IT PMO Manager
University of Auckland
Total years of experience :26 years, 8 Months
Head of the Digital Services PMO office, providing strategic leadership & management in the delivery of a portfolio of diverse infrastructure and business solutions projects, worth a total of $14 million per year
Functional responsibilities:
• Establish & lead a PMO function to effectively deliver benefits from strategically aligned digital projects
• Provide strategic guidance and leadership of Portfolio & Programme Management to maximise ROI
• Continuous improvement and maturity of programme & project management techniques and processes
• Project, programme & portfolio health reporting for effective senior management decision making
• Implementation of best-practice portfolio, programme and project governance
• Use of agile, waterfall or hybrid project delivery methodologies as appropriate
• Regular project and programme reviews and audits, including risks, issues, finances & benefits
• Line management of project managers and project coordinators (permanent and contractors)
• Stakeholder & change management including championing the PMO across the organisation
Achievements:
• Implementation & ownership of a fit-for-purpose programme & project hybrid delivery framework using both Agile & PMBOK, and which includes governance, SOPs/cadence, templates and guidelines
• Working with business areas & product owners to develop & maintain a rolling portfolio
• Continuous delivery of projects aligned to the digital strategy and ensuring benefit/value realisation
• Introduction of a portfolio scoring process to prioritise initiatives in the Portfolio
• Leading the portfolio governance process to manage changes to the Portfolio
• Instrumental in leading a Digital Transformation programme that includes:
• A cloud-first mentality, with the successful delivery of infrastructure to the cloud, including O365
• Implementing Value Stream based agile software development teams and product owners
• Leading the business in the development of Business Capability and Technology Roadmaps
• Introduction of Technology Business Management (TBM) to define and manage the value of IT
• Servant leadership of the PMO with a high level of emotional intelligence
Functional responsibilities:
• Programme director for all development projects for companywide IT systems - Oracle Financials & HRMS & BI, Websphere based Internet Banking (Retail and Corporate), Portal, BPM and SOA
• Plan, direct, manage and oversee the activities and operations of the Systems Development Dept
• Develop the Dept’s strategy in alignment with IT strategy and an operating budget for the department
• Vendor management for 3rd parties such as Oracle, IBM, TATA
Achievements:
• Set up SDLC framework to include processes, standards and guidelines
• Developed a strategic road map for Service Management and governance
• Defined a communication and reporting structure with the newly formed PMO
Head of a newly constituted Change Management Department for a Shariah based Bank.
Functional responsibilities:
• As Head of Change Management, in charge of managing technical resources for service improvement projects incorporating ITIL and COBIT, across functional groups within IT. These included Service Desk for Incident, Problem and Knowledge Management; Change Management for IT Governance; and Availability and Capacity Management for Infrastructure
Achievements:
• Re-engineered & integrated the processes for Incident, Problem and Knowledge Management
• Developed Change Management policies, process flows, & procedures.
• Facilitation of workshops to educate stakeholders to the principals of ITSM based on ITIL standards
• Successful initiation and subsequent chairing of the Change Advisory Board
• Integration of Change Management with Project & Portfolio Management, Service Delivery, Application Development, Testing & Release, and CMDB
Head of Software Development, providing management and leadership to 40+ architects, designers and developers.
• Budget responsibility in the region of $10M
• Duration 22 months
Functional responsibilities:
• Department structure consists of Solutions Architecture & Design, Temenos T24 Development, Alternate Delivery Channel Development & Project Management teams.
