Ray Schmidt

Experience

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  Telstra

  Aug 1989 - Aug 2003

  • Achieved -> "Superior" performance review rating for 2001/2002 for exceptional diligence, achievements, advocacy, and client performance.• Multiple project management deliveries of a wide suite of cross business unit, Information & Communication Technology based projects, from technical and complex to a large program of work.• Project teaming and leadership, chairing meetings of more than ten personnel of a virtual project teams.• Relationship management of project stakeholders, clients, vendors, suppliers and the project team; managing expectations and maintaining rapport; milestones and go / no-go decisions.• Adherence to the product development life cycle operational model and the standardised project management framework, policies, work-flow, tools, and processes. • Project Management of small to larger scale projects, types include;› RFT› Web› Product Development› Infrastructure› Processes› Networks• Telstra (TDP and Rapid Delivery), PMBOK, SDLC and Systems Engineering. Show less International Private Lines• Based upon products and marketing strategic drivers championed and steered projects from inception to launch. Mitigation of assigned project manager escalated issues, risks and negotiation with clients and stakeholders of any resulting project changes.• Based upon the Products and Marketing business cases, represented projects at various investment forums securing resources and consequently project establishment.• Provided tactical and strategic guidance to project solutions (network, systems, processes and platform) in support of the business case.• Detailed product cost and price modelling; net present value, internal rate of return, discounted cash flows, return on investment and earnings before interest and tax.• Project Management of product development initiatives; development and deployment of the wholesale Telstra IPL international business process (service pre-qualification, activation, billing and assurance). Provided the first Telstra E2E wholly owned international service. Show less • Corporate Professional Engineering Development Programs,› Corporate Early Development of Professional Engineers Program; mentoring, job rotation, field visits, and short courses.› Master of Ceremonies and Management of the annual five day Professional Orientation Seminar for the Newly Recruited Professionals to Telstra. Included participation by lines of business subject matter experts, industry and professional associations and learning institutions amounted to 60 separate presentations over 5 continuous days.• Administration of business unit cost recoveries; Approximately 3000 staff attendee days / year.• Liaisons and promotional of professional learning within the Telstra business units, professional and industry associations, learning institutions and providers.• Telstra representative and management of public presentations and displays.• Management of recruitment, selection and placement of engineering undergraduates and professional engineers on behalf of business units.• Instructor lead/presented the 'Orientation' and 'Technology Overview' short courses to Engineering Undergraduates on behalf of Business Units. Show less

  • TELSTRA * Project Manager

    May 2000 - Aug 2003

  • TELSTRA * IPL - Product and Technical Specialist

    Sept 1997 - May 2000

  • TELSTRA * a/g National Manager, Regional Manager, Senior Engineer, Engineer & Cadet/Scholarship

    Aug 1989 - Sept 1997
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  Government of Victoria - Department of Education & Training

  May 2004 - Jul 2005

  GOVERNMENT OF VICTORIA * Project Manager

  • Project Management of multiple concurrent projects in accordance to PRINCE 2; including migration from the legacy Novel file and printer server and the launch of the MS Outlook Web Access.• Process improvements and administration the Information Technology Division change and release management operating model and processes.• Contributed towards the policy formation of the Information Technology Division interaction model and associated tools/templates.

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  Uecomm

  Jul 2005 - Jun 2007

  UECOMM * Project Manager/Product Development

  • Achieved -> Uecomm, Right Stuff Award – for focus, level of effort, output and performance, commitment to Uecomm’s vision and business objectives, the evolution of culture, ethics and contribution to overall team performance and morale.• Project management of cross business multiple product development and cost reduction initiatives.• The project management, development and deployment of BSS, OSS and business processes to sales, service delivery and network operations adopted as BAU.• Project planned, executed, tracked and controlled to the business case; managed stakeholder expectations.• Guided, mentored and coached project team members during the project life cycle and deliverables.• Project management of impacts and changes to lines of business, systems and applications; adopted as BAU. Show less

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  GE - Energy

  Jun 2007 - Jun 2009

  GENERAL ELECTRIC * Project Manager

  • Project management delivery of multiple concurrent Firm Fixed Price and Time & Materials projects from inception to closure.• Products include: ENMAC, SmallWorld and WiMAX Smart Meters.• Leadership of virtual project teams shared across timezones, multiple projects and clients. Contract management delivery, client and 3rd party providers to the prescribed exit criteria and therefore payment schedules.• Prepared and project managed change requests, statements of work, quotations and proposals; responsible for Project Budgets and P&Ls. Show less

