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Background
The company was a large ICT (Information and Communication Technology) supplier. They were expanding rapidly in Europe, turning over in excess of GBP2bn per year. They were looking to introduce central repositories of data and to standardise processes.
Starting in January 2004, an initial 3 months assignment was later extended to 8 months.
Objectives
The initial brief was to introduce a programme office function for the European Operation and roll out a standard process for Winning New Business. This was overtaken by events as a customer facing delivery project went into crisis and needed to be recovered.
Approach
Setting up a programme office
An initial month was spent reviewing the capabilities of tools and systems operational across the business. This identified a baseline set of systems and outputs which were required and developed the requirements for establishing a central repository of templates, folders and documents. Having documented the requirements the work was handed over to a delivery team.
Troubleshooting
A customer-facing project outside the UK worth 4m euros for an integrated managed service had failed two customer acceptance tests. It required a review of the reasons for failure, the development of a recovery plan, recovery of customer satisfaction and the management of the virtual team to restore confidence and achieve acceptance. Within two months the acceptance testing was completed successfully, customer satisfaction restored and the situation stable. A local programme manager was recruited and the ongoing roll out activity was handed over.
A second customer situation involving delivery of a secure internet gateway was also addressed, resolved and handed over to a local manager in the period.
Process Rollout
A group of 6 process leads in different parts of the business was assembled into a virtual team. A baseline review was conducted, areas of common activity were identified and a plan for roll out was developed. Subsequent management of the implementation progressed slowly due to limited capacity in the team. The task was handed over to a local programme manager with the roll out in progress. In addition work was undertaken to assess compliance to ITIL standards for Change Management.
Conclusion
The programme office requirements were specified as required. The customer-facing project was recovered and successfully moved into roll out. The process roll out was planned and coordinated and the implementation was in progress at the completion of the contracted period.
Customer Quote: Programme Director
"This was difficult assignment across a number of countries and business units, within a volatile business environment. Jeff was able to quickly understand the different cultures and engage the correct people, defining the problems and identifying workable solutions.
The assignment changed direction a number of times to fit in with changing business priorities and Jeff was able to take those changes in his stride and add value immediately to any situation he was asked to resolve. In this Jeff demonstrated reliability, effectiveness, quality of work and good humour, which make him a very useful team player."