• Accountable for all software development activities for the Bank’s entire IT systems - Temenos T24 core banking, Siebel CRM, Base24 ATM/POS switch, Oracle Financials & HRMS, Cisco IVR, Websphere based Internet Banking (Retail and Corporate)
• SDLC process control using IBM Rational tools, including ClearQuest, ClearCase & RSA
• Program and Project management control using Microsoft Project, Sharepoint and EPM
• Member of IT Group’s SDLC Governance board to optimise development processes and procedures
• Strategic planning and implementation of Systems Lifecycle tools and procedures
Achievements:
• Successfully managed a major upgrade to the core banking system; Temenos Globus G14 to T24 R8
• Initiated the PMO dept within the Bank’s IT Group for Program and Project management, and an IT Steering Committee as the governing body for Portfolio management
• Introduced a Solutions Architecture & Design team to define & apply governance principals across the design & architecture process.
• Introduced a Project Management team within the Department with responsibility to coordinate with the IT PMO for delivery of projects and change requests
• Leadership of a CMMI initiative within the Department
• Successfully implemented major business projects under my leadership, including EMV Card Acquirer, e-Corporate portal, Islamic Financial products.
Successfully providing Project, Program and Portfolio Management Office (OPM) consultancy to the largest Government Department in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• Value of portfolio in excess of $100M.
• Duration 12 months
Functional Responsibilities:
• Implementation of processes, policies and systems to support a large Program Management Office.
• Mentoring and training of project and program best practice for all levels of client management.
• Supporting program & project managers in executing day-to-day management activities.
• Chairing project and program management workshops.
• Providing regular reports to senior management to ensure project focus & visibility.
Achievements:
• Provision of a fully structured program and project framework and methodology that proactively supports the strategic and business drivers of the Ministry of Interior.
• Enabling effective communications between departments and teams to mitigate project & program risks.
• Development and implementation of processes, best practices, tools, and templates.
• Effective mentoring and training resulting in a noticeable increase in the project management maturity of personnel within the organisation.
• Championing the change in organisational attitude to enable alignment of projects and programs to business needs.
Successfully providing end-to-end project management to a mission critical technology upgrade project for the UK Government’s largest taxation system.
• Project value of $5M;
• Duration of 18 months.
Functional Responsibilities:
• Strong management of matrix project team (35+ people: development, DBA, testing, middleware, infrastructure) including application development; database migration; hardware integration; functional and non-functional, integration and performance testing).
• Effective management of project, quality, and risk plans.
• Providing regular reports to client management and senior management to ensure project focus & visibility.
• Full financial responsibility for this multi-million pound project (implemented within budget).
• Close co-ordination with other Technology Refresh projects within an overall Program to ensure smooth hardware and software upgrade/migration without impacting live service.
Achievements:
• Successful on-time & within budget implementation of project (preventing penalties of $2M per day)
• Significant improvement of online and batch response times for increased customer satisfaction.
• Compliance of contractual obligations to keep all software and hardware updated within support contracts.
• Development of excellent client relationship to ensure project scope and objectives are managed.
Providing business analysis and project management consultancy to a large, high-profile, UK Government funded program that identifies and then engages young people at risk of committing crime.
Functional Responsibilities:
• Setup of program structure, processes and procedures with BPR, Gap Analysis, Impact Analysis, Reporting requirements and Success Metrics.
• Strong co-ordination between diverse community organisations across the city.
• Tight financial and budgetary management.
• Regular detailed financial and data reporting to Home Office deadlines and milestones.
Achievements:
• Report recommendations that identified key resources, program structure and administration processes which have enabled smooth operation within very tight budgets.
• Identified and implemented business processes for effective day-to-day running of the program.
• All financial issues are strictly managed on a timely manner.
• Strong relationship management between community organisations and service providers.
Providing business analysis and project management consultancy to a large secondary school to support its strategy for growth.
Functional Responsibilities:
• Design cost effective processes in order to eliminate curriculum, support and administrative inefficiencies.
• Conduct impact analysis of process/practice change on people and systems.
• Gain commitment and buy-in from key stakeholders, users and third parties by engaging, empowering and communicating throughout the change implementation in order to minimise change resistance.
• Deliver business case on potential technology solutions to align with school’s business strategy.
