Project manager (application maintenance and operations) — retail

Project manager of the application maintenance and the operational upkeep of an omnichannel retailer's B2B Salesforce platform. A team of four: one functional consultant and three developers.

Two contractual models across the same scope: best efforts for small changes, priced off the shelf and grouped into bi-monthly releases; fixed price with an obligation of result for projects above fifty man-days.

Scope of the operational upkeep: checking the batch chain, imports, transfers, access management and the daily report. Surfacing business needs to the business and technical owners, then detailing tickets in Jira. A dozen changes and their associated fixes per release, delivered to production every two months.

Scope of management: approving estimates, running the team and the capacity plan, financial reporting, a weekly operational committee, a weekly management review, a quarterly steering committee and invoicing across the whole maintenance, operations and project scope.

The underlying constraint: an ageing Salesforce platform, with rules inherited from a migration off Siebel, where the smallest change could affect many rules and processes. Gradual adaptation to the new business processes, simplifying and modernising the existing estate along the way.