Carola Bischoff

Subproject Management/Test Management

Palm-Mar, Spain

Experience

Jun 2022 - Dec 2023
1 year 7 months
Germany

Subproject Management/Test Management

msg Systems

Client: Federal Motor Transport Authority. Sector: Public service. Project team size: 10 people. Project goal: Test management for the large client interface project.

  • Built the test team
  • Managed and coordinated test components
  • Developed individual team members
  • Planned and executed test strategy
  • Ensured quality measures
  • Implemented subprojects in an external test environment
  • Monitored budget and initiated actions
  • Oversaw and ensured completion of test components
  • Planned, coordinated, and ran overall tests with stakeholders
  • Supported Go Live
  • Coordinated remaining tasks

Tools/Methods: Office 365, Jira, Confluence, Scrum, Aris, facilitated meetings, presentations, XML

Feb 2022 - May 2022
4 months
Germany

Subproject Management

msg Systems

Client: ITZ-Bund. Sector: IT/Data center. Project team size: 6 people. Project goal: Build a production environment with VS-NFD.

  • As-Is vs. To-Be analysis of the existing setup
  • Coordination with stakeholders: PROITK, BMI, security clearance
  • Brought individual services into a unified VS-NFD environment
  • Tracked geo-redundant environment setup and changes
  • Escalation management
  • Budget monitoring
  • Supported and developed system and network architecture
  • Developed and maintained the project breakdown structure
  • Monitored completion of work packages

Tools/Methods: Office 365, Skype for Business, Project, facilitated meetings, presentations

Feb 2021 - Jun 2021
5 months
Weimar, Germany

Project Management

Bayer AG Weimar

Sector: Pharmaceuticals. Project team size: 7 people. Project goal: Migrate Lotus Notes databases to SharePoint.

  • Project management
  • As-Is vs. To-Be analysis of migration situation
  • Analyzed database functions in Lotus Notes and created functional specs for migration and support by external partners
  • Designed SharePoint solution
  • Created field mappings
  • Gathered and aligned requirements with application owners and external contractors
  • Coordinated external partners
  • Managed and executed migration to SharePoint
  • Developed alternative solutions outside SharePoint
  • Active test management in SharePoint: designed functional test scenarios, ran tests, documented results
  • Deployed SharePoint and supported user acceptance
  • Project documentation

Tools/Methods: SharePoint, Lotus Notes, facilitated meetings, Teamstudio, Office 365, presentations, partly English project language

May 2020 - Sep 2020
5 months
Germany

IT Consultant

Public Sector Professional Body

Sector: Public sector. Project team size: 5 people. Project goal: Prepare tender documents for IT outsourcing.

  • Conceptualized procurement approach
  • Conducted cost-benefit analysis
  • Calculated costs and made strategic recommendations
  • Planned and managed procurement process and wrote service specifications

Tools/Methods: Lucidchart for graphics, Merlin Project

Oct 2019 - Aug 2020
11 months
Brandenburg, Germany
Remote

Project Management

Brandenburg IT Service Provider / ZIT-BB

Sector: IT services. Project team size: 8 people. Project goal: Implement remote support software for users.

  • Project management
  • As-Is vs. To-Be analysis of IT situation
  • Technical concept for migration prep
  • Initiated change for hardware procurement
  • Developed test scenarios, active test management
  • Coordinated application deployment
  • Planned and led project meetings
  • Project documentation

Tools/Methods: Coaching, project management, Merlin Project, facilitation

Sep 2019 - Jun 2021
1 year 10 months
Brandenburg, Germany

Project Management

Brandenburg IT Service Provider / ZIT-BB

Sector: IT services. Project team size: 17 people. Project goal: Migrate and transition the LISA application to ZIT-BB data center.

  • Project management
  • As-Is vs. To-Be analysis at client and provider
  • Requirements management with app owners and admins
  • Planned and led technical meetings
  • Initiated and managed hardware procurement changes
  • Technical concept for migration prep
  • Designed test scenarios with the client
  • Coordinated application installation
  • Project documentation

Tools/Methods: Coaching, facilitation, project management

Feb 2017 - May 2017
4 months
Germany

Project Management

Public Administration

Employee status. Sector: Public service. Project team size: 5 people. Project goal: Introduce Marvel client for user support.

