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Birundha Dhamodharan

Chennai, India

My certifications
About

About

Title: Sr Mgr - Software Project Manager

Birundha D

Flat no:216 2nd floor

Block 1, Ceebros Boulevard

OMR, Metukkupam

Chennai - 600097, India. Email: [email protected]@gmail.com

Mobile: 9886324616(BLR), 7299924616(CHN)

B-01, Vaswani Bella Vista,

Seetharampalya Road,

Sonnenahalli, Phone Number: 91-9886324616

Bangalore – 560048, India. Email: [email protected]

OBJECTIVE

A highly structured, innovative and result oriented professional seeking growth centric senior business positions.

Summary of Professional Expertise:

13+14+ years of proven experience spread across Consumer Peripherals, Networking and Automotive domains (HW & SW).
Technical Project Management of Automotive SW projects of approx. size ~3million €
Leading Strategy tracks for Infineon India market growth
- Key account Analysis and Identification
- Analysis of Market segments
- Competition Profiling and Analysis
- Creating value to command Cost Premium
Expertise in leading Design and Development of technology products.
Good track record of on-time high quality delivery of multi-disciplinary (Embedded Software, and Test Hardware Dev) projects comprising diverse skill sets.
People management of 35+ member team with diverse skill sets in product delivery and technology development.
Performance management and succession planning with product and technology roadmaps.
Experience in working with multi-cultural team (Germany, Singapore and other parts of APAC) from remote locations.
Strong strategic and long term planning abilities (Product roadmap)
Change agent in bringing systemic improvements leading to higher productivity.
Key Driver for global process improvements for Software (CIG member).
Certified Project Manager - IPMC Level C (Indian Member of IPMA)
Diverse expertise across R&D, sales, marketing and manufacturing.
In-depth knowledge of engineering processes including Hardware & SW development models, SEI CMMi, ASPICE, ISO 26262 and ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14000.

Skills & Tools

Management: Project (Certified Project Manager - IPMC Level C), Strategic Product and People Management

Competencies: Product Roadmap, Risk and Opportunity mgmt. (SWOT), Performance management, Succession planning, Technical grooming, PProject Environment Analysis, WBD/COCOMO Estimation, WBS, Project Planning/Scheduling techniques (MPP), Risk and Opportunity mgmt., Cost planning, Stakeholder Analysis, Statistical tools, Communication mgmt., Controlling and Reporting, Product Roadmap, Problem Resolution, Result orientation, Leadership styles, Conflict Mgmt, Negotiation, Performance management, Succession planning, Technical grooming, Statistical tools.

Hardware: Digital (Microprocessor/Controllers) and Mixed Signal Design.

ORCAD, PSPICE and CUPL PLD Programming.

Technical Standards AUTOSAR

& Protocols & Modules

(Communication

& Networking): AUTOSAR, SPI, CAN, UART, RS232, Ethernet, ADC, Timer and Memory Based

ModulesTCP/IP, BGP, PPP, HDLC, RIP, SNMP

Software/Tools: C & Assembly, VB, ASP.Net.

8/16/32 bit MCUs, Infineon’s Tricore & C166 Architectures.

Debuggers, compiler, emulators, Polyspace, LABVIEW, PC-Lint, Code coverage and Performance measurement tools, Targetprocess, KLUSA, QTP

Quality: CMMi, PCMMi, ASPICE and ISO.

Configuration Mgmt: Clearcase and SVN

Database: MS-ACCESS, SQL

Employment History

Company (Current): AAPL (A Tech Startup)

Position: Director

Duration: July 2013 to present

Responsibility: Project Mgmt Consultancy and Training

Development and Management of Online Ecommerce Portal.

Company: Infineon Technology India Pvt Ltd., Bangalore, India

Position: Manager

Duration: since 31st March 2004 to June 2013

Responsibility: Development and Management of Automotive Software

Company: Infosys Technologies, Mysore, India

Position: Software Engineer

Duration: Aug 2002 to Mar 2004

Responsibility: Design and Development of HW for Automotive Application.

Company: Software Technology Parks of India, Bangalore & Chennai, India

Position: Member Technical Staff

Duration: July 2000 – Aug 2002

Responsibility: Setting up and Mgmt of Network Operations Center (WAN, LAN, Satellite and Fiber Networks), B2B handling

Company: TVS Electronics Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Position: Member R&D

Duration: July 1999 – July 2000

Responsibility: Design and Development of Dot Matrix Printers.

