Jim Allen Email and Phone Number

I am changing my title to Retired not to boast but to save recruiters time and effort.

I have been fortunate to have spent the summer with family, seeing my children progress their studies to university and 6th form and to have completed my ultra marathon goals in the Lake District and the French Alps. I am now looking for project and programme management contracting opportunities.

Project managing the alignment of the Sopra Steria IMSL departments behind the Blueprint for Service strategy. Integration of new and existing components including: uCMDB, Savision, Cherwell, Qradar, Snow, Bladelogic and SCCM to deliver core infrastructure capability. Implemented and maintained programme governance using Execview tool. Microsoft suite of tools including MS Project was used during this engagement.

Leading a team of Technical Delivery Managers to deliver projects using Agile and Waterfall methodologies typically to a value of £4M p.a. Included line/matrix management, writing and presenting business cases, financial accounting, developing Continuous Improvement strategies to drive efficiencies throughout software delivery lifecycle. Leading a cross Line of BT Business steering group to define Numbering strategy within BT. Influence communication providers at industry forums for the BT IP Exchange product.

Responsible for capturing scope and success criteria for Voice development projects for internal customers in Product Line and Operational teams. Stakeholder management to ensure benefits were realised, challenging costs and driving transparency and efficiency through lessons learned.

Responsible for successful bump-in, bump-out and in games time maintenance of all WAN, LAN, Wifi communications at Elland Road and Etihad stadia for Rugby World Cup (RWC). Due to the short timescales for these activities stakeholder engagement with venues, RWC team and other contractors was critical to successful completion of the project.

Leading the successful design, installation and operation of the communications infrastructure for the Olympic football games at the Old Trafford venue. All delivery milestones were met on or ahead of time with no penalty payments. This was in a challenging environment of changing requirements. I established excellent working relationships with key LOCOG stakeholders, enabling early access to the Old Trafford football venue. I developed a group of engineers of varying abilities into a cohesive team with focussed objectives to deliver a common goal. I led and coached the team in a supportive manner instilling a high quality culture. This level of professionalism was adopted as the standard by the other Technology teams including LOCOG, Acer, Xerox and Atos with whom we shared the Venue Technology Office at the Old Trafford venue.

Responsible for managing the Integration Verification Validation + Test (IVV+T) teams in the Infrastructure OSS area of BT Operate to deliver 21CN release upgrades. I managed the migration of the IVV+T test activity from experienced on-site contractors to inexperienced off-site sub-contract team saving £120K p.a. without performance degradation. I instigated a culture of continual improvement to drive performance improvement from statistical trend analysis. This role included a White Labelled Managed Services contract with EE. To improve the project efficiency and client relationship, I redefined the defect management processes, managing RAID reviews. I led the BT test teams planning of the R2.0 phase of the Harlequins rollout, including ensuring we had a common understanding with our EE customer of what good would look like at the end of testing to ensure test sign off and mitigate launch delays.

Various roles including:I managed BT's consultancy project for Gujarat International Finance Tech City with venture capitalist IL&FS. I redefined the organisation and approach of the project team to recover budget cost over-run and managed delivery of contractual commitments by BT and ILFS. Project managed the audit of an East European Telco, to plan delivering an €8.3m NGN transformation. I drove the definition of scope, milestones and reporting mechanisms with workstream project managers and ensured a clear setting of expectations and progress reporting to senior stakeholders within defined budgets. Responsible for developing and driving transformational strategies across Global Telecoms Markets reporting to Board of Directors. This included chairing and leading strategy planning workshops to define scope, actions and deliverables and demonstrate KPI achievement to the board of Directors. I developed an outsourced recruitment approach, with supplier Accenture, which was subsequently adopted by BT Global Services as a standard. I programme managed the projects being delivered within the Commercial and Business Operations team in GTM. I launched MPLS 6COS into GTM and represented GTM Distributors in the Single Operating Environment programme and GTM in the Product Harmonisation programme. I worked closely with Customers and Account teams migrating from Frame Relay Service to MPLS networks including Cooper Cameron; Avecia & Valspar.I was personally responsible for the successful delivery of several European and Global customer projects for Apple, Kodak, British Airways and SWIFT. As an example the Apple project included delivery of 7 site core ATM network on 3 continents with 43 site secondary Frame Relay networks in Europe, Asia Pac and Americas.

Various roles including:Operational improvement projects including the provision of laptops to all 300 Field Managers in the North West of England as part of Field Manager Effectiveness programme and the recruitment of 150 engineers in the Manchester area including training, clothing, tools and vehicles. I led the performance management office responsible for the efficient running of 10 Field Manager teams with approx. 200 engineers within the Manchester area.I line managed a team of 20 field engineers responsible for the installation and maintenance of BT’s domestic and business products to meet productivity and quality of service targets.