This was a 7 week contract which had to be completed by the 31st March; Working on behalf of the Performance Strategy Directorate, a part of the Home Office Police Support Unit. I was part of a team responsible for organising and running ten workshops throughout the UK to gather new user requirements for iQuanta, a Business Intelligence (BI) website based on data cubes, which provides statistical data on police performance. The outcome of this was a detailed statement of requirements for consideration for inclusion in future releases.

I was responsible for the development and delivery into service of two high profile projects to provide web-based Life and endowment functionality to independent financial advisors via a secure portal communicating using XML based service orientated architecture (SOA). This included plan valuations and Business Intelligence systems. The combined cost of the two projects was £2.7 Million. One project was taken over at the UAT stage because it was in difficulty and required intervention to correct deficiencies and complete service delivery. The second project was from start-up where I was responsible for project initiation, definition of scope, identification of budget. I was responsible for incident management of the production software and the day to day management of up to 19 persons, a mix of architects, analysts and developers to support the development and deployment process. These resources were located in the UK, Ireland and Canada.

• Analysis of business requirements
• Reviewing functional requirements
• Scoping the project
• Production of Project Initiation Documents
• Obtaining budget approval
• Adherence to budget
• Project Reporting
• Planning and updating
• Risk and Issue management • Release Management
• Performing quality reviews
• Management of UAT
• Managing business process change
• Transitioning into Production
• Transitioning into Maintenance
• Project closure and lessons learnt
• Service Deliver
Microsoft .NET, Java, IBM Websphere Portal Server, Tivoli Access Manager Portal Server, Webseal, Oracle, Stellent, Unipass Certificates, Origo Standards, XML, XSLT, Remedy, Hyperion, MS Word, MS Visio, MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, MS Project.

Responsible for managing the design, development, testing and transition to BAU of infrastructure to provide, printing services, volume activation and software delivery to Vista desktops from start to finish. This was part of a programme of work to rollout Vista to 10,000 users distributed in offices throughout the UK. Was also responsible for the modification of printing software to make it Vista compliant and roll it out to 10,000 users. This also involved the configuration of some 1500 printers located at over 200 sites to support the updated software. This was rolled out to enable printing services to be available at each site to coincide with the desktop rollout. Responsible for incident management during the rollout phase:-

• Negotiations for resources.
• Reviewing solution documents
• Production of Project Initiation Documents (PID’s)
• Facilitating workshops
• Purchase of capital equipment
• Managing equipment build and installation
• Arranging network connections
• Producing and maintaining project plans
• OGC Gateway reviews • Management of Risk , Issues, Actions and Decisions
• Producing Weekly RAG reports
• Attending programme meetings with the customer.
• Managing testing and UAT
• Service Delivery (ITEL)
• Transitioning the equipment and software into BAU
• Project closure
• Activation, deactivation and decommissioning.

Resources were located at various sites throughout the UK and abroad, and were matrix managed. 50% of the resources were also working on BAU and required careful monitoring to ensure that progress was maintained

Technology included: Citrix, SoftGrid, VMware, Microsoft Exchange, Vista, XP, SCCM, Tivoli, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Project, Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Prince 2, and ITIL,

I was responsible for managing a portfolio of five concurrent web development projects through their full lifecycle. These projects had values ranging from £75,000 to £500,000 and were managed using Prince 2 and a mix of waterfall and agile methodologies. The resources used, comprised of local matrix managed business analysts and architects who were complemented by third party suppliers located in the UK, Malta, India and the Philippines. I was responsible for the request to tender, bid evaluation and also for enhancing the onshore/offshore processes for the projects that I was responsible for. The projects undertaken were a combination of web/applications and business process change and comprised:-

Main responsibilities included ensuring that stakeholder expectations were understood and met, the business analysis performed, the definition of scope, management of feasibility studies, the production of Project Initiation Documents, production and maintenance of project plans, budget preparation and monthly cost tracking and forecasting, maintaining risk, actions, issues and dependencies documents (RAID). Ensuring that change management, release management (ITEL), test management (CMM level 5), processes were adhered to, facilitating workshops, Gap analysis and quality reviews, ensuring that the business change requirements were fulfilled and that relevant training courses and e-learning courses were implemented and training courses produced.

Technology used: Autonomy, IDOL, Tridion Content management CMS, Salesforce.com, CourseBooker, CRM, ERP, Oracle 10, SQL Server, Microsoft.NET. J2EE, Websphere.. The infrastructure was a mixture of IBM mainframe and Intel and UNIX servers, MS Word, MS Visio, MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, MS Project.

I was responsible for the management of three major work streams which formed part of a programme to deliver a Web Portal based HR flexible rewards system for the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) group.

