Dave Cooke Email & Phone Number

Poole, England, United Kingdom

I am in the fortunate position that I don't need to work any more. However, I have gathered a wealth of experience, knowledge and skills, particularly in Test Process Improvement and leading Test Teams. Should any locally sited company have concerns about their test quality that need to be fixed, I could be the person to ask.

Poole, England, United Kingdom

I joined Flowbird International on a six month Fixed Term Contract to evaluate the Test Team towards improving their test quality, efficiencies and throughput. Flowbird International provide integrated ticketing solutions for transport companies globally. Whilst offering end customers improved ticketing options to complete their journey, they provide transport companies with improved revenue processing and business ticketing information capture to grow their business model. Their deliverables include combined hardware and software solutions in a mobile environment.To improve the test team resourcing capability we developed partnerships with Academy resourcing companies. The Test Team championed stricter test quality gates including adoption of a single build pipeline. I introduced a common defect management process across the team, enabling test metrics development. I introduced a formal Test Completion process which became a standard for the Change Approval Board processes to deploy software into customer environments.Towards the end of my first six month FTC I was asked to take on the overall test team management, which flexes between 25 and 30 personnel. I flattened the team structure to align with incoming project demand and brought in some additional contract personnel to cover testing knowledge and experience identified as lacking in the existing test personnel. I also led the testing for one project, which during 2023 included the data migration of the customer's system from on-premise to an AWS cloud solution. This included taking a lead in defining and developing the overall migration strategy.My FTC role was extended for over 2 years to help implement the process improvements and to support the career Test Manager who was brought in to replace me as my exit strategy.

Poole, England, United Kingdom

Partly due to the COVID situation I’ve been taking a longish sabbatical break from work, which may become indefinite. Any type of Testing role locally though, may be considered, particularly PAYE limited contract roles.

Paddington, London

Returning back from the extended break, I was fortunate to be offered a new role. Vodafone as a core Micro Focus (HP) tool user requires an upgrade implemented for the integrated environment including ALM, BPT, UFT, Sprinter, Performance Center and others to remove operational risks. The requirements being to keep within technical support and be delivered with minimal impact to the project community, both internal and external. The new role also includes extending the tools integration specifically for JIRA and ALM towards improved integration of development and test and minimise manual data duplication.

Took an extended time away from work to do some travelling to the other side of the world and achieve some of those things we have in our bucket list. Used a family event in Australia as a catalyst to visit Singapore and meet ex-colleagues based there from my previous jobs. Travelled to Queensland Australia to visit the Barrier Reef, then to Uluru and Ayres Rock. Down to Sydney and New South Wales to visit friends who had emigrated there. Across to New Zealand North Island and from Wellington to Auckland, stopping at various locations to experience the wine areas, Lord of the Rings and Hobbiton, etc. A wealth of new and unforgettable new memories and experiences

Paddington

Supporting Vodafone’s Group DevOps and Agile test definition, integrating code development and quality assurance within a Continuous Integration and Development methodology to improve working efficiencies and speed to market for Telecoms and Mobile apps. Vodafone are consolidating their international IT development services. My role is delivering Vodafone’s Group DevOps and Agile test definitions to centralise and integrate code and test within a Continuous Integration and Development methodology. To drive speed to market and working efficiencies for their Mobile and Telecom applications, delivering a standard group progress visibility and governance for senior management. The role included responsibility for CA Tech’s ARD Model Based Testing and Micro Focus (HPe) Mobile Center delivery. Also involvement in developing Shift-Left Automation, Performance and Security Test Frameworks, Investigations of Service Virtualisation, Test Data Management, Micro Focus Octane and JIRA integration towards delivering an effective 80% test automation drive

Sheffield, United Kingdom

Brought in to assist the development of strategic standards and test tools capability across the DWP end-to-end Test Management process, growing the new in-house testing capability being created across multiple UK sites. Responsible for consolidation of the test tools licence management. Developed a Tools team to administer the tool solutions. Championed the test tools through the DWP Technical Design Approval process to enable a QC ALM V12 SAAS solution, successfully deployed to several DWP Projects and growing in use. Identified and resolved deficiencies in capability to enable the solution. Championed the business case for an Internet solution to improve testing effectiveness. Responsible for developing the decommission strategy of existing aged tool solutions to the new QC ALM solution

