A new role with DXC for the MOD!

One of a group of like minded colleagues who have decided to branch out, to offer our own virtual Project Management solutions to companies in the UK through virtualPMO - the virtual change experts!

Reporting to the Portfolio Director, I was responsible for a team of 50 colleagues to deliver the migration of 60,000 users from a legacy hybrid OS environment to a new cloud-based OS, resulting in a simplified End User Application Estate, greater leverage of existing products such as InTune, WVD and Cloudhouse and improved JML automation.Having successfully established and begun delivery of this Project, I was asked to remain, to begin delivery of a new Prisoner Telephony Re-procurement Project.

Reporting into the Programme Director, I was the Delivery Manager for a number of decommissioning and re-platforming work streams valued at £2 mil total, within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I was responsible for the removal of remove legacy on premise infrastructure and the re-homing of data into the clouds in accordance with the FCDO’s Cloud First strategy and the Future Information Architecture Vision. Projects included: • The logical and physical decommissioning of a legacy data centre and subsequent re-hosting of existing services on new cloud (M365) platforms. • The logical and secure physical decommissioning and destruction of legacy Intranet and Extranet services, as well at the move of active data to new Intranet solutions. • The physical decommissioning and secure destruction of legacy End User Devices. • The move of legacy on premise SharePoint data and re-platforming of data onto SharePoint Online.

The Director of The Zamiko Corporation Ltd, a Management Consultancy specialising in assisting companies with their management of Projects and Programmes. Clients include the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Justice, HCA Healthcare UK and INTO University Partnerships.

Mergers and Acquisition Integration: Requested to stay on to restart the integration of 3 acquired sites of 1,000 clinical specialists from legacy networks and domains into the HCA environment within a limited budget and resource profile (<£1m) to realise corporate benefits of scale. I undertook a complete review of current “as is” status and helped define the “to be” target state, including an application hosting review to ensure compliance with the Business “Cloud First” strategy, ensuring the maintenance of existing ISO 27001/9001 accreditation and ensuring new physical or virtual servers, VLANs and Network infrastructure were acquired and provisioned where appropriate.

W10/O365 Deployment: Parachuted into the IT Group for a major private Healthcare provider to restart a stalled £3m deployment of Windows 10 and O365 to a user community of 10,000 clinical users, I reported into the Infra Programme Manager with a brief to restart deployments immediately. The original PID was revised to a realistic scope that would fit the available resource and financial profile and support Group Priorities, particularly the removal of mail off premises and facilitation of online collaboration. This entailed the disengagement of a failing supplier and a regular cadence was established with internal resource, Business Stakeholders, Microsoft support specialists and Third Party Vendors (SoftCat and FlexManage) to restart migrations in a logical sequence that provided minimum disruption to clinical operations, completing the remaining 9,000 migrations in under 8 months.

2 x Short Term Business Revenue Improvement Projects: Reporting to the Vice President (IT Projects), I was appointed the Project Manager for 2 short term Business Improvement IT Projects designed to increase sales and lead follow up for a global University recruitment company covering EMEA, SEA and the Americas. These two Projects were required to be scoped, costed, initiated and executed from end to end, including the generation and approval of Project Initiation documents, securing financial approvals, negotiating with stakeholders and onboarding and managing external suppliers (Gather, Salesforce and Taxi) and management of a globally dispersed team. Both Projects delivered successfully, on time and under budget• Recruitment Tools Project. A £0.5 mil Project designed to procure and deliver a replacement Lead Data Capture Application to increase the robustness of the sales lead data capture process, to improve the number and quality of leads collected and deliver enhanced marketing functionality, plus training all current and future recruiting staff in its use.• Conversion Project. A £0.25 mil technical upgrade to our Salesforce Marketing Cloud technology to facilitate more complex user journeys with behaviour-based variations, such as roll out beyond email.

