Runtime Revolution is a small (25 staff) company based in Edinburgh focused around two areas. Firstly its technology division produces its own programming language and development environment (called "Revolution") and secondly has an outsourced consultancy division to provide bespoke development to third party clients. My role was to manage all projects and technical staff from both divisions - from business analysis and requirements capture to delivering full software solutions.

Responsibilities

Management of all projects including planning, issue tracking, risk analysis, problem resolution and project finances. Normally managing 8 to 10 simultaneous projects with a total value of £1 million.
Day to day management of all development and graphic design staff - a team of 20 staff.
Approval of all technical designs, approaches and specifications.
Quality assurance
Primary point of contact with all external clients
Ensuring that all Technology division projects achieve objectives within the development programme and business case.
Create and introduce processes and practices for projects - from change management to development and delivery.

Achievements

Introduction of PRINCE2 based project management techniques and strategy. This gave us the ability to bid for and win contracts many times the value of previous contracts with the knowledge and re-assurance that they could be delivered on time and within budget.
Creation and implementation of procedures used in the day to day management of the division. Within two months this allowed the division to consistently hit its monthly financial targets and providing the base for the quarter on quarter growth that we experienced from there.
Obtained PRINCE2 Practitioner certification.
Move the internal product development process towards an AGILE methodology.
Example projects include:
ID security system – A national ID system rolled out to venues throughout the UK. Comprising the latest OCR algorithms, touch screen technology, distributed databases and web-based back office systems.
Publishing system – A multinational system used by an international book reseller to track books, develop presentations and manage the automated order placement and routing across the globe. This is a 100% bespoke database system.
Web based Recruitment – The creation of a web based recruitment system similar to Monster or S1Jobs.

T&E Systems are the UK market leader in small call centre technology. I was brought on for a very "hands on" technical director role and as such was responsible for the design and development of much of the software.

Responsibilities
Design and lead the development of the call center technology.
Manage the internal development, IT services and database management staff - 8 people.
Present the technical solution to potential clients and help win sales business
Help set up joint ventures with telecoms companies.
Support the internal call center (50 staff)

Achievements
Provided a very hands on management role, both technically but also to directly shape the direction of the company.
Provided technical briefs and sales presentations to customers and also Joint Venture partnerships throughout the UK.
Creation and management of internal development team ( 8 development staff )
Created joint venture partnerships with dozens of companies throughout the UK working closely with some of the major UK Telecom companies such as Orange, 3G and TalkTalk.
Created a large bespoke CRM/ERP system for one of the countries leading independent mortgage advisor companies.

BCD Modelling was a small company with very exciting, research based technology. They licensed one of the synthetic environment engines for single unit conflict war gaming from the MoD and wanted to provide access to the system to military and civilian agencies throughout the world.

Responsibilities
Design and management of the companies development programme.
Management of all aspects of the projects that formed the programme.
Help company attain ISO 9001 certification (required for MoD contracts).
Represent the company at technical briefings and presentations worldwide.
Hire and manage internal development staff as well as external contracting companies.
Help raise Venture Capital and Business Angel finance - over £1.5 million raised.
Achievements
Management of the project to port the client application from Pascal on DEC Alpha workstations over to Windows 2K boxes in MS Visual C++. This involved both our internal development team and also external contracting companies. Project cost was £500,000 and was delivered on time and budget.
Providing technical briefings and presentations to high level government and military officials in over a dozen countries.
Writing ITT's and evaluating responses to allow management to sub-contract
Management of internal development team as well as several simultaneous technical sub-contractors.
Helping put together and manage joint venture contracts with BAE systems, Raytheon and Alenia Marconi Systems.

During my time with Logica I was assigned to work as a project manager for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) in their synthetic environments research laboratories. Here I was responsible for running several project teams as well as being a lead developer.

Achievements
Created the test program and put together the test team to ensure Y2K compliance for all simulated environments within the facility.
Managed several fixed price (up to £500,000) and some T&M projects. All projects were delivered on time and within the allocated budget.
Identified new areas of possible research for the client, set-up and conducted these projects.
Full project management cycle, from forming the ITT with the prospective client, producing the RTT and subsequently managing the development of the systems.