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  NetCracker

  Sept 2009 - Jul 2010

  NETCRACKER * Project Manager

  • Project management; planning, execution, control and closure of vendor provided software developments, enhancements and integration projects; contract management in accordance to the payment schedule; responsible for Project Budgets and P&Ls.• Generation of Proposals, Order of Magnitudes, Quotations, and Statements of Works.• Developed and fostered a cooperative working relationship with Telstra; according to Provider Engagement and TDP.• Management of defects and release fixes/patches during Telstra Acceptance Testing. Show less

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  Catholic Education Office, Melbourne

  Sept 2010 - Dec 2011

  CATHOLIC EDUCATION OFFICE (Melb) * Project Manager

  • Project Management of multiple project initiatives in accordance to the Catholic Education Office – Melbourne, PMO project management methodology.• Project Management of the following:› Catholic Integrated Online Network (ICON) selected projects:» IDAM» Cloud Computing and Messaging» School Improvement Planning » Core Data Center project initiatives; (DNS, Firewall, Application and Website Filtering, Proxy Services, Spam and Antivirus, and Intrusion Detection) › Contracts Register› CEOM Public Website Redevelopment.• In a Business Analysis capacity, preparation of requirement functional/specifications.• Applications include Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Ektron (Content Management System) Show less

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  Marand Precision Engineering

  Jul 2012 - Nov 2012

  MARAND PRECISION ENGINEERING * Project / Process Support

  • Manufacturing Sector - Joint Strike Fighter; Vertical Tails - Project/Development• Six Sigma and Quality Management System (QMS); Business Process, Procedure and Work Instruction developments and improvements.• Excel and Visual Basic specialized coding automation solution developments.• Manufacturing ERP (ECi - M1); Test Cases, Acceptance Testing and progressing Defects with the provider.

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  City of Melbourne

  Nov 2012 - Apr 2013

  CITY OF MELBOURNE * Project Manager

  • Project Management (Agile) and Support Services to the City of Melbourne - 'Health Services System Replacement - Finance' expedited project delivery based upon Agile concepts; i.e. user stories that amounted to the identification of ~50 prioritized change requests.• Project teaming and leadership of Business - SMEs, BAs, Testers and Vendor; Change and Defect Management utilizing HP - Quality Center.

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  Lumo Energy

  Jul 2013 - Aug 2014

  LUMO ENERGY * Project Manager

  • The project management delivery of ERP initiatives including:› Invoicing Engine Overhaul (This was considered by Lumo/Agility as a significant project delivery in terms of scale, value add and testing).› National Energy Customer Framework VIC (Energy Retail Code - Compliance); enterprise wide.• Progressed and delivered projects tailored in accordance to PMO framework and processes.• Stakeholder and vendor management to achieving successful production deployment and business operational adoption, managed outcomes exceeding expectations and business benefits. Show less

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  Frankston-Mornington Peninsula Medicare Local

  Feb 2015 - Apr 2015

  MEDICARE LOCAL * Project Manager (Episoft) - Client Information Management System

  • Responsible for the development and implementation delivery of the FMPML prioritised initiatives into Episoft (post go-live) on behalf of the following programs:› Partners in Recovery (PIR)› Access to Allied Psychological Services (ATAPS)• Partnering with the South Eastern Melbourne Medicare Local (SEMML); ratified and established a governance (SEMML/FMPML) approved single prioritised Episoft product backlog for delivery.• Provided end user level 1 & 2 support; troubleshooting and Episoft administration of end-users.• Prepared the FMPML prioritised initiatives Business/Functional Requirements documentation (including: Flexible Funding, Alerts, Exit Process); performed functional acceptance testing.(Casual/Temporary Assignment) Show less

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  Telstra

  May 2015 - Feb 2016

  TELSTRA * Project Manager

  As part of the NBN; Telstra needed to migrate existing customers and their services in preparation for the fiber optic roll-out and be able to match addresses of interest from internal source systems against NBN Co’s address data to confirm migration readiness. This allowed Telstra to capitalize on the de-activating, disconnecting and decommissioning of its copper based PSTN infrastructure. Reports generated were sent to the appropriate Telstra parties to utilize this information through use of the NBN Transition Tool (NTT).Key responsibilities• Responsible for delivery of many multiple concurrent initiatives from within various NTT pipeline streams through the defined project life cycle stages from initiate to deployment; and post production warranty support closure including:› Data Address Matching› Disconnections› Cease Sale› Telecommunications Universal Services and Management Agency (TUSMA)• Responsible for Initiative financials including establishment and vendor management of Accenture SOWs (FieldGlass and Meridian), payment of invoices and management of budgets; project accounting monthly accruals.• Initiative teaming and leadership of multiple systems and diverse cross functional teams; conducting workshops; managing issues/risks/changes, resolving conflicts and management of stakeholder and client expectations.• Hybrid agile and waterfall approach in accordance to the NTT delivery framework. Show less