Achievements:
• Streamlined support and administrative processes, which enhanced curriculum effectiveness and greatly improved parent-school communications.
• Business case recommendations included: Implementing a wireless network to compliment the existing network infrastructure; migrating to electronic records; improvements to the existing security policies.
Network Security Program Manager
Responsible for the implementation of a comprehensive data security (firewall, IDS, monitoring and anti-virus) infrastructure rollout program to Saudi Telecom (Saudi Arabia’s incumbent telecom provider). Engaged to bring Prince 2 project management experience; planning, process and procedural structure to what had been a failing program.
• Value of $6M
• Duration of 12 months.
Functional Responsibilities:
• Use of Prince 2 for ensuring a structured, best practice, approach to project and program management.
• Requirements engineering - elicitation, definition, modelling, analysis, specification and validation of business and systems requirements.
• Change/Design management - liaise with development teams in the identification, scoping of design changes required to support business requirements such as change requests for additional functionality, screen layout or additional fields through the use of tight configuration management.
• Test liaison - Document test strategies/plans and test scripts and provide support through continuously liaising with users and developers in resolving problems during system and user acceptance test phases.
• Business Assurance - liaise with 3rd party suppliers to implement business continuity.
• Disciplined management of risks and issues throughout the lifetime of the programme.
• Resource management with in-country hire and management of technical resource bought in from UK and US.
Achievements:
• Successfully opened up a country head-office and established Symantec’s presence in Saudi Arabia.
• Introduced a structured approach to project management that was adopted by STC.
• Provided STC with the security infrastructure to enable it to effectively manage secure telephony services to its customers and to substantially reduce downtime costs previously caused by ongoing security breaches.
Re-engineering of the entire retail banking system and the subsequent implementation of e-Commerce and e-Banking delivery channels to one of Saudi Arabia’s largest financial institution.
• Value of $10m
• Duration of 36 months.
Functional Responsibilities:
• Appointed to help set up the organisation framework and co-ordinated planning and delivery office for all major IT rollout programs.
• Developed & implemented a Prince 2 based methodology and program office support.
• Co-ordination of full lifecycle e-Commerce/Banking project; with Internet, Siebel CRM & IT security.
• Drove and controlled a multi-level program to replace all of the Bank’s distributed retail banking systems.
• Facilitated all costing, change control, risk assessment & issue resolution activities through the effective and appropriate use of project management methodologies.
• Defined & maintained a consolidated master plan for senior management to maintain effective communications up to Board Level and ensuring active Senior Management sponsorship.
Achievements:
• Implementation of new retail banking system enabled cost savings in excess of $5 million pa.
• Successfully achieved a smooth transition from legacy systems to a client/server solution.
• Effective control of 25+ concurrent projects within the Program to successful implementation.
• Opened up new retail banking delivery channels ensuring a substantial increase in the Bank’s customer base.
• Large data clean-up exercise ensured quantum leap in the quality and effectiveness of customer information management.
Provided project management expertise on an Insurance client’s business re-engineering program to migrate core business systems and data to more customer-centric server based computing environment.
• Value of $2m
• Duration of 18 months.
• Successfully lead team of 25 system testers to provide system and integration testing of new enterprise-wide client/server suite of applications to enable the selling and maintenance of financial products.
• Delivery of system and integration testing to project timescales.
• System successfully reduced cost of maintaining and selling insurance products while increasing their range and diversity.
• Responsible for end-to-end project management, including support team liaison.
• Appointed to lead 5-strong team & deliver real-time application development projects to manufacturing client.
• Inclusive management of key EDS/customer interface for Client’s purchasing department
• Ensured delivery to time and within budget against both internal and external goals
MSc (Eng) Integrated Management Systems - • Manufacturing Systems and Economic Analysis, • Commercial and Quality Management, • Business Organisation and Finance
• Analogue, Solid State and Digital Electronics, • Communications Systems, • Engineering Mathematics, • Information Technology,