Accolades:

National Level Award from National Instruments for a Paper on “In-house Test Automation framework and LABVIEW Integration”
Star Team Award for FEE Development for Infineon Controller (TC1766)
Spot Award for Implementation/roll out of Test Automation Framework (2006)
Consistent high performer and chosen “Talent of Infineon India 2011”.
Certificate of Recognition from Infineon APAC MD for being an Internal Trainer
Awarded the Best project in college for the year 1999.
Won many awards for Paper presentation at Inter-college level.
Won Awards in various Sport events.

Career Highlights:

Infineon Technologies India Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, India

As Manager
- Program Management
  - Responsible from New Project Initiation to Production Release.
  - Managing Product roadmap and strategy
  - Project estimation, planning, monitoring and control.
  - Risk and Critical Chain Project Mgmt
  - Responsible for piloting ASPICE and ISO26262
  - Handling currently ~3 mil € project for around 30+ Low level drivers and multiple AUTOSAR versions.
  - Enabling revenue growth by planning and delivering SW projects on time for major Tier1 customers.
- Lead India Growth strategy Initiatives
  - Gaining market share in Indian Key accounts
  - Creating value to command cost premium
  - Strategy Identification and deployment plan
  - Identification/Analysis of potential key accounts, transfer of good practices from global KAM.
  - Identification of market segments, competition profiling and analysis
  - Assessment of TAM, SAM, CAGR from market surveys of various domains and drafting action plans for increasing foot print
- Embedded product development cut across multiple disciplines (partnering with various suppliers), i.e., SW development, Testing, Tool partners and Test HW development.
- Driving Innovation (Productivity & Execution Excellence)
- Stake holder analysis and management.
- KLUSA Resource management (Resource Utilization, Monitoring and Minimizing Infrastructure and Resource cost).
- Managing outsourcing (decision on contract companies) and contract staff
- Team/Individual competency development and talent retention (35+ Team size).
- Coaching and mentoring key talents.
- Key player in Process Improvement initiatives.
- Internal Auditor for ISO9001:2008 process model for Infineon India.

Some of the Firsts in this Role

Beta milestone achieved in shortest time from Project Initiation
Established Model based development for low level drivers
Instrumental in “Optimized testing” approach (based on Technical risk assessment)
Higher Productivity compared to SPR benchmark

Key Projects Lead from this capacity

XC2000 16 and 32 bit microcontroller based AUTOSAR SW (MCAL)
AURIX AUTOSAR SW (Ongoing)

As Staff Engineer and Senior Software Engineer
- Established Independent Verification and Validation Team
- Established state of the art testing technology workflow (Polyspace, codecoverage, performance measurement setups, Early establishment of automation etc)
- Developed Complex Test Automation framework (C# Based): Collected voice of customers, derived the concept, , conducted trainings and roll out of the framework in the complete ATV MC SW department.
- Integrated National Instruments Test Bench, defect tracking system, configuration Mgmt system and Automation Framework
- Instrumental in Process improvements towards early detection of defects, standardization of Test specification.
- Created a framework for Post Release Defect metrics
- Established Maintenance Post production and Release workflow.
- Responsible for the tool qualification (compilers, debuggers etc)

Key Projects Lead from this capacity

Universal Validation Platform (currently this framework is also deployed across certain other departments)
V&V of all major Driver software
AudoNG Maintenance projects
Tool Qualification Projects

Infosys Technologies, Mysore, India

As Software Engineer
- Design and development of Automotive Diagnostic Hardware for ECU.
- Responsibility includes right from Requirement collection, Project Proposal, Design, implementation and production transfer.
- Challenge faced: High Speed, Low Power and Multi layered high density packaging.