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  Telstra

  Apr 2016 - Dec 2016

  TELSTRA * Project Manager

  Project Manager - Security/Compliance• Responsible for the Project Management of the security/compliance component to the Telstra (CISCO) Symphony Program; Network Functional Virtualisation (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN).› The program provides customers an on-demand service experience and control portal to order and manage services; offering a simple experience with self-service capabilities to revolutionise the way customer services are deployed and consumed.› Ultimately, provides customers with more flexibility by allowing them to quickly respond to needs with near real-time changes and deployment of services.• Project management in accordance to Telstra Development Process (TDP); utilized Telstra Integral* Plus financial management system; project management reporting via the Telstra EPM system; milestones, risks and issues.• Conducted detailed impact assessments, prepared and achieved approval of the detailed schedule, scope, cost and budget.• Project Management teaming and leadership; managing issues and risks; stakeholder management reporting and managing expectations.• Project planned and delivered the PacNet integration with Telstra security operations; underpinned L2-DCI. Show less

• 

  Telstra

  Feb 2017 - Dec 2018

  TELSTRA * Senior Project Specialist

  Project agile managed the delivery of SEN (SDN Evolution Network), to replace the NII (Network Intelligent Infrastructure) with a software defined flexible backbone infrastructure that permits staff or applications to collect, transform and transport monitoring and analytics data to selected destinations where the analysis tools reside; whether within cloud computing or data centers.• Achieved -> Directors Award (Telstra's first innovative solution using open source tools for analytics traffic on SEN at low cost).• The initiative was awarded the Culture and Diversity Award at the SDN / NFV World Conference in Hague.• Delivery of a high profile and agile new ways of working (NWOW) 'light house' initiative; of the many challenges and lessons learnt whilst innovatively adopted Agile/DevOps.• The initiative was organizationally assigned to a very structured and entrenched waterfall driven environment; the challenges arising of agile delivery within the expectations of waterfall.• Responsible for project delivery in accordance to DevOps/Agile/Scrum; as a servant leader, also performed the scrum master role.• Conducted daily stand-ups, planning; reviews, backlog grooming, retrospectives; issues and risks management with the multi-disciplinary team to develop solutions whether technical or the NWOW.• Reported and daily tracked sprint deliveries, managed team escalations and blockers.• Presented comprehensive project reports to the leadership team.• Jira and Confluence for the real-time management of project and engineering design and maintenance support artifacts.• Project budget of FY18 ~ $9M and FY19 ~ $7M; project team of 30+ functionally.• Elicitation of many business impact assessment that underpinned the detailed capital planning submissions and business case funding releases; detailed financial planning and tracking spend profiles.• Installed 35 new switches; commissioned and interconnected Australian capital cities; includes out of band management. Show less

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  Telstra

  Apr 2019 - Apr 2020

  TELSTRA * Project Manager - Platform Uplift - Data Migration to the Cloud (Azure PaaS)

  Project agile managed the digital transformation migration of legacy and strategic system data analytics to the cloud (PaaS Azure) providing cost reductions, scalability and performance benefits impacting over 30 system data feeds, achieved security approvals and acceptance to operate.• Managed a feasibility and assessment study selection between AWS and Azure products to business requirements and available project budgets.• Project management and leadership of strategic and legacy system data migrations to the PaaS cloud; key component Azure (ADLS, databricks, datafactory, event hub, key vault, active directory, monitoring, diagnostics, backups, and postgres). VMs (domain controllers, proxy/gateways, bamboo agent, SQL and integrated runtimes). Networking and firewall changes.• Performed the role of iteration manager and scrum master, conducted agile ceremonies including daily stand-ups, retrospectives, backlog grooming and sprint planning; setting goals.• Utilized Jira for detailed analysis and tracking of epics, stories and tasks towards achievement of the MVP.• Established a centralized Confluence repository for the project, design documentation and deliveries that provided the ongoing source of truth for the initiative team; the management team and for near-real-time transparent reporting of progress and status.• Vendor and supplier engagement management; escalations and feature enhancements.• Project coordination delivery of development activities, training planning and implementation.• Fostered a high performance agile virtual project team; implemented; Jira, confluence and teaming efficiencies and the delivery of continuous improvement of geographically and internationally remote resources utilizing virtual meeting rooms (Webex & MS Teams). Show less

