Mel Small Email & Phone Number

Sheffield, Gb

Sheffield, England, United Kingdom

Conceived and led a startup to introduce a new digital asset class. This innovative initiative has progressed to MVP using Agile tools and a lean documentation approach. The associated infrastructure is hosted in the cloud.• Product management in Jira, including epic and user story creation and definition of acceptance criteria using a behaviour-driven development approach (BDD).• Database design, management of the data catalogue, wireframe production, process mapping and the… Show more Conceived and led a startup to introduce a new digital asset class. This innovative initiative has progressed to MVP using Agile tools and a lean documentation approach. The associated infrastructure is hosted in the cloud.• Product management in Jira, including epic and user story creation and definition of acceptance criteria using a behaviour-driven development approach (BDD).• Database design, management of the data catalogue, wireframe production, process mapping and the definition of API software contracts.• I built the Android/iOS mobile app using Flutter. It was approved for publication in the Apple and Google app stores with no issues.Conceived and led a startup to introduce a new digital asset class. This innovative initiative has progressed to MVP using Agile tools and a lean documentation approach. The associated infrastructure is hosted in the cloud. • Product management in Jira, including epic and user story creation and definition of acceptance criteria using a behaviour-driven development approach (BDD). • Database design, management of the data catalogue, wireframe production, process mapping and the definition of API software contracts.• I built the Android/iOS mobile app using Flutter. It was approved for publication in the Apple and Google app stores with no issues. Show less

Sheffield, England, United Kingdom

Managed a portfolio of initiatives for a company producing lone worker devices to safeguard operatives working remotely, while concurrently transitioning the organization to industry-standard Agile working practices.• Upgraded a C#/.NET SaaS platform to support a major business transformation including Salesforce enchantments and integrations.• Introduced a new series of lone worker hardware devices with new embedded software.• Implemented eCommerce sales channels for… Show more Managed a portfolio of initiatives for a company producing lone worker devices to safeguard operatives working remotely, while concurrently transitioning the organization to industry-standard Agile working practices.• Upgraded a C#/.NET SaaS platform to support a major business transformation including Salesforce enchantments and integrations.• Introduced a new series of lone worker hardware devices with new embedded software.• Implemented eCommerce sales channels for B2C and B2B.• Enhanced mobile Android and iOS apps, developed using Xamarin.• Managed a cloud migration to Azure.• Collaborated with senior stakeholders to ensure a roadmap of evolving priorities was achievable. Show less

Sheffield, England, United Kingdom

Managed the improvements to an enterprise-wide risk assessment tool, delivering system enhancements at a 60% discount to the budget.• Conducted business analysis to collect high-level epic requirements and elaborated these into user stories and BDD acceptance criteria.• Embedded Agile working practices, facilitated Scrum ceremonies, and coached an offshore team in using the Scrum framework.• I was a lead contributor to the working group introducing Agile working into the… Show more Managed the improvements to an enterprise-wide risk assessment tool, delivering system enhancements at a 60% discount to the budget.• Conducted business analysis to collect high-level epic requirements and elaborated these into user stories and BDD acceptance criteria.• Embedded Agile working practices, facilitated Scrum ceremonies, and coached an offshore team in using the Scrum framework.• I was a lead contributor to the working group introducing Agile working into the Compliance Transformation department using the SaFe framework. Show less

York, United Kingdom

Head hunted to lead a startup for the Agile delivery of web and mobile applications for a new SaaS/ERP product.• Conducted requirements analysis and definition for the ERP product.• Embedding the Scrum framework, mentoring the team and the definition of lean document set and the utilisation of a BDD approach for requirements elaboration. • Undertook functional design, including creating and maintaining a lean documentation set comprising high-level business requirements,… Show more Head hunted to lead a startup for the Agile delivery of web and mobile applications for a new SaaS/ERP product.• Conducted requirements analysis and definition for the ERP product.• Embedding the Scrum framework, mentoring the team and the definition of lean document set and the utilisation of a BDD approach for requirements elaboration. • Undertook functional design, including creating and maintaining a lean documentation set comprising high-level business requirements, user journeys, wireframes, entity relationship diagrams, a data catalogue and API software contracts.• Led the creation of an iOS and Android app developed with Xamarin and a C#/MVC web app hosted in the cloud using AWS.• Accountable for product quality, risk/issue management and communication of progress to company directors/sponsors. Show less

Doncaster, United Kingdom

Managed the development of a bespoke enterprise resource planning ERP system using Scrum. I improved the communication with senior stakeholders and chaired the project steering group comprising C-level directors from across the organisation.• Introduced project monitoring and controlling for timely reporting of progress, projections of timescales and costs senior stakeholders and the project sponsor.• Implemented development process improvements, resulting in a 65% increase in… Show more Managed the development of a bespoke enterprise resource planning ERP system using Scrum. I improved the communication with senior stakeholders and chaired the project steering group comprising C-level directors from across the organisation.• Introduced project monitoring and controlling for timely reporting of progress, projections of timescales and costs senior stakeholders and the project sponsor.• Implemented development process improvements, resulting in a 65% increase in the rate of development (velocity).• Improved the operation of the business analysis team with better product backlog management, wireframe production and logical data modelling. Show less

Billingham, United Kingdom

Responsible for the technical aspects of creating an online portal for independent authors. The portal comprises an online bookshop, with Braintree eCommerce integration, social networking functionality and an internal search engine with an innovative ranking algorithm.• Defined a lean approach to project documentation and progress monitoring.• Developed the web portal using PHP/MySQL.

