Vugar Rustamli
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Prague, Czech Republic
Toptal member since August 3, 2022
With 14+ years of project management experience, Vugar has handled 50+ high-profile traditional and agile projects, managing a budget of over $10 million and leading teams with 5 to 100 people. He is skilled in using Jira, Confluence, Monday.com, Smartsheet, and AI Infinity. Vugar's extensive cross-functional expertise spans 10 countries since 2010. His mission is to deliver value-driven project management to foster organizational agility, digital transformation, and effective team coordination.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Project Management
- Digital Transformation
- Project Management
- Requirements Analysis
- Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
- Scrum
- Scrum Master
- Workday
Work Experience
Project Consultant
PMWILL
- Supported the UNICEF Geneva office in building project management workflows and agile transformation delivery.
- Delivered coaching and mentorship programs for more than 200 junior project managers and development team members.
- Supported organizations in building sustainable project management practices through official authorization from Green Project Management Global.
- Delivered speeches on project management at the International PM Conferences in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the MENA regions.
- Guided organizations and companies to adapt to the agile enterprise approach and increase organizational agility.
- Initiated and implemented various Agile frameworks for the teams without prior Agile experience.
Scrum Master
Pfizer - Digital Manufacturing
- Worked as a scrum master and supported a team of 20+ people in becoming more efficient through scrum cadence, Jira, weekly refinements, and effective retrospectives.
- Supported the team members, POs, and BAs in their day-to-day work and during PI planning, working in close cooperation with RTEs and STEs.
- Integrated tasks with internal and external teams through weekly dependency reviews that supported velocity.
- Acted as a servant leader to the agile team by clearing obstacles, capturing key metrics, and coaching lead roles on improved ways of working.
Project Manager
Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy
- Led the discovery phase through discovery workshops, business analysis, requirements analysis, and project planning for the product to cater needs of the various stakeholders.
- Acted as a product owner of an innovative and transformative product of the workforce management system.
- Delivered the product with the cross-functional team based on agile SDLC to cater to the needs of 10,000 users.
- Supported strategic change management and digital transformation of HR operations from business-as-usual to tournament-time mode.
- Developed robust business process maps, assessing change readiness to plan readiness strategy across the organization.
- Coordinated project management for Workforce and HR-related tools, working closely with 10 stakeholder groups.
Project Consultant
YES Management
- Guided over 120 team members on how to use and apply agile and scrum development practices, develop product roadmaps, and implement best-in-class agile approaches and practices.
- Delivered a technological transition project for the hospitality company to secure services for the international event with a budget of $5 million.
- Coordinated technology programs and transformation projects in different business industries by fulfilling deliverables and clients' expectations.
- Facilitated scrum events of sprint planning, daily stand-ups, retrospectives, and backlog refinement and complemented user stories with technical requirements.
Project Lead
Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan
- Coordinated the digital projects on different scales by managing scope, resources, quality, change, stakeholders, and risks within the organization.
- Served as one of the project leads of the business development team for developing a strategy for four years, covering participation, engagement, and revenue system solutions.
- Delivered a volunteering management system solution that transformed manual procedures into a digital web-based platform.
- Supported the development team to build and test a football player registration system used by 20 entities and cater to 15,000 applicants.
Project History
Workforce Management System
Developed, tested, and launched the web- and application-based solution to be used by 10,000 employees during 30 days of 24/7 events operations.
The project’s goal was to build a product to be used as a workforce management tool during the international event by more than 10,000 employees, including the LMS module. The solution aimed to drive the detailed workforce operational planning process and support the delivery of event-time workforce training and readiness and day-to-day workforce operations. It was delivered by the team in four countries using Agile software development lifecycle, Scrum framework, and Kanban methodologies in some product components.
Volunteer Management System
The solution made it easy to manage volunteers via one centralized system by automating end-to-end workflow and decreasing time spent on manual processes by 45%.
