Michel Potvin

Experience

• 

  GryphTech

  Apr 1998 - Sept 2013

  Responsible for the operations of the company, more specifically as it relates to the following three departments: Development Group: thirteen developers, one quality assurance and one project manager Customer Service Group: four developers, one training specialist, one manager Operations Group: one manager, one system administrator• Setting up quarterly objectives for each of the departments, along with the roadmap to achieve these goals• Participate in establishing the strategic direction of the company• Recruiting for all positions within my groups• Holding weekly departmental meeting to set priorities and long term goals• Holding a weekly status meeting with account managers to review the progress of the various software releases• Prepare and present reports to the management team on the performance of all departments, according to pre-established performance metrics• Responsible for the purchasing of hardware• Deal with day-to-day escalations of issues from internal stakeholders or directly from the clients• Some travel to meet with clients in the US Show less Global.remax.comThis is a global real estate portal that displays more than 650,000 listings from 45 countries in 32 languages. I was responsible for the product since its inception. This included the initial design documentation, managing the development of the site and various data exchange protocols, managing the relationship with the client by holding regular weekly meetings, managing the relationship with the various data providers all over the world, preparing specifications for product enhancements, keeping track of future project requests, overseeing the support process, the monthly invoicing, etc. The web site went live in September 2011. iFranchiseThis is a web-based real estate franchise administration system used in over 40 countries. This was my first project when I joined GryphTech. It has been going strong for 14 years now. With the first client, I designed most of the application and all of its screens (over 150), including the database design. I managed the team of developers who did the initial development and continued over the years to act as the product manager for the product, including the management of the relationships with the North American clients, preparing the road map for enhancements to the product, conducting user group meetings to obtain feedback on existing and potential functionality, etc. I continued to visit the American and Canadian clients on a regular basis to discuss pain points, possible enhancements, etc.• Product manager responsible for the roadmap of several products, including but not limited to those mentioned above• Account manager for all North American accounts, including the company’s largest account• Member of the management team Show less Achievements• During the first year, reduced the staff turnover rate to 12%, from 60% the year before• Increased staff productivity from 42% to 79% (as defined by the number of hours that is billed back to the clients)• Increased on-time delivery of projects from 65% to 100%• Created a documentation process for over-budget tasks so that lessons can be learned from the overages• Created a Microsoft Certification plan to have 100% of the developers certified – goal achieved.• Instigated a development, test and stage environments physical overhaul to improve development, efficiency and project delivery• Instigated the implementation of Microsoft Team Foundation Server as a replacement for Visual Source Safe with the goal to reduce dependencies between support-related code changes and development project • Started a training program that allowed and paid for developers to attend educational events such Microsoft Tech-days and other technical conventions or meetings• Key contributor to establishing a vision and goals for the growth of the company Responsibilities• Managed a staff of 15 developers, team lead, quality assurance specialists, business analyst and project coordinator• Account management for a franchise administration and management system for the real estate industry (iFranchise) • Responsible for the delivery of projects within budget and timeline agreed with the accounts managers• Responsible for the delivery of all project development estimates• Prepared and delivered weekly briefings to the rest of the management team on project status• Prepared and delivered monthly briefings to the rest of the management team on departmental metrics • Contributed to the weekly deliberation of the management meeting, including strategy sessions, mission and goals setting, etc.• Responsible for staffing Show less Achievements• Created the Customer Service group and recruited the initial 5 employees• Managed client relationships for over 40 accounts all over the world• Created processes and on-line reports to facilitate the prioritization of support requests• Designed and programmed a report that identifies and re-prioritize any support requests in danger of failing the client’s service level agreement• Initiated monthly courtesy calls with every client to ensure that they received satisfactory services from my group• Instigated the creation of an internal documentation web site accessible by all employees, containing technical and business information on all of the companies applications and technical environment• Created a Microsoft Certification plan to have all support specialists holding a certification by the end of 2008. This was achieved at 100%.Responsibilities• Managed a staff of 4 developers and 1 technical writer• Ensured that incoming support requests were appropriately prioritized and resolved in a timely manner, in accordance to the client’s service level agreement• Resolved client escalations issues• Attended client convention all over the world as a representative of GryphTech• Coordinated resolution of issues with the development group Show less • Lead a team of developers, from 2 to 4 developers to develop and maintain iFranchise, a franchise administration and management system• Responsible for the conception, design and implementation of new features for the iFranchise product• Based on written specifications, created, assigned and managed task list with each developers• Regular contact with all clients on the project which often resulted in up-selling new features and functionality• Wrote detailed proposals for the clients on new functionality• Wrote and conducted client training sessions• Supported the application• Generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales by initiating new features ideas with clients Show less

  • Manager, Development and Operations

    Nov 2012 - Sept 2013

  • Product Manager

    Jun 2010 - Oct 2012

  • Director of Development

    Jun 2008 - Aug 2010

  • Director of Customer Service

    Dec 2005 - Jun 2008

  • Business Analyst/Development Team Lead

    Apr 2000 - Dec 2005

  • Business Analyst/Software Developer

    Apr 1998 - Apr 2000
• 

  Bosley Real Estate Ltd, Brokerage

  Dec 2014 - Dec 2015

  Sales Representative

  Represented clients in leasing and selling/buying of residential properties.

• 

  Gryphtech

  Dec 2015 - Aug 2017

  Business Analyst and Product Manager

  iBroker: broker office management tooliFranchise: management and administration softwareClient interviews, authored release specifications for both iFranchise and iBroker, waterfall development, customer support, TPSD reviews, problem solving with the development team. Successfully released the first version of iBroker after revising the user interface resulting in a greatly improved user experience.Responsible for releasing several versions of iBroker and iFranchise, resulting in the successful implementation of many new features, including API integration, enhanced invoicing functionality by integrating both systems with one another. Show less

• 

  HomeLife/Realty One Ltd., Brokerage

  May 2016 - May 2017

  Sales Representative

  Represented clients in leasing and selling/buying of residential properties.

• 

  Altus Group

  Aug 2017 - Apr 2019

  Data Exchange, commercial real estate appraisal workflow applicationUser story mapping, user story specifications, test plan strategy document review, scrum, problem solving with development team.Reduced by 50% the time required to identify the relevant user stories to support a vendor engagement workflow feature by exploring similar functionality in other applications, analyzing client feedback and interviews and authoring a preliminary user story mapping. Argus Services (API Development)Data schema analysis, user story specifications, test plan strategy document review, scrum, problem solving with development team, API documentation.Provided access to valuable ARGUS Enterprise data by implementing over 100 APIs, grouping data points in innovative, useful and efficient APIs.Documented and demonstrated API calls which resulted in successful adoption of APIs by 1st party application, Altus Acquire.

  • Business Analyst

    Jan 2019 - Apr 2019

  • Business Analyst

    Aug 2017 - Jan 2019
• 

  Laurentian Bank Financial Group

  Oct 2021 - now

  Senior Bilingual Administration Officer