As the Digital Planning Manager I have overseen the trial of a program and team level planning approach born out of the need for the teams to pick up work that will deliver the most value and impact. With a long shopping list of initiatives there was a need for a process to prioritise the work to be fed into the agile teams.I work with the Agile Facilitation Manager (team level) to evolve our practices and constantly improve our ability to deliver on user/business needs.I have introduced the Scaled Agile Framework for Enterprise (SAFe) for one Group within the Bureau to provide alignment and transparency within the business and agile delivery teams. Even with a lite implementation over late 2017 and through 2018 this has provided significant benefits to all involved. Benefits have included, a well defined cadence above the team's ritual sprint level planning for the business to plan around, obvious transparency in decision making and the impact on alternative work packages, the changing discourse to be more around what will deliver the most value for competing priorities rather than who is shouting the loudest and tighter alignment with the business.Teams have also seen benefits in understanding the work that is coming down the pipeline and having a process to continually reflect and improve as they work with product owners and suppliers outside their immediate team.While the implementation has been sponsored by the business, it has still evolved as a bottom up approach. Future benefits will be realised by more top down propagation and integration with teams outside of the product ownership and delivery areas. That is my role as an advocate at a team level and broader organisation level.Major milestones:> Introduction of scaled agile planning process> Facilitation of numerous Program Increment Planning Days as Release Train Engineer> Introduction of hackathon event as a part of the planning process> Multiple procurements to bring in agile coaches

This role allowed me to get my teeth into some more strategic, rather than tactical initiatives, both at a team structure and a digital investment perspective.During this role:> From a more strategic sense, I procured the services of a consultancy to help define a digital roadmap for the Bureau. Where previously there had been little buy-in or weight behind a "digital roadmap" to unite the different divisions of the Bureau, this strategic piece of work defined the pathway within the digital arena and is still a foundation informing strategy through 2018.> I also introduced the Digital Producer role and function to the Bureau, providing stakeholder management, business analysis, light design, development and project coordination for digital initiatives> I assisted with the initial roll out of an agile framework to assist with the delivery digital services within the digital team

The merging of both business and delivery staff was a key difference in this role at the Bureau. Bringing those two functions together allowed greater flexibility, alignment and prioritisation. Not without its challenges but a better model for the organisation going forward.During this period, along with the digital leadership team, I helped to structure the teams around functional specialisations to build up some core capability across user experience, user interface design, usability, accessibility and stakeholder management.Where previously certain skills had been distributed, the opportunity here was to centralise and provide a core capacity of similar skill sets.Notably during this period:> I managed the team of creative staff, starting to build out a competency and core capacity across the Bureau for digital design and usability> recruited and mentored a number of staff including graduates

Working as a leader in the Channel's team in the Corporate function, my role was new to the Bureau and was the overarching custodian of the Bureau's website. My ambition on joining was to help build out a digital team and capability within the Bureau. There were more foundational matters that needed to be addressed as I came to terms with the existing environment.In practice there were many pathways to publish content to the website (no CMS in place), so the challenge was to get an understanding of what was being published and to put sufficient controls in place. Over this 9 months I found my feet in this new role and began to build up networks across complex bureaucracy of a federal government agency. Notably over this period:> I managed SSL certificates and domain names were centralisation to provide a view of the changes happening across the website> I managed updates to the Bureau's homepage with internal and external suppliers

Senior role undertaking multiple tasks, managing BAU requests and co-ordinating through my team, managing the annual product update process as a senior business analyst and SME across the digital channels along with managing a multitude of marketing and sales related updates across the Bupa website. I was the senior member of the distributed ecommerce team located in Melbourne (managing the Melbourne team) with most staff located in Sydney.During this period I work across many projects notably including:> SEO optimisation and accessibility remediation, ranking number 1 for relevant metrics across the global Bupa business> Implementation of member rebate changes across the self service portal, minimising impact to customers and winning a Bupa Lifetime achievement award for my efforts in assisting the business in implementing this significant change> Implementation of targeted state based landing pages across the Bupa website optimising sales based on customer analytics> Sales pathway improvements helping to increase user confidence and reduce user drop out> Multiple roles in the successful migration of HBA and MBF website over to a new content management system, updated information architecture and new branding> I was a wellness ambassador for the ecommerce team bringing internal initiatives to life for our staff to maintain physical and mental health. Something I was very proud to be a part of at Bupa

In this role I managed the ecommerce team within the marketing function during a transition phase as the HBA and MBF businesses were merged (finally becoming Bupa). With oversight of online marketing, SEO, vendor and stakeholder management, along with project delivery I helped to maintain continuity of the online channel through a difficult period for the team and the business (this included the vital June 30 sales period).Notable achievements:> I oversaw the implementation of an improved sales pathway for health insurance products for the HBA/Mutual Community brands including the simplification of the user journey and more modern front-end technology.> I fostered a closer working relationship between the marketing ecommerce team (sales and retention focussed) and the technical delivery teams to achieve the alignment to business objectives