This was a full lifecycle £2.5 Million project, utilising 19, UK and 25 offshore (third party) resources (USA and India) matrix managed in a Prince 2 environment. The resources used were subject matter experts, actuaries, business analysts, architects, developers and testers. I had two other project managers reporting into me for dependent pieces of work and three test managers. I was also responsible for upgrading the call centre to support the new business model. Duties included, developing e-learning applications to support the business process change and the production of training course material:-

• Running Workshops
• Analysis of business requirements
• Gap Analysis
• Scoping the project
• Production of PID’s.
• Project Initiation
• Project Reporting
• Planning, Risk and Issue • Change Management
• Development of SLA’s for 3rd parties
• Test Management
• Managing business process change
• Infrastructure – IT and Telephone
• Setting up Support Teams
• Training Support Teams
• Mentoring junior project managers
Technology Used: Lotus Notes, Microsoft Project, Word, Visio, PowerPoint , Excel, SQL Server, Oracle, Widows XP, Unix, VB.net, C#, J2EE, Websphere, IBM Mainframe.,

I was responsible for managing four projects which formed part of a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) programme on behalf of Liverpool Victoria Assurance. This was a £2million data migration programme to retrieve the insurance data of over 1 million policy holders from a number of third parties to bring the management of the policies within EDS.

These projects necessitated enhancements to be made to the EDS Ingenium product and life and pensions data for over 1 million customers migrated into the product from existing outsourcing providers. The existing data had to be mapped to the target database and cleansed to allow it to be successfully imported. A Gap analysis was performed to no data or functionality was omitted.

This was a matrix managed project, based on Prince 2 methodology, utilising 15 multi-site resources in the UK and offshore from the USA and India. My responsibilities included:-

• Stakeholder Management
• Running Workshops
• Analysis of business requirements
• Gap Analysis
• Scoping the project
• Production of PID’s. • Project Initiation
• Change Management
• Test Management
• Project Reporting
• Project Planning
• Risks and Issues management
Technology Used: Outlook, Microsoft Project, Word, Visio, Excel, Oracle, Widows XP, Unix, VB.net, C#, J2EE, Websphere, IBM Mainframe, windows and Unix servers.

I was responsible for managing a major redevelopment of the company’s website to provide a portal access to the general and business to business B2B areas of the site and the production of an e-learning system to train the B2B users in the straight through process (STP).

The development utilised 19 internal resources and two external third party suppliers (Offshore – India). The project was managed using Prince 2 with SCRUM. I was responsible for the full lifecycle from business justification, project initiation, planning, business process change, risk and issues management, configuration management, change control, release management, transition into BAU and project closure.

The B2B site enabled intermediaries to perform straight through processing (STP) of mortgage applications. This included the use of Quick Address (QAS) for address integrity, access to Experian for credit reference checking as a part of the credit scoring process and access to land registry information as a part of the workflow process. The public sites content was delivered using Microsoft Content Manager.

The technology used was Microsoft Windows Server 2003, with Microsoft Content Manager (CMS), SharePoint Portal, and utilise BizTalk to provide the Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) to provide the Business to Business (B2B) interface. The approach was Rapid Application Development and made use of Exchange, Visual Studio .NET, C# ASP.NET, VB.NET, XML XSLT, BizTalk, J2EE ,Oracle, Oracle Business Objects, SOAP, Rational Rose, Requisite Pro, Mercury Quick Test Pro, XP, DSDM, RUP, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Office, PowerPoint.

I took over the management of the development department to improve the performance of the department and also its image within the company. I was also responsible for the software development portfolio, which had five project managers reporting into me. I was also responsible for the identification of strategic approach required to support the business and for the relationship between the company and its development partners, project budgets, quality and best practice and procedures. The management approach was Prince 2 Framework with a mix of waterfall and agile techniques (DSDM and Scrum. I was instrumental in the setup of a project management office (PMO) and was also instrumental in gaining acceptance to use Microsoft SharePoint Portal, integrated with Microsoft Office for the company’s intranet.

I was responsible for the development and delivery of the London Market Component of a Lloyds of London style insurance brokerage system. This was a £2.1Million Enterprise project which was a combination of development and integration to form a deliverable product. This methodology used was Catalyst, which is CSC’s interpretation of Prince 2, and involved the matrix management of 18 UK and 15 offshore resources.

When I took over this project, it had been underway for a year and was not meeting targets. My main responsibility was to bring the project back onto schedule and take it through to delivery at two client’s sites. I did this by reviewing individuals suitability for their tasks, ensuring that everyone have clear terms of reference, introduced several teambuilding activities, and made sure that everyone bought into t produce and had revised project plan.

I was also responsible for:-

• Stakeholder Management
• Running Workshops
• Analysis of business requirements
• Gap Analysis
• Scoping the project
• Production of PID’s. • Project Initiation
• Change Management
• Test Management
• Project Reporting
• Project Planning
• Risks and Issues management

This was a Microsoft n-tire distributed applications project utilising Visual Basic and SQL Server. This involved customising and integrating a third party supplied product with an in-house developed application. I was fundamental in the introduction of XML and BizTalk to provide a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) for the provision of a common interface between services and applications.

Working for ICS Solutions, on their client’s site B & CE. I was responsible for managing the delivery of a bespoke Web based Stakeholder Pension product. This was a £350,000 project and I was responsible for planning, risk and issue management, the introduction of fault tracking and issues management tools, the introduction of configuration management and release management procedures, the setting up of project document libraries and ensuring best practice. I was also responsible for establishing a project management office to assist with QA and traceability.