Brett Cowan Email & Phone Number

Milton, Queensland, Au

As a Certified Chair my knowledge, skills and experience allow me to help organisations with their Ways of Working - 1. Definition of the Problem, 2. Definition of Success, and 3. Processes to empower and motivate.As a founder and CEO of Payroll Experts Australia, I have worked in and around payroll implementations for over a decade and have seen the worst and best of payroll. Most importantly I have seen a LOT of payroll implementations. It is this variety that is the strength of my knowledge, and I have combined this with Agile ways of working to create a unique, modern approach to payroll projects and payroll processes.𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗜 𝗗𝗢: I assist businesses operating in Australia to invest in proper payroll and workforce management systems, adhere to legal regulations, maintain accurate records, and foster effective communication between HR, finance, and employees.𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗜 𝗗𝗢 𝗜𝗧: We are a specialised payroll and workforce management business, that can support your organisation with any critical workforce management task, from payroll health checks and enterprise agreement mapping to major system overhauls – no project is too big or too complex for our passionate and dedicated team of experts.𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗜𝗧 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞𝗦: We don’t just do and forget, we do, reflect, learn and implement changes every time we work – this forms our HOAP® methodology (Holistic Organisational Agility Patterns) and is what sets us apart in the field.𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗩𝗜𝗖𝗘𝗦 𝗜 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘:Payroll AdvisoryProject DeliveryPayroll Processing ServicesAgreement VisualisationUnique and Bespoke Services𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗦𝗔𝗬: "Brett made it possible through his insight into organisational culture and technical experience to enable us to understand modern ways of working and their value to our business innovation." Praanesh Prasad | Managing Director WORKPAC GROUP𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗜𝗻 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵: Email: contactus@payrollexpertsaustralia.com.auTel: 1300 287 213

Brisbane, Qld, Au

Milton, Queensland, Au

I lead and motivate my high performing team to enable and advance every customer engagement for AgileXperts. I oversee all company activities ensuring my team deliver outstanding results consistent with the company mission. AgileXperts key services include Project Management (specialising in Payroll), Capability Uplift, Business Agility, Agile Consulting and Change Management. I am also an Expert Witness in Software Delivery and Software Quality - this is an additional service that supports my expertise in my chosen field.

Supporting organisations and people in their uplift to modern ways of working.Delivering Expert Witness services in the field of Software Testing and Project Delivery.

Wellington, Nz

Responsible for IntegrationQA Australia.Started the Australian operations in October 2016, and worked both as Principal Consultant and Business Development across the country.By August 2018, the Brisbane office boasted 10 staff, and the Canberra office also 10 staff.

Fortitude Valley, Queensland , Au

I was privileged to have the opportunity to work on this very important delivery for eHealth Queensland's ieMR programme. The MARS project was the largest implementation in the world of the Medications, Anaesthetics and Research module of the Cerner Millenium system. This implementation was deployed into the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane.As Director of Testing, I gave direction and overall guidance on the implementation of best practice testing processes to the Test Managers and the Project Director (Michael Easton). The testing within the project was reporting RED when I was engaged, and I set about working with the very capable teams through the whole project to ensure that the testing came back under control and delivered the outcomes the project needed. In some areas I had a very light touch, and others I spent a lot of time working through the detail to understand the issues and to deliver appropriate actions. Ultimately the project went live on the 19th March with no significant issues and a very positive outcome for the PA Hospital.

Sydney, Nsw, Au

• Responsible Brisbane market development• Responsible for Services Delivery (Project Management, Test Management, Test Consulting) for all clients• Development of the Brisbane Business Development Strategy and Plan • Identification of new employees, interviewing and hiring

• Overall responsible for Project Management of Testing in the RTA and the CCSP Program (largest Microsoft implementation in Southern Hemisphere)• Definition and implementation of Test Strategy and Test Plans for the Program, including Resourcing, Budget and Scope• Support of System Architecture Design to TOGAF standard• Scrum Master for one of the Sprint Teams• Test authoring and execution within one Scrum Team • Introduction and implementation of Scrum into the RTA

Brisbane, Qld, Au

• Provide assurance for the Senior Management of Brisbane City Council that the delivery within their BaSE program of work (implementation of SAP ERP including Payroll, Finance, Procurement, Asset Mgmt) was appropriate• Assessment of delivery processes and outcomes of the Implementation Partner for BCC

