Caroline Fransis

The Continuous Integration “CI” domain is one of the biggest domains within Digital Solutions Center within VALEO, where it sever all the business groups within their daily deliveries. I joined as Program Manager / Domain Manager to fully run and manage the domain activities, leading 50+ engineer of cross functional roles like DevOps, Project Leads, Software Developers, Testers, and Product Owners. In short-words my scope includes setting objectives, strategies, processes, controls, team management and status progress reporting.

My responsibilities include,
Defining the domain objectives and strategies in alignment with the organization’s objectives
Structuring the domain in a way that helps in meeting such objectives.
Setting processes to optimize the work conducted on daily basis.
Working with other departments to develop budgets and plans for the programs
Monitoring projects and overseeing project managers to ensure goals are met
Evaluating and assessing the programs’ strengths and weaknesses
Meeting with stakeholders, holding regular steering co. meetings to discuss program status and goals
Managing the team members functionally, setting up their KPIs.

Am assigned to mange the business applications unit within the IT department, where my scope includes; Owning the end to end delivery of the business applications needed by any of the departments like operations, maintenance, finance, procurement, HSQE and HR. which are considered as medium sized projects ranging between $100K and $1M. In addition to maintaining to support these applications after go-live.

My involvement starts from the very beginning until application is up & running stable, including;
Meeting/Partnering with various business stakeholders across departments to collect the business requirements at the initiation phase
Reach out to new vendors to evaluate their solutions towards the business requirements, considering the other factors of cost, quality, time to deliver and after go-live support.
Kickoff, plan and monitor the project activities with all relevant stakeholders.
Manage the vendor through the whole life cycle of the project until its successfully delivered.
Acts proactively to avoid/minimize project risk.
Arrange for after go-live support with defining the SLAs
Reporting on weekly basis all the projects progress, with highlighting any awaited decision/risks.
Responsible on business applications budget, with reflecting all the expected forecasts.

Joined BLUECRUNCH to lead the delivery of the customized software solutions ( Web / Mobile Apps ), by being responsible for building, running and continuously improving the end-to-end delivery model.

Afterwords, I were requested to have internal move to help the new team on delivering BOTTER as new product (Chatbot), ensuring that customers to have a smooth delivery for new service.

Generally, my responsibilities included;
Build a process and defined few guidelines and templates that enhance the projects deliveries
Building a team of PMs / POs that can manage the projects pipeline smoothly.
Responsible for customer service improvement plans and crisis management.
Responsible for all projects progress review and risks management.
Responsible for the customer satisfaction.
Responsible for the quality of service and SLAs.

Inside DXC Technology, i have been allocated to work in Vodafone Germany Account, where my tasks and responsibilities included;
Head the planning & implementation of projects within agreed cost, timeframe, quality and scope.
Managing project delivery, ensuring the final delivery meets the agreed customer and stakeholder requirements specified for the project
Schedule management, Preparing and maintaining project plan, with tracking activities against the plan
Managing project team internal as well as external resources, with coordinating the efforts of team members and third-party contractors or consultants if needed.
Track, manage and report on project progress accurately and regularly in regards to: deliverables, timeframes, quality and risks to all stakeholders (internal and external).
Estimating costs, timescales and resource requirements for the successful completion of the project
Monitoring costs, timescales and resources used, and take action upon any deviation from planned.
Oversee quality control throughout project/software life cycle.
Working on problems/projects of diverse complexity and scope.
Develop and conduct strategic plans to solve significant escalations and mitigate critical risks.

My involvement started in leading the establishment of APPZONE for foreigners investors.
As General Manager for a software start-up company, I managed to;
Structured the company’ policies & procedures
Hired employees with assistance of technical consultancy
Set & ensured following well defined processes where we applied Agile-Scrum framework
Manage the day-to-day operational and tactical aspects of the company
Provides reliable financial forecasts to the management.

As Product Owner
Planned and directed the product development, thru;
Writing User Stories, and conducting a gap analysis for requirements.
Maintaining the backlog, and Prioritizing the user stories.
Defining the releases scope
Participated as required in Sprint Planning, Daily stand-ups, Retrospective meeting.
Presented reports to management reflecting the actuals values vs planned values for management.
Frequently represents the company to external customers/clients.
Identifies and develops new opportunities on current product.
Support qualification and opportunity assessment for large and moderately complex opportunities.

Responsible for identifying and proposing new Technologies and VAS opportunities for Mobile Network Operators across different regions (MENA, Asia and Europe) by Market Research finding the company new trends to increase our sales and profitability.

Developing and maintaining commercially the relationships with the new and current partners. Prepare NDAs, Negotiate MOUs and Contracts with partners and on the other hand prepare tailored products and business propositions, Presentation materials for each product/proposal to clients.

For internal new products’ developments, responsible for creating the business cases, coordinating between all internal departments to validate the concept, service flow and product features.
Selected Achievements
- Succeeded in expanding business by adding new products to the company portfolio in 2014 and Signing Strategic Framework Agreements in 3 new countries.
- Enhanced existing internal process that eliminated redundant processes and improved productivity up to 40% extra.

Facilitate project scope definition, Identify stakeholders, Analyze and evaluate their requirements then Prepare a detailed and integrated project plans, responsible for achieving the agreed on projects’ goals .

Manage the day-to-day aspects of the projects; Organize regular meetings, Get involved in the planning of each sprint and its release, Manage the demos and other agile project related meetings.
Monitor the progress and ensure the integration of activities, Align the schedule to the customer’s expectations, Handle the change requests and Solve problems by different methodologies.
Attend the weekly top management meeting to Report projects’ status and progress reviews, Discuss potential risks, Recommend resources and policy’s changes to CEO.
Selected Achievements
- Mobinil Controlled Access Point Web and Mobile Application
- Etisalat Numbering Plan Desktop and Mobile Application
- Etisalat USSD
More projects to be stated later.