London, United Kingdom

I joined at the beginning of their Business Solutions Programme on a 12 month contract to replace aging and obsolete services. The role required the development and presentation of a company IT Test Framework of processes and standards to improve their delivery quality and efficiency; aiming towards Test Maturity TMMi Level 2. This includes developing their Test Environment Management and Test Management tool solutions. I’ve used the framework to deliver several BSP products including Knowledge Management (Sysero), Case Forms, and IT Support Services (ServiceNow), etc. The contract was extended to cover their UK HQ relocation started last QTR 2015, I managed a small test team replacing their old PC stock with a new Surface Pro and mini desktop environment operating Windows 10 and 100 packaged applications, including Office 2013, Skype for Business, Direct Access plus "Follow-me" printing. Creating a new Agile Business Environment to enhance their fee-earners mobility for client interaction which was successfully implemented during the first Easter week.

Poole

Rationalised the existing development tool licences, developing savings from identified wastage and removal of licence shelf-ware. Reviewed Vendor contracts and purchases, licence validation and budgetary management of the team's annual £5M BAU budget. Service Management responsibility for the application software tools identified within the Global Tools Catalogue. Audit management of Vendor SLA requirements through KPI 's and tool compliance through quarterly Vendor Management meetings.Identified significant Annual Service Maintenance savings through usage metrics to reduce IBM Rational shelf-ware assets; deleting unused RAD application deployments to release licences for new users. • Identified £841K Annual Service Maintenance savings• Reduced £14.3M shelfware assets by 58%. • Identified dormant RAD application deployments whose removal will save £1.2M. Designed and delivered on-boarding web pages providing end-to-end visibility of resource management requirements for department managers struggling to identify the required processes.

Barclays House, Poole

Gained extensive tools knowledge of IBM Rational tools, HP Quality Center, Load Runner, Performance Center and Test automation tools. Developed the Global tools service to improve Project delivery efficiencies aligned to Barclays Retail Global Strategic Development Life Cycle processes. Provided continuous service development allowing projects to focus on their core delivery requirement. Also supported ad-hoc Barclays Corporate Bank and Wealth projects who used the same tool licences.Trouble-shooted a struggling HP Service Manager Project to retire an aging existing Operational Management service. Delivered a revised Test Strategy and centralised all the project's defect management to introduce more efficient/effective control. Re-developed the UAT testing into more usability scripts. Organised UAT training presentations for the UAT testers. Utilised the new metrics from the testing progress and defects to project a new completion date and successfully managed the delivery. Utilised a server upgrade programme opportunity replacing aging equipment to organise a Performance Center VDI service enabling external 3rd party performance testers to operate Vugen; accessing and sharing centralised licences with in-house resources on the Barclays network. Achieved Barclays EA Architect certification; attending tool architectural reviews and leading on the tools’ strategic approach.

Led the newly integrated team of IBM Rational and HP Test tool support personnel as a world-wide distributed operation. Delivering an integrated development tools service to the global user community across the end-to-end project lifecycle for multiple technologies. To enhance their delivery capability and reduce costs. HP Quality Center and Performance Center deployments increased globally as more user groups brought on-board. This development required initial PoC testing as it required new supporting PC technology still in the process of being rolled out operationally but not yet available on the production network. The development and testing was proved across multiple PC models and operating systems as well as Citrix and VMWare portals to approved external 3rd parties. Developed the Tools Administration and Infrastructure Support services, negotiating with Vendors and developing future Tool Strategy. Responsible for managing the combined financial budget across both the Tools and Test Environment initiatives. Developing training strategies and develop a standardised automated metrics capability. In deploying the latest software versions, gained participation in HP’s R&D program promoting Barclays’ tools requirements in their future tool strategies; including zero-footprint capability. Automated Quality Center administration services and integrated 3rd Party vendor tools (Versatest, Bridgetest, AXE, GH Tester and JIRA) with QC to improve tool access and information transfer efficiencies.