South Brisbane, Queensland, Au

• Management of 15 internal resources & up to 50 offshore resources• Implementation of Test Centre of Excellence (TCoE), including resourcing, scoping and budget management. • Management of Environment and Release Management functions• Selection and implementation of Vendors and Tools• Scrum Master within specific projects

Sydney, New South Wales, Au

• Responsibility for Project Management of all Testing within RPData.com (10 direct reports)• Tool selection and implementation• Project Management of outsource partners• Development and implementation of all processes associate with Testing• Scrum Master within specific projects

Brisbane, Queensland, Au

• Release Management for the Integration Center Establishment (ICE) project• Process improvement for the Information Systems Branch overall

Brisbane, Queensland, Au

• Project Managed the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of the replacement Queensland Health payroll system. • Managed the interface between the Systems Integrator and Queensland Health through the UAT lifecycle (12 months).• Direct management responsibility of over 35 UAT testers, broken into 5 teams• Compiling and reporting status and deviations to the Department Head (sponsor) and over 50 other interested parties• Liaising with Department Heads inside Queensland Health (stakeholders) to ensure acceptance and buy-in of the UAT scope, status and outcomes• RECOMMENDED TO PROGRAMME MANAGEMENT NOT TO GO LIVE BASED ON UNMITIGATED RISKS REMAINING IN THE SYSTEM• The Parliamentary Inquiry Report said this about my work: "There could have been no clearer warning of the functional deficiencies in the system and the real risk of there being defects beyond the very large number which Mr Cowan had to that date detected. Had there been any doubt up until this point, Mr Cowan’s Final UAT Report put the matter beyond doubt. One does not need to have any technical knowledge to take from that report a very clear warning that, if the system proceeded to Go Live in its then state, there was a real likelihood, indeed perhaps an inevitability, that it would contain defects of a functional kind.". ALSO: “Mr Cowan conducted the exercise he was retained to carry out competently and professionally. Moreover, his approach to that task stands as a rare example in this Project of a cogent warning provided to the parties of problems which clearly existed, but which both parties had to some extent been reluctant to accept and to resolve. Had the warnings he gave in his Final UAT Report been heeded, then the system ought not to have gone live when it did and many of the problems experienced by the system would have been avoided."

Irving, Texas, Us

• Support the Product Services Manager to improve the interface between the development, testing, deployment and business teams

Zurich, Ch

• Responsible for the delivery of all IT systems for the Credit Suisse Trading & Market Solutions Department (400 employees)• Responsible for definition of the architecture for the department’s systems• Implemented a new Service Architecture model (precursor to BIAN)

Zurich, Ch

• Responsible for implementing an upgrade to the market valuation system for Credit Suisse (ABOR)

Zurich, Ch

• Reverse engineered and documented the technical systems processes required to rebuild a completely isolated and independent bank• Successfully developed and documented operations manual for Release 1 and 2. The defined processes included Business Processes, Software Development Lifecycle, IT Operations and Environment Provisioning.

Zurich, Zurich, Ch

• Created and managed a team of 12 Test Managers, 78 testers (on and offshore), and 3 deployment managers• Successfully tested and deployed globally approximately 30 projects annually• Developed and communicated SwissRe Group standards for testing• Selected and then subsequently managed the offshore vendors

Zurich, Zurich, Ch

• Led the Software Architecture Team which delivered architecture services to the four business units of SwissRe, including Financial Services• Personally developed new service oriented architecture (in Websphere) for the Financial Services Portfolio Management System• Personally developed reusable component framework for the external facing SwissRe websites• Was instrumental in the Architecture team exceeding its targets (primarily client satisfaction) for 2 years.

Zurich, Ch

Project involved refactoring a fat client/host system to a light client/fat server/host system for 11,000 users • Deputy Team Leader for a team of 8 developers • As Deputy Team Leader involved with work prioritisation, scheduling and supervision of the team • Involved in the successful design, development and testing of the application • Co-authored a published paper on the resulting infrastructure • Involved use of the eXtreme Programming process

Involved in a multitude of projects using the technologies/skills listed below: • C++ on Solaris • Java, EJBs, BEA Weblogic • CORBA – Orbix, Visibroker • HP Openview – C API • Delivery / customer interface • Solaris system administration • XML with Java and C++ (SAX and DOM parsers) • Testing – writing plans and executing testing

Bachelor, Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Bachelor, Management