Senior Project Manager
National Bank of Kuwait
Total years of experience :26 years, 2 Months
• Payment Transformation Program:
Main duties are to apply health check on the project status of phase one. Perform quantitative and qualitative analysis on execution as well as delivered risks. Provide and independent view on the project financial position. Propose better approach to deliver future phases with the intention to improve cost control and scope creep. the program is meant to deliver a new payment system to replace an outdated one, to allow the bank to deliver straight through payment processing with minimal to no human intervention.
• Cards Transformation Program:
Main duties were to manage the program end to end in order to outsource the servicing of all type of card products to Europe based company called First Data. The program is at the early stages, however completed milestones can be summarised by:
- Completion of Business case and funding approval.
- Completion of program org structure and governance.
- Completion of contractual and commercial negotiations.
- Completion of business requirements elicitation and Gaps analysis.
Program is currently at the planning phase to estimate the efforts and FTEs required for each stream at each stage, the total project budget is USD 40M to be spent over a life span of 7 years.
• Trade Finance Solution:
Main duties were to deliver a trade finance solution to underpin a global trade processing model. Project is still ongoing completed milestones are, Business Case, RFI/RFP, business requirements gathering and gap analysis, design and build. The project is currently at the training and UAT stage, the total project is USD 5M.
• FATCA Project:
Main duties were to change business processes and the underlying technology to enable the bank to become FATCA compliant by the end of year 2013. The project budget is approved, while third parties have been engaged to perform impact assessment analysis, by FATCA experts who will form the changes required at the group level going forward.
The total project cost is forecasted to be USD 2.4M.
• Product Rationalisation:
Main duties were to deliver business benefits through effective and relevant use of technology and management of IT/Business resources. This strategic project was to deliver new products architecture that is easier to support in order to cut operational cost, and easier to sell to boost generating revenue for personal banking products (Mortgages, Term Deposits, CC, etc…).
Managing Time, Budget and wide spread of stakeholders was the core duties of this project, reporting the project progress to the head of Product Rationalisation(PR), as well as the Project control Board (PCB). Managing the risk effectively was one of the substantial keys to the success of this project due to lack of upto date product’s documentations.
The PR program budget was 200 million, while the budget allocated to my project (Personal Banking PR) was 20 millions. The project is still running and scheduled to finish on November 2012. The project is ISC funded and follow the PiTN methodologies.
• Fraud Risk Strategy Project:
Main duties were to manage the project’s time, budget and resources. Deliver and present the business case to obtain funding approval from the Investment Steering Committee. Reporting the project progress to the Project Control Board .Manage delivering the business requirements, work with the business SMEs to put together an operating model that is aligned with the fraud risk strategy roadmap. Deliver a migration strategy that captures the plans to decommission the old system and the flow of information and business rules from the old system to the new fraud risk scoring model.
• Speech Recognition and Voice Biometrics Project
Main project duties include documenting the business case including the benefit realisation and ROI through the project life cycle. Manage eliciting and documenting the business requirements. Managing the vendor selection and short listing processes, review technical artefacts to make sure it’s aligned with the business needs, managing the project stakeholders. Manage the project risks and issues. Report on the status/progress, and manage the overall UAT execution, program budget was 20m, ISC funded and following PiTN methodologies.
• Next Generation Platform (Iflex - Oracle) , Core banking systems - International Trade and Payments Program:
Main duties as a senior BA were to document the interface use cases covering all the interfaces required between the new front end and the existing back end, highlighting the business functions that are supported by each interface. Analyse and document key integration options to support the business decisions.
• Next Generation Platform (Iflex - Oracle) , Core banking systems - Lending Program:
Main duties as a senior BA were to elicit and document the interface requirements, put forward recommendations to buy new systems or leverage the current systems based on the interface capabilities, and functionality supported, recommend some strategic interfaces that would be leveraged among other streams and modules within the NGP program, working closely with the architect team to achieve the tactical and strategic targets.
• Core Banking Project (FlexCube provided by IFLEX)
Main project duties were managing the COD interfaces stream for the new core banking system, the stream budget was 3m and 6 full time resources were allocated. Main deliverables were studying the existing interface with the existing systems, mapping each interface to a set of business functions and/or processes, documenting the interface functional gaps, and the impact on the surrounding systems, recommend the interfaces that are less costly and has the minimal business impact, report on the progress of the project to the project steering committee, raising/managing project issues and risks.
The overall program was quite complex consisting of 6 sub-programs and 20 streams, with a total budget of 200m.
• Reconciliation System Project ( Accurate)
Project main responsibilities include writing the business case, estimating the managing a team of four project resources and 3 BAU resources, managing the project budget of 2.1m, handling the vendor’s selection process; gather the user requirements and running the GAP analysis sessions; review and approve project documentations; completing the project closure process.
The project had a positive NPV value and 3 years payback period. This project had the best project award for the year it was delivered.
• Human Resources System Project
My main responsibilities were to manage the overall project deliverables, managing the requirements gathering and the gap analysis workshops, managing the business risks associated with the change in the payroll and onboarding processes, managing the stakeholders and relationship with the vendor, managing the UAT, report on the project progress to the head of IT, and providing a project closure report.
The project need was driven by compliance and legal needs rather than revenue generation. The cost of the project was about 4m, and delivered within time and budget.
• DIB (Dubai Islamic Bank) Call Centre Phase II:
As a team leader I was directly responsible for managing and delivering the following:
• connecting the agent application to the online Visa System (Card Tech Limited Company, LONDON), and applying the proof of concept on some transactions (echo, reporting loss of Visa Card, Utility Bill Payment ( with it’s reversal), Last 5 transactions, and Card Activation). Using the ISO 8583 Message Format and the functional Spec’s for Device Host Interface (DHI).
• Connecting the agent application/IVR with the prime system and executing some of the stored procedures to do certain transactions such as (Tpin request, Visa card status, Visa card Statement).
• Designing and documenting the custom protocol format to provide the agent with all business needs and services; providing the Tandem programmers with Simulator for these services.
• Implementing a middleware to handle the connection and the transactions flow between IVR(Unix Ware) and each of the following:
1- Tandem using WinSockets and RSC Api’s.
2- DHI using WinSockets.
3- Prime using WinSockets, and ADO Connection.
• Developer Dubai Islamic Bank Call Centre Phase I.
In this project I was responsible for:
o Connecting the agent application to a COBOL server (TANDEM) through an RSC Server. A Custom Protocol was used to send requests and receive Responses through APIs where the information contained the status of the transaction in progress. The information would then be made available via IVR (Interactive Voice Response) or directly to the computers of the bank’s customer service consultants.
o Design and Implement the CRSA Screens (Customer Relation Service Agent) as a User Control (OCX) and use this Control within the CTI ( Quintus 5.5) as a Popup screens whenever a Call is transferred to the agent, with full information available for the authenticated Customer. This was done using shared memory between the Quintus Script and the Vesp Dip on the IVR. The Customer ID is then transferred with the call to the Agent.
o Testing the call flow on the IVR
o Install and Configure Quintus Server.