Required to identify and manage Test Environment and Tool initiatives delivering project productivity and stability improvements. Managing a £2M improvements programme and the Test Strategies that phased out a recurrent cycle of severity 1 environmental issues and improved project deliveries globally.Involved in the re-negotiation of test tool requirements with HP. The agreement included improved discounts against more strategic tool purchases. This included the migration from LoadRunner to Performance Center allowing Barclays to centralise its performance testing capabilities into a CoE service.Developed migration and integration plan for two global Build and Test tools teams (12 personnel), creating a strategic £5M 24/7 tools service rolled out to 32,000+ users across multiple networks to achieve their Project deliverables. Overall Test Management responsibility for Functional, UAT, OAT, Performance and Security test phases to consolidate and deploy around 40 project tools. Developed user training services. • £0.5M operational costs saved, SLA response times reduced from days to hours, project test metrics standardised for management and executive reporting. • 5 Test Directors supporting 100’s of projects upgraded to a single global Quality Center service with minimal impact on user operation and developed a VDI Performance Center replacement for LoadRunner to improve cost effectiveness of licences.• Negotiated substantial increases on previous Barclays tool discounts

Being part of the IT team outsourced to Accenture, undertook Test Quality Assurance consultancy role on Barclays Retail Programmes & Business Managers requests to review their testing RAG status’s and achieve CAB implementation approval. Defined Business Internet Banking test performance requirements; recommending Load Runner and organising performance training for the newly formed Poole performance team. Evaluated and recommended Barclays Faster Payments Service inter/intra-Bank automated testing and environments requirementsInvestigated Barclays’ key Spanish Payment system performance issues; documented a new Test Strategy approach based on IEE829 standard as the resolution and presented to the Spanish test and business teams.

Managed the overall Electronic Banking Y2K test environment development and SIT/UAT test teams, developing ring-fenced systems for Retail, Corporate and Investment services, incorporating regression test automation coverage. Interviewed and negotiated contractors to supplement the team. The testing scope was increased to include Euro Banking changes to tight timescales. Attended meetings with external Business clients reliant on the bank's systems to present the Y2K testing strategy and provide reassurance on the testing quality and progress. Led the IBM Rational tools and RUP deployment in Poole, developing presentations and project training sessions with follow-up project reviews to confirm the adoption success of iterative development across key programmes. Designed and deployed a Retail and Corporate Test teams’ scorecard process to meet new FSA audit regulation; developed and presented training sessions to around 60 IT personnel. Managed a team of 6 to indentify and document up to 30 Payment systems, created systems catalogue, developing this into an integrated Test Environment service. Comprehensive knowledge of Retail and International Payment services, including SWIFT, CHAPS, BACS, Faster Payments, etc.Initially brought in to complete the Operational testing, was promoted to deliver the end-to-end test responsibility as Programme Test Manager for several external client web based systems delivering on-line Corporate and Retail banking services. Having implemented the first releases further development was outsourced. Visited the offshore site to evaluate their technical capability. Contributed the Test processes and Entry Criteria standards for acceptance into testing as part of a Project standards document. Use of the processes and KPI test metrics demonstrated some issues with initial development delivery. Re-visited the development team as part of the fact finding team Ito help resolve the issues enabling more effective delivery.

Analysed and tested CHAPS and SWIFT mainframe enhancements. Led Radbroke Payment system migration to Poole; centralizing support. Negotiated SQA (now Rational) test tools contract to automate Electronic Bankings’ test service. Represented Barclays on the APACS CHAPS committee; evaluated and recommended inter-bank technical testing requirements.Defined standard EB Test Policy and Approach discipline to resolve issues found following implementations, (FI Company external audit later reviewed and approved). Deployed this progressively across EB projects for Entry and Exit approval; led a team (6) providing SIT, UAT and OAT services for: i. Customer Windows Payment services replacing green screen solutions. ii. Business Master 1st Web service and 3rd Party Pegasus Accounting integration. I helped roll out the Customer Windows Payment service to external Business clients, developing the migration strategy and ensuring the next day operational service. Implemented the Pegasystems Payment Investigations system; reducing Customer queries turnaround from months to days. Implemented TCAM to CICS automated Same Day payment service interface against tight timescale and the customers’ technical migration to the service to enable their promised Same Day Payments service to be acheived.

Derby, United Kingdom

Documented Derby and Bristol Aero engines requirements to create an IMS based Group Assembly Parts List. Implemented a security solution to manage authorised access to military engine parts.