National Office 365 & Windows 10 Rollout Project. Reporting directly to the Deputy Director, appointed as the Workstream Lead for the Ministry of Justice End User Computing Services Project Team, responsible for the design and implementation of a National Training Needs Assessment, procurement, design, delivery and evaluation of a bespoke training package for 44,000 operational users ranging from Court Staff and High Court Judges to Arms Lengths Bodies. Supported a diverse User Community transitioning from Win XP and Win 8.1 to Win 10/O365 over a 48 week deployment. Resourced, recruited and directly line managed a team of 17 Application and Assistive Technology Trainers. • Operational management of a £3 million workstream, including the identification and delivery of a recurring £300k saving from the budget. • Direct Line Management of 17 Regional Staff responsible for Training Delivery to Regions and 2 Assistive Technology Trainers.• Conducted Department-wide Use Case Studies followed by detailed Training Needs Analysis to baseline the training requirement and outline the scope of training delivery, incorporating individual learning styles and Business need. • Designed and developed a bespoke Analysis Tool to enable planning and delivery of appropriate Learning Interventions to users prior to, and after, migration to the new solution as part of a bespoke National Training Plan. • Direct liaison with suppliers to ensure Proof of Concept, Early Release and Final Builds and associated Office, Line of Business or Assistive Technology Applications were correctly supported with End User Training Documentation and Communications. • Personal delivery of over 400 hours of product demonstrations and solutions at various Nationwide locations up to C level.

Operational Management of Global Training Portfolio. Personally selected to lead a number of diverse IT Training Programmes with sensitive and technologically complex remits across the training product portfolio for a user community of over 9,000 IT professionals. Reporting lines included Director and Assistant Director of IT Services for Defence for over 100 training products.• Conducted multi agency liaison and thorough whole life programme planning and Governance for Talent and Workforce management resulting in improved Personal and Professional Development for all staff. • Senior Change Authority responsible for setting and developing internal and external HR and training requirements for a community of over 9,000 MOD IT professionals ensuring training products remained relevant and VFM. • Acted as Senior User, capturing, articulating and negotiating the requirements of the End User community to internal and external stakeholders, contracted training providers and sponsors and holding vendors to account against the published tolerances in the Management Plan. • Reviewed all products (+100), their costs, validity, contracts, resources and processes with required remediation or re-engineering and mitigated identified issues through regular KPI reviews, process change and where necessary remodelling of products to meet business needs, subsequently delivering 20% efficiencies equalling savings IRO £500k per annum. Conducted regular milestone checks to provide Project Quality Assurance. • Full responsibility for a multi-skilled team of 5 direct and over 30 indirect staff on multiple UK sites ensuring availability of cross functional resources to execute each project across multiple business areas.• Responsible for regulatory and executive committee briefings, implementation and running of Governance across programmes and significant direct responsibility for liaison with senior business, product and division heads.

Reporting to the National Director of a Nationwide IT Engineering Apprenticeship Scheme, managed a wide ranging engineering programme at a top UK University, plus the complete through life, end to end HR administration of a diverse team of over 100 military and civilian undergraduate trainee IT, Logistics and Engineering specialists plus 5 supporting staff. Successful solution, design, structure and execution of multiple training projects across a National multi-discipline training pipeline with frequent International engagement and Global Travel. • Personally responsible for diagnosing and implementing a training package to meet individual learning styles and ensuring every staff member met the Governance and Entry standards of 3 MOD Initial Training Establishment.• Managing a budget of over £300k per annum and daily management of Individual, Programme and Project RAID. • Radically re-engineered and delivered 6 keystone personnel exercises, including the transportation, training serials, HR support and assessment criteria for over 100 personnel and 50 support staff while eliminating waste. Exceeded legislative safety requirements and integrated fully into partner organisations, resulting in a 100% pass rate of robust candidates into further continuation training. • Audited and repurposed a full training and education programme of over 5000 man training days achieving 33% in year efficiency savings while meeting user needs.• Ran an annual programme of short term detachments of staff to International stakeholder organisations to facilitate a mutual understanding of business objectives and facilitate strategic goals, including personnel integration, HR reporting and ensuring learning and development needs were met. • Extensive stakeholder collaboration involving the National Executive Committee, Divisional COs, Clients and Gatekeepers for Product and Portfolio Management. Significant Medical, Legal, Compliance and Communications support.

