I’ve been involved with IT project management for over 20 years and successfully implemented projects for clients around the world.  The projects have varied in size, methodology and impact to the client from a simple application bug release to a complex and high impacting project of merging 2 data centres that provide outsourced services to multiple clients. 

I have had experience in coaching / mentoring technical and business resources performing system development, infrastructure & facility implementation and program & project management. I’ve managed and mentored a insurance development team of over 30 at two separate organisations. I then took on the challenge of managing, expanding and mentoring a project management team in a very complex (multi vendor) and time critical environment (Telecoms).  The team I was given was made up of 4 junior resources managing 20 projects then grew to over 30 resources managing 110+ projects 18 months later.  Next I was given the task of managing several outsourced clients with a team of 10 commercial and technical managers that I was responsible for mentoring and supporting. 

More recently I've had a role (at Australia’s largest direct  insurer) of managing a pilot project tasked with implementing a new insurance underwriting system using the Agile development methodology & approach.  The changes introduced ranged  from;

·         a new development environment and code migration process & tool

·         an automated testing approach and tool for all test phases

·         a more interactive user testing and acceptance process

·         and a streamlined production implementation process.

The team of 18 consisted of old (legacy developers) and new (graduates) client resources plus multiple vendor resources that required support and mentoring.

After my first Agile consulting project I was then asked to review an in-flight Agile project and recommend where the project could be improved for the client stakeholders and project team members.  The review recommended several changes to align the second phase of the project with the principles of Agile but in a more practical and less dictatorial manner.   The team of 30+ consisted of only a couple of client staff while the majority of the team was made up of multiple Indian outsource vendors with a sub-set of the project team working off-shore at multiple sites.  The assignment required that the following areas be adjusted;

·         create and implement a new Agile approach and team structure

o   without stopping the project or letting any resources become idle

·         create and champion a new reporting approach of project progress, issues, solutions and reviews

o   for the project team and stakeholders both on and off shore

·         create and implement a new capability to trace business requirements

o   from business process all the way thru analysis, development and testing to sign-off by the business at acceptance testing

o   so that the U.S. parent and international business groups could review for adoption locally

·         introduce a different approach for improved ownership by the business

o   to enable improved feedback and quality of requirements

·         create an automated testing approach for all technical test phases

o   to enable early review and feedback by the business

Most recently I’ve been assisting a client with introducing an Agile approach that incorporates existing artefacts and processes of their development lifecycle, so that the approach is seen as less intrusive or alien by the clients resources.  To allow Agile to be adopted by the client in a more measured and acceptable manner than previous attempts.

Throughout my years in project management I have been educated & managed using various methodologies for both development and project management.  Most recently I’ve managed system implementations using an Agile like methodology and found that it is a great development methodology for the time critical and financially constrained world of today.   I’ve also learnt that principles of Agile can be incorporated into traditional project management.  

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