Key Projects executed from this capacity:

SPI(over LVDS) Data receiver

Software Technology Parks of India, Bangalore and Chennai

As Member Technical Staff was responsible
- Design and Implementation of Point-to-Point Microwave Links.
- Implementation of ISDN, Copper and fiber Circuits.
- Design and Implementation of Satellite Earth station.
- Design and Implementation of DVB circuits.
- Configuration of routers.
- Ethernet Technology, V.35 and G.703 Signaling, RS422, HDSL technology, SONET, DWDM
- Additional Initiative: Interfacing with corporate customers to win additional Business

TVS Electronics Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

As Member R&D
- Responsible for Dot Matrix Printer’s Main Logic Card Electronics Design.
- Assembly firmware development.
- EMI/EMC Compliance and testing.
- Production Engineering: Analysis of Non Value Added Activities (NVA), elimination of NVA, Automation of production activities to improve Takt time.
- Trained in Quality Assurance, Sales and Marketing

Key Projects executed from this capacity

Main Logic Cards for Mini Printers
SMART CARD Reader study
Automation of Baking Process Control Circuitry
Automatic EOL Label printing

Academic Record:

Degree

Percentage

University/Board

Year of passing

Diploma in Mgmt

Grade B

IGNOU

2002

B.E (ECE)

77%

Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering (Madras University)

1999

XIIth std

92%

Adarsh Vidyalaya (Tamil Nadu State Board)

1995

Xth std

82%

Kendriya Vidyalaya, CLRI (CBSE)

1993

Key Trainings:

Technical Skills

Soft Skills

ASPICE and ISO26262
R&D Project Manager’s Training
PMP Training (35 PDUs)
Implementing Defect Prevention
Advanced Software Testing Techniques
Requirement Engineering
Six Sigma DMAIC + 8D
MS project Office Professional

Leading People in High Performance Company.
Six thinking hats
Coaching Skills
Assertiveness Skills
Collaborative Negotiation Skills.
IP Protection for Hardware & Software.
Conflicts Management and Resolution.
German Culture workshop.

Paper Presentations:

Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE International): In-house Testing of Highly Hardware-dependent Software, http://papers.sae.org/2006-01-1556

Inter – College
- Spread Spectrum Technology.
- Data Compression Technique.

Personal Details:

Date of Birth

12th August, 1978

Gender

Female

Marital Status

Married

Nationality

Indian

Languages known

English, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit

Annexure – Key Project Details

A brief about my last company Infineon Technologies: It is a leading German semiconductor company specialized in Automotive and Industrial domains. They design and manufacture automotive chips (microcontrollers, sensors, power components etc), Industrial electric drives and renewable. Infineon India is the global software competence center for Automotive and Industrial microcontrollers.

I was part of the automotive software R&D division, managing end to end software product releases for latest new products and older generation microcontrollers.

Following are the details of projects led by me under the capacity of Software Project/Program Manager during my stint in Infineon India Pvt Ltd:

AUTOSAR Program Details:

AUTOSAR driver development for 16 and 32 bit microcontrollers. Multiple projects were handled under this program.
Handling the project from RFQ to production handover covering all the phases of SDLC.
Cumulative Cost of projects ~4.5Million Euro
Team Size: Varying from 12 – 35 members
Project Duration: Varying from 6 months to 2 years

Products covered:

Cumulative Software Drivers for close to 50+ modules supporting 6 major product lines and variants leading to combination of more than 100 software deliveries.
Major product lines supported: 16 and 32 bit automotive microcontrollers (AURIX, XC2x00, AUDO).

Key Challenges handled:

