IBM
1998 onwards

Sub-contract management.  Providing support in quality and sub-contract management for a leading insurance company.   This involves extensive networking and facilitation to ensure bottlenecks are removed and to develop pro-active initiatives.

The technical environment involves Rational Rose, RUP, Websphere and Tivoli Access Manager.

Delivery manager for all the projects carried out by IBM in the Financial Services Sector in The Netherlands.  The role includes identifying potential risks and problems on projects, and providing direct support to ensure these are managed to resolution.

 Specific examples of support provided include:

• resolving serious resourcing problems on a major project

• moving a risk management system from registration of risks to a pro-active tool

• handling external sub-contractors and partners on a critical  programme

Project manager for a leading insurance company reporting at director level.  The project was conceived as the initial building block of a complete redesign of the company’s computing systems but had failed to deliver a number of times.  Iain was brought in for short and long-term improvement.

The initial activities were to establish the current situation of the project, and to achieve a short-term delivery to establish credibility and momentum.  This led to a team restructuring and replanning session, with parallel activities to speed up the development cycle and to allow payback from partial releases.  Finally a long term (three year) plan was developed, to ensure the business objectives were still valid, to extend the scope to cover new opportunities and to claim longer term budgets.

The activities covered the complete life cycle from requirements (verification of existing requirements and establishing new requirements) through design and build, to test, rollout and maintenance of the production system.

The project met its deadlines and the scope was then extended to take advantage of new business opportunities, one of which was required within very short timescales.

The technical environment included Cool:Gen.

Interim manager of the test division of a major bank.  The major activity was the integration two separate departments, each with a different work culture.

Critical projects.  Member of the IBM internal group monitoring critical projects within Europe.  The goals were to increase the confidence in the success of major projects, and to turn round problem projects.  This involved developing a good understanding of the status of the projects in terms of finances, milestones, client satisfaction, risks, staffing and third parties.

Iain was selected to set up and run a new division.  This turned the existing quality department into a profit unit, not only carrying out the traditional internal quality role but also selling and carrying out quality consultancy for external clients.

Specific activities included:

• developing the business plan and selling it to senior management

• obtaining the resources for the division

• individual sales up to 650 man-days including a new blue chip client

• initiating, negotiating and establishing a joint marketing campaign with   a multi-national organisation

• managing the external projects

• monitoring the internal projects and developing an improvement plan to increase the professionalism of the project managers

  Within a year the division was profitable, having successfully completed more than 15 projects.  Appointed to the Logica Benelux management team. 

• clearing a year’s backlog of maintenance work
• tightening an ad-hoc billing process so increasing cash flow
• focussing career and training programmes, identifying and coaching key staff, leading to increased professionalism
• strengthening the link between the sales process and project delivery
• improving the planning and financial control of projects and the introduction of support tools.
  

• brought in to turn around a high profile project. Losses were reaching one million guilders, the team were demoralised and the client relationship had broken down
• championing the Project Management Certification programme, leading to Logica having the first (equal) certified Project Manager in The Netherlands
• rebuilding the relationship with a major client who had been neglected for a number of years. Six months of lobbying led to Logica being awarded four new projects.
  

Extensive Project Manager experience including:

• building a national credit-card authentication system.  The project was a joint venture between a bank and a telco company

• Specifying a national ticketing system for public transport comprising 7000 buses, trams and metros

• automating the operations of a government department and its network of regional offices.  Prototyping was used to gain consensus among the regions

• developing a robot pick-and-place machine.  Was asked to take over project management of a related project as well  

Consultant on technical and organisational issues.  Specific activities included:

• a major survey of funds transfer products for a high street bank.  This entailed discussions with major suppliers and assessments of their match to the requirements (functional and other) of the bank

• assessment of the long-term architectural plans of a major bank.  The client had carried out an in-depth analysis and required a second opinion

• specification of a manufacturing production system.  This entailed discussions with the various departments involved, then producing a detailed specification

• automation of the management systems of a small trading company.  The client was new to computing and the assignment included expectations management, assessment of needs and the trade-off between requirements and budget

Associate lecturer MBA Course:
Foundations of Senior Management: People, Organisations.

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