Senior Change Programme Manager on loan to the Government of Saudi Arabia in a small multicultural, multinational team. Sole UK Government representative in the clients’ workspace, personally responsible for the delivery of several disparate IT, Physical Infrastructure and HR Projects as part of a larger £2 billion, 10 year Portfolio of modernisation for the Saudi Armed Forces. Reporting directly to twin Programme Directors in both the UK and Saudi Government. Required acute cultural awareness, tact, negotiation and ethical behaviour. Regular briefings up to Ministerial Board and training delivery to basic user level. • Acted as Senior User. Researched, collated and represented the customers detailed change management requirements to the UK Prime Contractor Paradigm GPT Special Projects Team, Defence Equipment and Support and the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at Executive Control Boards, ensuring KPIs identified, established, approved and subsequently exceeded.• Identified likely project risks and shortfalls and wrote Business Cases, reviewed commercial tenders and change proposals and implemented remedial action when required to ensure programme success, increasing customer satisfaction resulting in further orders and project enhancements. • Successfully delivered a £10 million suite of communications capabilities with a bespoke, modular management control platform, including IP voice telephony, satellite data and desktop IT systems, plus associated Level 1 and 2 user training, culminating in a successful operational deployment in front of a multinational audience including Heads of State and Ambassadors on behalf of the Senior Supplier. • On site trouble-shooter for any issues faced by a highly demanding customer including HR issues, IT provision and facilities and estate management, holding the Prime Contractor to account for delivery of over 100 KPIs and consistently delivering over 95% performance.

Reporting directly back to a Senior Change Manager in the UK, trusted to deliver and act as the sole IT representative for establishing and leading a diverse, multicultural team of 65 IT professionals while implementing a radical, wide ranging commercial IT change programme. Encompassed both fixed and mobile IT infrastructure in an austere environment with limited resources, coupled with a mid-Project site move of 200 Users to a new location 200 kms away while maintaining BAU. • Site Lead directly reporting to UK Programme Board members for complete start up, implementation and delivery of secure Windows based IT systems at 2 major dispersed sites for a user community of 100 personnel as part of a larger infrastructure build, delivered on time and under budget. • Procured, trialled and implemented a GPS tracking facility from SmoothTel Ltd, renegotiated contracted commercial mobile phone service provision with Orange (Kenya) and reviewed, tested and commissioned a safety critical Motorola voice radio system in partnership with Express Automation (East Africa) to a user community of 200 personnel, resulting in improved safety governance, stricter adherence to H&S legislation and resulting in net savings IRO £130k per annum. Planned and implemented site wide WiFi upgrade and rollout. • Personally responsible for the maintenance and upgrade of a fleet of over 100 mobile vehicle communication platforms ensuring high levels (90%) of equipment availability to facilitate operational training for soldiers prior to deploying on Operations. • Liaised with British Government representatives in the wider East African area to facilitate strategic communications and planning.

Directly accountable to the Divisional Manager for the effective HR administration, discipline, welfare and career management of a team of over 600 (100 Instructors and Mentors and over 500 trainee IT professionals) plus responsibility for Logistic Support matters. • Devised and championed a renewed, definitive and visible management structure following reorganisation overcoming morale and retention issues, improving transparency and efficiency during a period of change.• Managed career development of personnel, identified and nurtured talent and ensured key positions were filled by correctly SQEP personnel to enhance legislative duty of care, resulting in the team being graded “Outstanding” by OFSTED and the Adult Learning Inspectorate during snap inspections. • Planned, designed and implemented regular change management of the organisation to meet temporary business needs to cover short term projects, staff absence and priority tasks.

A short six month Project to deliver operational training, mentoring and liaison to the fledgling Afghan National Army Officer Academy. Personally accountable for the development of a team of 30 trainee Officer Candidates, mentoring in Leadership, Communications and Small Team Management. • Personally reviewed Personnel and Logistic policy Governance structures in order to identify and include best practice for new strategic and tactical capabilities. • Successfully maintained a 100% training pass rate in accordance with HMG Objectives for the project.

Sole IT Leader of a team of 30, reporting to the Country IT Manager for the provision, supply and assurance of a diverse range of IT services ranging from desktop IT support, telephony and mobile radio communications support for a user community of over 2000 clients. Frequent client liaison and work with the United Nations Force in Cyprus as well as providing support for Operational Users in Iraq and Afghanistan. • Led and facilitated IT Team operational planning and events to define agendas, priorities, goals and change.• Successfully implemented use of REMEDY system to improve IT Service Desk efficiency• Conducted and delivered manpower efficiency savings of 33% over a 12 month period.