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  Microsoft

  Mar 2021 - Sept 2021

  Velocity Manager at National Australia Bank

  Velocity Manager of many National Australia Bank (NAB) application migrations to Azure the cloud:• Single point of contact for application migrations, conduit between NAB asset teams and Microsoft migration teams from start to completion.• Identified and championed blockers to migrations, raise issues and risks with PMO.• Provided feedback and escalation channel for NAB Asset Teams.• Worked with NAB asset teams to plan migrations.• Kept asset teams informed of regular updates of impacting cross program developments.• Delivered an aligned M1K narrative, communicated changes that affect Asset Teams, promoted other communication events and resources.• Continuous improvement of Asset Team relationship & experience. Show less

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  Tata Consultancy Services

  Sept 2021 - Dec 2024

  Edge Program – Collaterals (Non-Marketing)Key responsibilities:• Engaged Asset team SMEs based on impacted applications for Progressive Elaboration (PE) sessions.• Convened Progressive Elaboration (PE) session (Pre-PE, PE1 & PE2). Solicited asset team delivery dates and Epic elaboration features / stories.• Monitored asset team feature delivery and escalated issues and risks as needed.• Oversaw SIT execution and defect management, escalated issues with asset teams and leadership.• Administered and maintained Rally for tracking progress.• Established and maintained strong relationships with Epic and Edge Program stakeholders.• Managed MRM administration and reporting to the Edge Program.• Managed over 10 Epics through various stages, from Pre-PE to post-go-live verification and fixes.Achievements:• Many PE sessions were convened and successfully achieved many Epics Go Live.• Service Awards Sep 2024, Service & Commitment Award. Show less Key responsibilitiesData Driven Experiences Platform - Data Ingestion (Azure Cloud Data Migrations)• Managed and prioritized the backlog of DDEP Ingestions with stakeholders.• Resolved issues, risks, and dependencies escalated by the agile delivery team.• Maintained Jira initiatives, EPICs, and program tracking.• Handled Clarity management, cost planning, and tracking.• Addressed program initiated change requests and managed stakeholder expectations.• Collected impact assessments, estimates, and timelines for delivery scoping and scheduling.• Established and maintained a strong network of contacts.• Reported on initiatives, including DDEP and programs.• Motivated and supported delivery squads.Achievements:• Many ingestions successfully achieved Go Live.• Beyond Performance Awards Dec 2022, Continuous Feedback Star Certificate, Performance Management. Show less

  • Consultant - TCS Searching Next Assignment / Project

    Oct 2024 - Dec 2024

  • Release Train Engineer at NAB

    Mar 2024 - Oct 2024

  • Consultant - TCS Searching Next Assignment / Project

    Nov 2023 - Mar 2024

  • Service Owner at Westpac

    Sept 2021 - Nov 2023
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  NAB

  Feb 2025 - Apr 2025

  Release Train Engineer

  Release Train Engineer to introduce Delivery Management best practices to increase structure and ultimately accelerate the delivery of EPICs within JoinBiz | EPOC | Enterprise Customer Onboarding & Mastering; centric to Arrangements Master App.Responsibilities:• Continuation of inflight assigned EPICs.• Conducted an EPIC audit; identified each EPIC was missing Scope, Business Requirements, Architecture (AppID impacts [i.e. Amend, SIT-Support, Re-Use, New]).• Front door engagement of Asset Teams; solicitation and approval of OOMs.• Teaming and Leadership of impacted Asset Teams; aligning deliveries. Eg. SIT Entry.• EPIC financials, maintenance of clarity.• EPIC Rally audit and maintenance; from the creation of asset team shell features to tracking deliveries.• Review of monthly financials and planning; review ongoing issue of guestimating adhoc and prioritized externally mid-month charging to other projects cost centers causing excessive forecasts vs actual cost variances.• Monitoring SIT execution and reporting; championing escalated, blockers, issues and defects to a resolve.Achievements:• Retrospectively and as identified, accelerated EPIC asset team front door and engagements.• Oversee assigned EPIC delivery; conducting weekly check-in meetings, progressed issues and blockers to resolution. Show less