  • Project management
  • Designed and planned project
  • Conducted cost-benefit analysis
  • Planned migration approach
  • Managed cross-department migration
  • Developed communication measures for service desk
  • Project documentation

Tools/Methods: Confluence, Jira, Lotus Notes, Marvel, facilitated meetings, project management

May 2016 - Oct 2017
1 year 6 months
Germany

Project Management

Public Administration

Employee status. Sector: Public service. Project team size: 14 people. Project goal: Migrate Lotus Notes system on ~120 servers and 23,000 clients.

  • Project management
  • Cost-benefit analysis
  • Project design and planning
  • Incident manager during implementation
  • Coordinated incidents and escalations
  • Crisis and escalation management
  • Ran daily scrums and retrospectives alongside traditional methods
  • Developed user communications with service desk before and during migration
  • Led stakeholder alignment meetings
  • Managed claims
  • Project documentation

Tools/Methods: Confluence, Jira, Lotus Notes, facilitated meetings, agile methods, project management, Remedy, Windows Server 2012

Jun 2015 - Mar 2016
10 months
Germany

Project Management

Public Administration

Employee status. Sector: Public service. Project team size: 9 people. Project goal: Migrate Lotus Notes servers from Solaris to Windows 2012 (VMware).

  • Project management
  • Cost-benefit analysis
  • Project planning
  • Migration planning
  • Developed user communications with service desk before and after migration
  • Requirements management with users and operations teams
  • Cross-team alignment meetings during migration with stakeholders
  • Project documentation

Tools/Methods: Confluence, Lotus Notes, Remedy, Solaris, Windows Server

Jun 2013 - Jun 2019
6 years 1 month
Germany

Team Lead

Public Administration

Employee status. Sector: Public service. Team size: 11 people. Team goal: Optimize process stability of Request Fulfilment Management.

  • Led Notes administration team
  • Conducted staff reviews and conflict discussions
  • Facilitated meetings
  • Supported team development
  • Wrote employee evaluations
  • Created security concepts
  • Analyzed and restructured team processes
  • Participated in committees
  • Rolled out security software
  • Reported to senior management
  • Promoted to senior service
  • Organized team-building and process improvements
  • Applied agile methods
  • Project management
  • Managed data center relocation

Tools/Methods: Greylisting, Linux, Lotus Notes, Postfix, Remedy, Solaris

Jan 2001 - May 2013
12 years 5 months
Germany

Administrator

Public Service

  • Administered Notes clients and servers from Lotus Notes 3 to 8
  • Managed malware protection with iqSuite SMTP mailing and greylisting
  • Administered intranet literature system
  • Planned, designed, and supported several Lotus Notes migrations
Nov 2000 - Dec 2000
2 months
Germany

OS/2 Server and Client Support Administrator

DIS AG

Administered OS/2 servers and provided client support in a banking environment.

Sep 1998 - Oct 2000
2 years 2 months
Germany

IT Recruiting and System Administration

Time&More Personnel Management

  • IT recruiting
  • System administration of OS/2 in a banking environment
Aug 1996 - Mar 1997
8 months

Owner of a Tobacco Shop

Self-employed

Ran my own tobacco shop.

Dec 1985 - Jul 1996
10 years 8 months
Germany

System Administrator

Sietec Systemtechnik

  • Administered BS2000 hosts, VMS, Windows and OS/2 clients and servers
  • Performed diagnostics, general system administration, and user support

Summary

Practically tested expert in multi-project management with both traditional and agile approaches, stakeholder management, and team leadership.

My focus is on introductions, updates, transitions, and migrations for software and hardware within a business environment.

I gained and continuously developed my experience and knowledge in banking, public administration, pharmaceuticals, and IT service sectors.

My main areas, often combined with Lean Six Sigma, Scrum, and SAFe, are:

  • Requirements management for business concepts, IT applications, IT infrastructure
  • Risk management, escalation management, quality management
  • Implementation management, test management
  • Change management
  • Cost-benefit analyses, project controlling
  • Technical support in the implementation of service architectures
  • Support for data center moves, creation of security concepts
  • New software rollouts, migrations, software transitions, and version upgrades

Languages

German
Native
English
Advanced
Spanish
Elementary

Education

Jan 2001 - Jul 2001

FernUniversität Hagen

Studied Mathematics and Computer Science · Mathematics and Computer Science · Hagen, Germany

Aug 1983 - Dec 1986
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Trained Office Assistant · Office Assistance

Certifications & licenses

Class B Driver’s License

IT Security

ITIL® 4 Foundation

Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt

Lotus Notes/Notes Domino

People Management

Professional Scrum Master

SAFe 5.0

Windows Server Architecture

IPMA/GPM Level D Certified Project Specialist

IPMA /GPM