John Dawson Email & Phone Number

Ottawa, On, Ca

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

CBN has been a leader in providing Excise Stamp solutions for governments to ensure tax revenue compliance with the tobbaco and alcohol industries. Thus it has been a natural evolution for us to make extensive inroads with the burgeoning commercial cannabis industry.Building upon my previous Plant Systems role my team is adapting and repackaging CBN's internal excise processes and systems to offer them as a commercial systems solution to Licensed Cannabis Producers.Along with systems we are also providing our customers with expertise on process management, data analytics, integrity assurance, and much more.Significant duties for my team and I include:• Ongoing dialogue with customers to determine valuable system improvements.• Agile Product Owner role for continuous system development and delivery using agile methodologies.• Analysis of "as-is" and "to-be" regarding stamp application and tracking processes at customer facilities.• Determining requirements to effectively and securely integrate CBN's commercial system with customer ERP/MRP systems.• Effective onboarding and training of new customers on to CBN's commercial system., including development of fully remote/virtual methods in light of COVID-19 restrictions• Construction of self-serve and ad hoc reporting for customers using modern BI tools.

Ottawa, Canada Area

In my current role I am continuing to refine the composition and direction my team to help CBN take advantage of emerging technologies in our industry.This is an exciting and interesting time for me, and I am doing this while still being responsible for all of my previous duties as Manager.My team is now part of a larger Manufacturing Systems group which is now helping CBN adopt items like Internet of Things (IoT), Data Analytics, Machine Vision tools, robotics, and many others.I continue to focus on coaching and developing my staff to ensure their skill-sets and experience keep pace with the changes happening at CBN. I have greatly expanded my involvement in various analysis, project management, and facilitation activities and am a member of several teams assigned to high profile projects using Agile methodologies.I am called upon frequently to "bridge the gap" between the technical teams delivering new systems, and the production management teams receiving them.My daily tasks now regularly include:• Requirements Elicitation• Process Mapping and Modeling• Capturing Use Cases and User Stories • Change Management• Risk Management• Decision Analysis• Acceptance Testing• Stakeholder Communication Planning & Management

Ottawa, Ontario

Management is achieving desired results through the work of others.I was very grateful to be promoted to this role as my team was becoming a key contributor to CBN’s strategic shift to leverage technology as much as possible for production processes.I grew the systems support team and coached them in improving technical skills, customer service orientation, process improvement, and career development planning to position them for future opportunities.This allowed me to focus more on project leadership and business analysis activities to ensure that we were both “doing the right things” and “doing things right”.I was the initial point of contact for modifications and additions to production systems, including those developed in-house and those provided by outside vendors.I determined work breakdown structure to coordinate activities among vendors, technical teams, and other stakeholders using a methodical project management approach. I facilitated numerous activities including elicitation, project kick-offs, process mapping, problem analysis, decision analysis, risk analysis, testing, deployment, user training and final production sign-off from stakeholders. For all of these activities communication is key. To support this I delivered both an ongoing strategic plan to communicate department objectives and an analysis of day-to-day activities with special attention paid to areas of increased opportunity or increased risk.

Ottawa, Canada Area

This was one of the most of the significant opportunities of my career so far. Instead of joining a team I got to work with my boss to build a brand new team from the ground up.In the Security Printing industry there are many high-tech Production equipment and systems, and CBN continues to adopt new technologies in order to maintain a competitive advantage in this marketplace.The focus of this new team was to provide technical support to a variety of manufacturing systems. These various systems touched on the entire life-cycle of different product lines, and across different business units within CBN. As a result, I was able to build relationships with a large portion of the company as our various activities always touched on each other.Achieving all of this was always a team effort, so upon my arrival I took charge of the small existing team and instructed them on technical support best practices, system maintenance, and customer service techniques. I also mentored them on the benefits of system standardization and other ways to achieve efficiency gains.As technology advancements continued to occur, I helped evaluate and complete modifications and improvements to existing Production systems. I did this in collaboration with subject matter experts, machinery vendors, system integrators and software developers using change management processes to assess impact and mitigate risks.In order to then get the best value out of these systems, I would then create and deliver targeted training plans for different end-user groups during “go live” of newly deployed systems.