Part of a small web team in the marketing section of the business I provided general web development skills. The role required working with a complex mix of a content management system, Microsoft Word and hand coding to generate website content. With a lot of elbow grease I helped keep the site operating to meet compliance and marketing deadlines. Notable achievements included the annual updates to product content across multiple states and affiliate websites. Over these first two years at Bupa I became more attuned to the business imperatives of sales targets and retention. In the digital realm I became more skilled in SEO, semantic markup and working on the business side rather than strictly IT delivery.Duties undertaken included:> building web pages and websites within CMS constraints> investigation of new technologies to help meet business objectives> stakeholder management

At PIR I was the sole website developer and designer undertaking a major update to the website and moving the site to a new hosting provider. Hands on in every aspect of the work I helped to uplift the organisations digital offering to transition clients from PDF and printed reports to the online digital subscription service. Really new ground for this organisation at a time where the move to online over print was well underway across all industries.This role included:> Graphic design (brochure/template design, corporate branding, website design); > Website build and rebuild (content management system integration, database creation, ongoing transition of static content to online delivery, investigation of alternative technology to enhance client interaction with website, creation and management of website publishing policies and procedures); > External vendor selection and management; General IT desktop support; Domain name management> Internal website implementation (Drupal) to meet ISO accreditation requirements

A short term gig, working within a small team building bespoke websites for small to medium businesses including the Sandhurst Golf Club. This organisation closed it's doors in early 2003 due to financial pressures. Task undertaken:> website design/development> graphics manipulation> online credit card processing system integration

A bit of a wild ride at this startup. I came on board as as web developer/designer to help extend the organisation's unique CMS solution that supported AFL.com.au +16 Club sites (via Telstra). Working with some very switched on and committed people we delivered under tight deadlines to add functionality to meet customer needs.What a dynamic organisation, a real startup culture that struggled to deal with the complex task of managing the needs of major customer. But an awesome place to work, where the people on the ground floor worked around the clock because they loved what they did. I spent approximately 10 months here and I still have close friends with bonds formed under the pressure cooker environment of getting the AFL website(s) live for the 2002 season.Tasks I performed at this organisation included:> website development> database creation and modification> graphics manipulation> debugging and test other developers code> client liaison> writing system documentation

This contract was at the mighty BBC Radio 4 Online. The BBC is an institution in the UK and I was fortunate to work here for a period of time. Their commitment to accessibility was a new experience for me. Their focus on ensuring all their users across the UK could access their services was paramount.I was fortunate to work on one of their children's websites, a long running radio serial and even a page in readiness, incase the Queen Mother passed away. Thankfully she didn't in my time there.There was a fair amount of table based HTML and working with older versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers for accessibility requirements.There was a strong creative lead here that exposed me to a very clear design direction for the first time.My duties:> slice up Photoshop web page designs> hand code HTML> CGI scripting

Another funky digital organisation I was contracted to provide front-end, design and some dynamic coding work. I worked on the first ITV Football website, which was developed for the 2000 UEFA European Football Championship. A good time to be in London in the web development game.Duties included:> liaise with customers on site to determine project requirements> provide time/cost estimates for project work> create, maintain and update web pages> create and update graphic content> modify/create/debug Flash animations> support and modify client-side javascript code> debug of HTML and ASP code

A working holiday in the UK allowed me to pivot into web development and design. My first contract was at another.com, a venture capital startup that maintained a stable of domain names so people could use them as their email address (e.g. iluvtennis.co.uk). My first time working in an organisation with a swing and grass in the the middle of the office. This was a junior role backfilling the graphic designer that allowed me to experience the startup scene.Duties included:> maintaining hand coded web pages> integrating HTML into JSP coded web pages> creating internal banner ads> optimising web graphics

My first role out of university landed me at EDS Australia in their graduate program. A fantastic opportunity to get into the IT industry and to be exposed to the workings of a large consultancy. First stint was working at their Jetset client undertaking junior IT work. Then I spent 10 weeks in Adelaide in their graduate program learning with other grads from around the Asia Pacific region about IT, programming and teamworking. This all culminated in a team project presentation back to the program sponsors. This was a good grounding across many aspects of the organisation and industry. I graduated from this program at the end of the 10 weeks in Adelaide.My next stint was at their client General Motors Holden. Here I had more exposure to project management methodologies, requirements gathering, SDLC and programming. This was a memorable time where I worked in support of existing applications and also implementing application enhancements. Notably, I developed an MS Access application to allow foundry scrap to be managed, I developed a web based interface to expose realtime engine tracking data to managers (revolutionary at this time) and helped to address Y2K bugs within the main application's codebase. As an analyst programmer I discovered requirements, proposed solutions and then implemented and tested. I worked closely with the business during this time and spent a fair chunk out at the production line working with staff building car engines. During this job I continued to expand my interested in web related technology, front-end development and design as this is where I had a real passion.