The project’s vision was to deliver a product with the functionalities to recruit, screen, schedule, train, and retain volunteers. I acted as a scrum master for this project. The end product had various modules of digital registration forms, auto-scheduling, rostering, automated onboarding, attendance tracker, communication management, online training, and dashboards. The product team developed, tested, and delivered the system in the frame of Scrumban.
Events Platform
Launched a web-based platform for business owners and end users to create, register, and manage events.
The project’s goal was to deliver a platform to the broader region of the Middle East where users can create, register, buy tickets, and manage events. The hybrid project management approach to the product was used within the organization.
Building PMO Operations
Assessed enterprise level PMO readiness, and developed a full package of PMO services including guidelines, processes, tools, and workflows at FIFA Services Subdivision
Delivered various deliverables within the project lifecycle:
- Assessment of all the departments and team members on PMO operations, and PM software tools.
- Development of the PMO guidelines, workflows, and processes in close cooperation with Enterprise level PM Champions.
- Built workflows and dashboards on Monday.com and integrated with Service Now system.
- Delivered a training and operational readiness sessions to the champions, team leaders, and PMO supervisors.
Education
Master's Degree in Ethics and Integrity
Swansea University - Swansea, United Kingdom
Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration
Public Administration Academy - Baku, Azerbaijan
Coursework in ESL Program
Virginia International University - Fairfax, VA, USA
Certifications
P3 Express
CertN Global
PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Microsoft Excel: Advanced Data Analysis and Interpretation
PwC's Academy
PMP
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Innovation Implementation
Harvard University
Change Management
Harvard University
Skills
Tools
Jira, Asana, Slack, Trello, HubSpot, Atlassian, Wrike, Confluence
Paradigms
Agile, Agile Product Management, Agile Project Management, Scrum, Kanban, Organizational Change Management (OCM), Requirements Analysis, B2B, Change Management, Servant Leadership, Management
Platforms
Monday.com, WordPress, ProductPlan
Industry Expertise
Transportation & Shipping, Education Technology (Edtech), Pharmaceuticals
Other
Project Management, Hybrid Project Management, Waterfall Methodology, Leadership, Digital Transformation, Agile Coaching, Team Leadership, Ethics, Integrity Management, Projects, Business Analysis, Training, Scrum Master, Discovery Workshops, Project Planning, Staffing, User Stories, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Feature Backlog Prioritization, Project Consultancy, Software Project Management, Training & Training Content Development, Estimation & Planning, Web Applications, Estimations, Project Scoping, Discovery, Project Timelines, SOP Development, Stakeholder Management, Jira Administration, Project Coordination, Project Management Professional (PMP), Human Resources (HR), Conflict Resolution, PMO Development, Project Management Office (PMO), Project Delivery, Digital Project Management, Agile Program Management, Certified Project Manager, Software Development, Jira Administrator, Feature Prioritization, Web Project Management, Project Tracking, Program Management, Event Management, Event Planning, Event Management Platforms, Business Transformation Project Management, Enterprise Project Management, Atlassian Plugins, PMO, Project Management & Delivery, Business to Business (B2B), Events, Management Consulting, Stakeholder Engagement, Content Creation, E-learning, Change Leadership, Data Administration, Product Strategy, Workflow, Vendor Management, Web Development, Process Optimization, Technical Project Management, Sports Websites, Website Migration, Website Redesign, Process Management, Agency, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Sprint Planning, Process Improvement, Release Train Engineer (RTE), Booking Systems, Business Process Analysis, Business Planning, Software as a Service (SaaS), Business Services, Software Development Management, IT Management, Product Owner, Smartsheet, IT Projects, Atos OneCloud, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Mentorship, Hybrid Frameworks, Data Analysis, Innovation, Project Design, Product Management, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Jira Align, Data Analytics, Life Science, PI Planning, ClickUp, Automation, Dashboards, Operations, Workday, Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS), PMO Frameworks, PMO Maturity Assessment
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