Tim Jacobs Email & Phone Number

Dublin, Oh

Leading teams through the scope development process on medium to large scale implementations and delivering business value through application development and enhancements.Coordinating activities with other key stakeholders and roles within the wider organization, including product team, business analysts, quality assurance & project management.Provided capacity planning analysis and worked with stakeholders to develop good decision making at the release level.Created the reporting, analytics, and other metrics (including burn up/burn-down charts, velocity, etc.) needed by stakeholders to make informed decisions and any necessary course corrections.Evaluating, planning, and guiding technical direction and architecture decisions.Developed project timelines and ensuring projects are delivered on time.

Dublin, Oh

Led Federal and State e-file QA testing teams for H&R Block’s online and desktop tax software products used by approximately 7 million users. QA teams were comprised of 54 remote onshore and off-shore full time and seasonal e-file QA analysts. Launched testing improvement process to include more automated testing, additional end-to-end testing, and greater test case coverage, leading to improved overall product quality and a decrease in tax return reject rates.Utilized HP Application Life Cycle Management (HPALM) to develop metrics and reports on 16,000+ business requirements and 10,000+ test plans to determine current testing status, testing trends, and identify risk areas in testing cycles.Managed a $1 million yearly department labor budget to ensure that projects and labor were in line with projected expectations and budget.Improved collaboration between e-file QA and Digital tax application product owners and system teams by establishing relationships with key players, providing SME knowledge and resolving client impacting issues. Technical Writing - As the sole Technical Writer in the organization, maintained responsibility for all Application Development and Regulatory organization documentation deliverables. Brought in a seasonal Technical Writer to help with the workload during the busy season.

Dublin, Oh

Responsible for all IT facility related decisions, purchases, access, and vendor relationships.Partnered with corporate facilities, building management, and sub-contractors on a physical suite redesign construction project that provided updated work spaces, new conference technology and enhanced the usability of the suite.Led project in 2018 to upgrade facility telephone systems to a new IP based system that reduced operational costs by 20% and integrated Dublin facility into larger corporate system.Initiated a review in September 2018 that consolidated network/telephony services and reduced data network expenses by $7,200 per month.Performed site leader duties in conjunction with other roles in the organization.Planned all on-site and off site corporate events, meals, and celebrations.Led corporate United Way drives and holiday charitable donations.

Dublin, Oh

Managed coordination of updates and changes between IT teams and internal business partners for the tax e-file system that processed over 20 million client tax returns annually.Provided stakeholders regular status updates and communications on E-File development progress and operational status.Led the E-File tax season Tier 3 support team in resolving approximately 2,500 tax office e-file support cases per season, monitored e-file system readiness, and handled numerous IRS/DOR processing issues.Business Continuity Planning - Created Business Continuity plan for the IT Regulatory Tax Development team that spanned 3 locations, remote workers, and detailed how to keep the team working in case of a physical or team disaster. This included identifying the applications, systems, servers, and personnel that each team would need to continue working, and determining single points of failure in personnel, equipment, and space so senior leadership could plan appropriately.Technical Writing - As the sole Technical Writer in the organization, maintained responsibility for all Application Development and Regulatory organization documentation deliverables. Brought in a seasonal Technical Writer to help with the workload during the busy season.Business Analysis - Developed business requirements for new e-file functionality for internal systems (UI, reports, access, etc...). Became SME on these items and led all future updates in these areas.Regulatory Communications - Responsible for all e-file tax related field communications that provided updates and workarounds to e-file issues that occurred during the tax season. These communications were hosted on corporate intranet site and were one of the top 10 accessed web pages.Worked closely with the Technical Support Center on communicating e-file issues so that Tier 1 call center agents were aware of issues and fixes.

Responsible for developing all external and internal documentation for the E-File tax office application and the E-File Host systems.Provided technical support to field tax offices during the tax season, resulting in increased knowledge of application users and improved end-user documentation.Managed online corporate intranet presence for the Application Development and Regulatory organizations. Responsible for posting all documents, links, and communications and maintaining all content pages. Became a SME on Open Text content management system and process and provided feedback with conversion to new LifeRay system.Senior Member, Society for Technical Communication - Attended seminars and conferences to learn and increase professional skills.

Managed the H&R Block Retail Tax Technical Writing team responsible for developing and deploying all tax office application documentation.Responsible for resource capacity, work estimates, and ensuring timelines and due dates were accomplished across multiple documentation projects. Delivered the Rapid Refund/E-File application documentation set, balancing dual roles of a manager and technical writer.Senior Member, Society for Technical Communication - Attended seminars and conferences to learn and increase professional skills.

Responsible for developing all external and internal documentation for the Rapid Refund tax office application and the E-File Host systems.Implemented electronic delivery and online posting of Rapid Refund documentation set (20+ items), eliminating paper deliverables and realizing a cost savings of $41,000 annually. Created and deployed a desktop link from tax office computers to intranet based documentation library that improved user accessibility and usage of documentation by 47%.Received 90%+ user satisfaction rating on Rapid Refund documentation in yearly tax office application survey.

Managed team of 13 technical writers, including full-time employees and contractors in multiple locations, in delivering end-user technical product documentation to Sterling Commerce’s global 5000 customers.Recruited, hired and trained four new writers, managing seamless integration into established team. Collaborated with cross-functional product delivery teams that included Development, Quality Assurance, Marketing, Customer Support, Legal, and Distribution to deliver software products on schedule.Senior Member, Society for Technical Communication - Attended seminars and conferences to learn and increase professional skills.

Developed end-user technical product documentation such as installation guides, user manuals, reference guides and online help systems for mainframe, NT, and UNIX e-business software products utilizing Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Acrobat and RoboHelp.Developed the first SNA Server configuration guide for connecting GENTRAN S390 mainframe products to GENTRAN Windows NT server products. This allowed trading partners on different operating systems to share EDI documents across platforms.Member, Society for Technical Communication - Attended seminars and conferences to learn and increase professional skills.