Ottawa, Ontario

Silicon Valley North -- here I come !!!I was fortunate to join Bridgewater Systems when it had just gone from “startup” to an “established" telecommunications company.But being in the “high-tech” culture also meant that “fast-pace” was the norm, and with the company growing by leaps and bounds efficiency was the key in terms of staying on top of everything.I was the “customer-facing” part of a small team that was first point-of-contact for employees both in Ottawa and worldwide needing technical support. As we continued to grow, an “ever-green” technology strategy was adopted.I identified the need to automate common system deployment and maintenance tasks in order to keep up. I was then responsible for evaluating and procuring the tools needed to accomplish this.During my time I was also part of several project teams assigned to complete entire company-wide “fleet-changeovers”.This included items such as PCs, smartphones, security software, etc., as new and improved vendor solutions were constantly sought out and implemented to maintain the ability of company employees to work at their best.

Ottawa, Ontario

As you can guess by the company name, this was my first foray into working in a high-security environment. Although the “security first” mindset change I needed to complete was significant, it has served me well to this day.For this role I was brought on as a lead for a user support team that received, prioritized and resolved incoming IT support requests from all across the company.By drawing on my previous experience, I Identified gaps in our team’s user support capabilities both in terms of policies/procedures and technical shortfalls. To address this I mentored less experienced colleagues in technical support skills and worked with them to implement standard support procedures. The efficiency gains we were able to achieve had a “halo effect” on the network and server teams we supported so in the end we all benefitted.As well, I began to apply my technical skills and support to in-house manufacturing systems which you could consider having been "neglected" up to that point.

Ottawa, Ontario

In this role I was part of a small team reporting to the CIO of a not-for-profit medical services company that provided laundry and food services to hospitals in Ottawa and surrounding areas.As with many not-for-profit organizations, the guiding value of "do more with less" was especially significant. This meant that all tasks and projects focused on supporting the organization goal of maximizing efficiency while keeping costs and waste to a minimum.I was responsible for maintaining all technical aspects of their IT environment (network, server, desktop, laptop, logistics systems and peripherals).I was also responsible for several major technical projects including:• Planning, deploying, and maintaining IT infrastructure for a newly-built food production facility • Rollout of several key ERP system upgrades• Conversion of standard client-server environment to a "virtualized" thin-client environment.Throughout all of these changes I worked with the CIO to ensure planned system implementations were technically feasible and aligned with business goals. While accomplishing these I constantly assessed and managed the various risks and impacts to end users to avoid interruptions.

Whistler, British Columbia

Not only did I think Whistler/Blackcomb was a great place to work - lots of other folks did too! In this position I recruited, trained, and supervised a large support team that changed on a seasonal basis. This included making sure all of them had a consistent knowledge basis to work effectively, and making sure they maintained the very high customer service standards that W/B was known for.In addition, the role of IT both at Whistler/Blackcomb and for Intrawest (our parent company) was growing so I helped execute on several projects including:• Creation of formalized Service Level Agreements between IT and Business Units• Rollout of JD Edwards OneWorld ERP• Evaluation and purchase of enterprise Helpdesk/ITSM system• Preparation and mitigation of Y2K bug across critical systems

Whistler, British Columbia

"What? You're saying you got to do IT Support at one of the world's premier ski resort destinations?"I sure did !!! In keeping with our award winning customer service practices, I provided technical support for a variety of departments including Ticketing/Retail/Restaurant Point-of-Sale, Accounting & Payroll, Maintenance Planning, Inventory & Warehouse, and several office environments, all spread across an alpine terrain environment. Heck, I even got to ski from place to place to deliver parts (!)

Certificate Program In Computer Based Information System, Computer Technology/Computer Systems Technology

Business Analysis Studies

Students apply defined techniques to communicate and validate technical requirements for changes to business processes in a variety.

Modeling Business Processes And Workflows

Problem Analysis / Potential Problem Analyisis / Facilitation

Problem Solving & Decision Making

Bachelor'S Degree, Music, Communications

Business Analysis In An Agile Environment

Accelerated Requirements Elicitation And Analysis

Agile Delivery Methods

Agile Product Ownership