Application Services, Sheffield

Managed a portfolio of initiatives with a combined value of £2m. This involved stakeholder management and influencing, vendor management and contract negotiation, project planning, budget control, risk management, project reporting and the management of global teams ranging from 10 to 100 people.• Membership of the management team responsible for the £80m maintenance budget for the organisation’s technology estate across Europe and the Middle East.• Programme management of a £1m… Show more Managed a portfolio of initiatives with a combined value of £2m. This involved stakeholder management and influencing, vendor management and contract negotiation, project planning, budget control, risk management, project reporting and the management of global teams ranging from 10 to 100 people.• Membership of the management team responsible for the £80m maintenance budget for the organisation’s technology estate across Europe and the Middle East.• Programme management of a £1m migration of around 90 Windows and Linux applications to IE11. Oversaw several project managers working within the impacted departments and provided mentoring and low-level intervention as required.• Upgrade and data centre migration of an outsourced document print service running on Windows Server. Vendor management included contract negotiation and coordination of cross-company activities such as transmissions, network upgrades and information security obligations.• Re-architecture of a Java-based online share trading platform. After inheriting this project, I intervened to address issues including technical knowledge gaps, late requirements changes and information security vulnerabilities. Show less

It Operations, Sheffield

As TPM, provided coordination and leadership of infrastructure projects, managing hardware delivery projects from service design to implementation.• Worked with technicians globally to deliver the out-of-region production environment for HSBC’s global payments system.• Matrix management of distributed global teams in the UK, Hong Kong, India, US and Brazil to deliver an out-of-region data centre migration and 26 cloud-based development environments for HSBC’s global payments… Show more As TPM, provided coordination and leadership of infrastructure projects, managing hardware delivery projects from service design to implementation.• Worked with technicians globally to deliver the out-of-region production environment for HSBC’s global payments system.• Matrix management of distributed global teams in the UK, Hong Kong, India, US and Brazil to deliver an out-of-region data centre migration and 26 cloud-based development environments for HSBC’s global payments system. Technologies included Linux, Solaris, MQ, and WebSphere Message Broker. Builds managed using Scrum tools to accommodate constantly changing priorities and resourcing challenges.• Managed infrastructure builds in an agile manner using Scrum framework tools to accommodate constantly changing priorities and resourcing challenges. Show less

Wealth Centre Of Excellence, Sheffield

Transferred to the Wealth CoE at its inception to manage programmes and projects within complex and heavily-regulated business domains.• Portfolio management of the Wealth Proof of Concept (PoC) programme, a major business transformation comprising 13 distinct deliveries involving internal teams and external vendors. Highlights of the Wealth PoC included the delivery of financial planning brochureware site, developed by a third-party and hosted on external cloud infrastructure, the… Show more Transferred to the Wealth CoE at its inception to manage programmes and projects within complex and heavily-regulated business domains.• Portfolio management of the Wealth Proof of Concept (PoC) programme, a major business transformation comprising 13 distinct deliveries involving internal teams and external vendors. Highlights of the Wealth PoC included the delivery of financial planning brochureware site, developed by a third-party and hosted on external cloud infrastructure, the introduction of a new webchat application and the Agile development of an online financial fact find tool in under 45 days.• Programme management of a £1.7m business transformation to introduce a pension transfer back-office function. This included the build and integration of third-party applications, enhancement of an existing vendor-maintained system, the build of a workflow management tool and upgrades to host applications. Led RFP assessment, vendor selection and contract negotiation, driving discussions resulting in key business partnerships.• Conceived and developed an asset allocation algorithm to balance investment funds against target asset allocations, generating £250k before integration into both a pension transfer modelling tool and the financial planning system used by HSBC’s front-line salesforce.• Took a lead role in the working group that introduced Scrum into HSBC and utilised it in a general insurance project in collaboration with Aviva. Show less

Software Engineering, Sheffield

Managed life and pensions projects, ranging from a quick-win business protection product to system enhancements for several pension initiatives.• Drafted in for my wealth expertise, I managed challenging aspects of the project introducing HSBC’s vendor-built financial planning system.• Project management of the system changes required for a flagship pension product.

Sheffield, England, United Kingdom

Worked across the software development lifecycle, from requirements analysis to development, test automation and implementation. Lead developer on an investment planning system, also worked on a customer needs system and the migration of HSBCnet corporate banking platform to a portal framework.

Msc, Information Processing

Beng (Hons), Civil And Structural Engineering