CRM systems from five divisions into a single solution. This created a single-view solution for the customer, and garnered Sage recognition as a "National Award Finalist" in the collaboration category for delivery of the program.
  • Delivered an ERP upgrade and IS governance transformation program that outsourced significant elements of their finance, sales, and customer services team systems using the PRINCE2 framework.
  • Delivered a Microsoft BI solution for Sage UK and Ireland. Managed the development of the initial proposals and internal funding stages. Completed the delivery of phase I and the initiation of phase II of a new Microsoft SQL Server BI implementation upgrade for MicroStrategy.
  • Oversaw all Sage Ireland division IS operations from 2011. Provided and supported all IS services via a shared services matrix model for all customer service, business, and finance applications and processes, virtualization services, network operations, and CTI, desktops, and helpdesk functions.

Project Manager

2007 - 2009
Sage CRM
  • Negotiated an OEM partnership deal projected to generate between $3 million and $15 million extra revenue per annum for the ACT! by Sage product line for Sage CRM Worldwide.
  • Managed the migration of a SaaS-based CRM application, and associated data for ten countries to an outsourced data center in under ten weeks. This enhanced the customer experience of the product while reducing IS overhead.
  • Managed the delivery of the main release of the Sage CRM product for 2007.
  • Oversaw the co-development of the integration of the Sage CRM product with the Sage France and Sage Germany ERP product teams.

Senior Project Manager

2005 - 2007
British Telecom Ireland
  • Rescued and rolled out a €2 million CoS MPLS network for a major European retail organization. Delivered new and upgraded CoS and QoS network circuits in greenfield and mature sites in the UK, Ireland, and Spain.
  • Managed the successful design and delivery of a fully managed service IT transformation project for an Irish national charity from pre-sales to final implementation. This resulted in reduced costs, and national visibility of the organizational data in real time. I controlled the €0.75 million budget.

Technical Project Manager

2000 - 2005
Permanent TSB Group
  • Led and delivered the Punt to Euro conversion project on time, on budget, and with no loss of data or negative customer impact. I was the lead developer and project manager with a team of six internal IT staff, and worked with all senior managers and business teams.
  • Delivered multiple projects as a senior business analyst, project manager, and the development and operations team lead, providing solutions across the full business suite.

Third Party Payment Service Onboarding

Led a project to onboard a new online payments service for a Fortune 500 internet services company.

I was brought in after the project had started to apply project management discipline. The project was high-profile, but the technical team was unable to provide clear progress reporting or demonstrate planning discipline.

The engagement began with a series of workshops to reverse engineer the situation. I then created some of the missing project artifacts, such as a project plan, a RAID, a clear set of roles and responsibilities, and a communications plan.

Once the project was set up correctly, the technical team was able to continue their work independent of the management team. The team lead worked with me to track progress, adjust plans, and manage risks and issues that needed to be escalated.

For the remainder of the project, I worked with the external stakeholders, product owner, and internal management teams to provide the needed visibility, governance, and change management skills.

Finance Data Mart Product

Scrum master and project manager for a finance data mart project.

This project was a key enabler for an ERP program. To provide the correct information to the target ERP system, a single source of truth was required to harmonize the various revenue values from the global channels.

Multiple revenue streams needed to present information to the ERP in a consistent way. Due to limitations of the ERP, the revenue recognition business rules needed to be described and implemented in the application.

This was run as a Kanban project as most of the functionality was not user-facing.

Besides setting up the technical platform (SQL server based app), the project needed to provide an external API to various global partners. This provided the raw revenue data. The team used a Burn-Down chart and a Cumulative Flow diagram to communicate progress.

I acted as the team lead and product owner, prioritizing the backlog and working with the developers to understand the requirements and business rules implemented.

My role as a remote project manager was to coordinate the efforts of multiple global teams to develop data integrations with the API and perform end-to-end testing of the release.

ERP Program Data Migration

Led the data migration project for an ERP transformation program.

I was brought in to diagnose and facilitate the rehabilitation of this project.

The data migration team was in two remote locations, and their efforts were not adequately coordinated with a dependant ERP program.

After initial conversations with the organization leadership team, a series of workshops were held to diagnose the project issues. Diagnosis showed that the project was being relatively well run, but because the agreed SDLC was not fully implemented (Scrum ceremonies were being missed), the team was losing focus and momentum. External visibility was also an issue.

I designed and implemented the required project governance and operational framework for the project. This enhanced external visibility, managed risks effectively, and coordinated multiple remote teams more explicitly on the US West Coast and Europe.

The project recovered well as I continued to project manage the Agile teams through to successful delivery.
2013 - 2015

Master's Degree in Business Administration

University College Dublin - Dublin, Ireland

1997 - 1999

Graduate Diploma in Business Management

Irish Management Institute - Dublin

1993 - 1994

Master's Degree in Artificial Intelligence

Dublin City University - Dublin

JUNE 2017 - JUNE 2022

PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

Project Management Institute (PMI)

JUNE 2006 - JUNE 2016

PRINCE2 Practitioner

APMG

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