Handling diverse teams (culturally and competence wise) – Concept/ Requirement Engineers (Europe), Application Engineers (US, Europe, East Asia),Development and Test Teams (India and Europe), HW Teams (Europe), Contract Companies for SW and Test HW development. Planned and informal interactions with team, practicing Gemba walk wherever feasible. Using techniques like six thinking hats to arrive at solutions/consensus.
Outsourcing Mgmt: Companies like HCL, KPIT and Tarang software were involved in outsourcing. Both Fixed cost and T&M model were adapted. In Case of Fixed cost: scope and quality expectation were clearly defined. Time and & Material mode was used for scenarios where scope clarity was lacking.
Multiple Stakeholder and Communication Mgmt: Product Marketing, Application Engineering, Program mgmt of Product lines, Local Mgmt, Quality Department, Development, Test and Configuration Managers, sub project teams, Tool partners, HW development and testing teams. Various stakeholders were informed with regular and appropriate reporting, regular steering and tracking meetings (standup meetings).
Change Mgmt : Highly Versatile environment as SW was developed in Parallel to HW, evolving safety standards and new process roll outs. Appropriate Priority decisions through CCBs with stakeholders and protecting critical resources from changes wherever possible. Design highly configurable software ensuring scalability across multiple variants.
Process Changes and Compliance: Was instrumental implementing new automotive process/Product standards (ASPICE, ISO26262 Safety). 100% process compliance in all external audits for existing standards.
Innovation Drives: To improve productivity (Automation, reuse, removal of Non Value added activity) and enable smooth implementation of new technologies. Periodic Innovation workshops to inculcate innovation culture.
L2 & L3 Customer support: Handling high priority customer support amidst burning priorities of ongoing project activities
Resource Mgmt: Highly pressurized environment, challenging schedules and hence had to keep the motivation level of individual resources always high. Appropriate/Timely rewards and appreciation, team outings, regular touch basis with high performers and people of low motivation. Talent Retention, succession planning in order to ensure job rotation or priorities between other projects.
Metrics and Measurement Techniques: To ensure effective tracking in all aspects (cost, quality and time) various lead (Requirement backlog, Product complexity)/Lag parameters were introduced and monitored in the project. E.g Execution Quality, review effectiveness, Defect & Enhancement trend, cost & Effort trend, Milestone Trend analysis.
Risk and Opportunity Mgmt: Risks and opportunities were identified, monitored (RPN based, risk trend analysis) and appropriate measures were taken thru out the project life cycle to mitigate the risk or to have contingency. For the first time cost impact of mitigation or contingency was introduced, this enabled better budget forecasting.
Requirement Mgmt: Rolled out processes to integrate and track requirements from one single database. Since the products delivered were both open market and based on standards, 5000+ requirements were scattered across multiple sources. Had to overcome a lot of inertia from multiple teams by effective communication and using process standards as references. This also was a successful implementation of lessons learnt from the previous projects.
Effective Project Organization: In case of large projects the growth of the team was anticipated at a very early stage of the project and a lead layer in the development and testing team was created. This was not insisted from the overall organization perspective, but this ensured that day to day operations were run efficiently and also individuals get more focus and better assistance. Initially the lead layer was expected to only execute the tasks as per the overall plan for their respective modules. But later they had been asked to do the planning for their area of responsibility to engage them and the team in a better way. This also demanded for additional responsibilities from their side and hence paved way for career growth.
Project Mgmt Documentation: A good project mgmt plan and a running project diary with details on various planning factors, assumptions, constraints, decisions, actions, Infrastructural requirements, release details etc helped to transit smoothly thru complex projects.
Conflicts and crisis: Various conflicts arising due to transfer/overlap of responsibilities were solved by looking into details, effective negotiations.

Internal and Maintenance Project Details:

Test Automation Framework development (.net based PC software integrated to national instrument test bench, Microcontroller test boards, Debuggers, configuration mgmt tool, Defect tracking tool, testing tools)
Handling the following stages of the project
- Decisions to make or buy (COTS)
- Technology selection
- Prototyping and conceptualization
- Requirement collection from various stakeholders/departments
- Implementation, Roll out, customization and training various teams.
Maintenance Projects: Handled successfully highly escalated field failures and high priority maintenance enhancements.
Cumulative Cost of projects ~300K Euro
Team Size: Varying from 5-10 members
Project Duration: Varying from 2 months to 1 year

Products covered:

A highly configurable and scalable test automation framework supporting all AUTOSAR driver’s testing.

Key Challenges handled:

Change Mgmt: Huge resistance to Change from a long standing practice. Though manual testing was effort intensive, since it was a known devil, there was huge resistance to change. Brought in successful deployment by phased implementation rather than taking a big bang approach. Involved the required teams in appropriate stages of feature planning. Regularly briefed the features involved in the framework.
Business Priority versus Internal improvement: The project priorities always took over internal improvement initiatives. Hence had to get buy in from all AUTOSAR Project managers by aligning the Project and deployment schedules right from the planning phase.
Highly Pressurized Environment (Escalations and Schedule pressure): Field failures and high priority enhancement requests in maintenance projects always had higher mgmt attention. Regular/ Transparent communication back to Mgmt and customers thru appropriate reporting enabled smooth sailing. Late night works brought down the energy level of the team, appropriate protection from undue escalations and pressure and timely appreciation helped the team to get back to track.
Focus on Results: The test automation framework implementation was pending for 2 years due to lack of focus, prior to my take over as a project lead. Brought in clarity in bigger picture and also derived smaller goals from this picture and converted that into successful results. Avoided unnecessary digression and gold plating at each stage of the project.