Taking ownership of Test and SI processes as part of the management team for BCi.

Currently on site at Sky UK as Integration Lead on two high profile programmesAs an Integration Lead, my role has a wide remit. I am responsible for the planning and tracking of integration activity across the systems and interfaces identified by the technical leads. I am also responsible for the planning and coordination of the testing activity across a large number of test teams ensuring that issues are allocated to the correct parties when they arise and ensuring that testing milestones are met. I have worked extensively within the BCi team to develop the internal tools that we use as an aid to reducing technical risk in deployment.Responsibilities:• Maintain key cross-programme reference documents on the collaboration platform. These will not form part of the official design documentation, which will remain the responsibility of the TDA and the Workstream Technical Leads, but are a resource for the programme to aid understanding and communication:• Produce, own and maintain a functional architecture diagram showing all systems, their ownership and their inter-relationships, including cross-reference to key interfaces.• Identify the list of all inter-workstream and other key interfaces and their current status.• Assists in the design and development of suitable test tools and determines the test data requirements.• Validate test coverage and completeness• Produce E2E testing framework

Media Sales Test Manager for AdSmart – Sky’s innovative and award winning Targeted Advertising platform.I was initially responsible for system and integration testing of three key systems within Sky Media• Airtime Sales Management (Landmark II)• Scheduling• Spot/Hint Allocation EngineI then supported E2E testing of the platform where I implemented an automation suite to:-• Drive a 5 channel commercial TV station in the E2E test environment• Monitor and report on STB viewing activity to facilitate platform QCFinally I developed and led the Business and User Acceptance programme for AdSmart as a whole

The B&M Merret Project was set up to integrate “Merret” (supply chain management offering) from Retail Assist into ASOS’s Buying and Merchandising systems. The project involved migrating functionality and data from an existing bespoke back office system, interfacing to existing Back Office systems through a middleware solution provided by EMC and interfacing directly to the Red Prairie Warehouse Management System. This was a hands-on role driving a small but dedicated team of up to five analysts against a backdrop of severe resource and timescale challenges. The project was entering the second phase of development when I joined presenting a steep learning curve and necessitating a change of testing approach based on feedback from the initial phase. This phase required a solid System Integration Test approach and careful 3rd party vendor management. The key challenge within the role was to increase Stakeholder confidence in a shortened timeframe with minimal additional resources.

Working on the Apollo project to roll out a new newspaper distribution management application.Responsible for all aspects of testing but focussing mainly on walking the business community through Acceptance & E2E testingResponsibilities• Create the test strategy acknowledging the need for and defining the key training requirements, obtain sign off from stakeholders• Manage the system test process defining requirements, traceability and the documentation of manual and automated test scripts• Work closely with stakeholder and user community to define the acceptance process• Be onsite across multiple UK locations to walk the business community through UAT & E2E testing and garner sign off• Enforce an effective yet pragmatic level of test governance within the project including coverage, traceability, planning, reporting and risk management

I was engaged with Tata Technology at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) as part of the SWIFT IT program. The program involved transitioning circa 1500 applications from the Ford hosted environment to a green field JLR data centre. My team’s key responsibilities lay in high uptime Operations and Finance applications. This was by far the largest group within the program with 200+ applications spanning multiple platforms including IBM Mainframe, UNIX/LINUX and Windows. I ran multiple test teams ranging in size from 5 to 50+ and covered multiple phases in the testing lifecycle from unit to full End to End.

Responsible for test management on the Oyster Project. This was a high profile project to implement a complex messaging system for financial transactions based around XML, MQ and SAP. I was tasked with test process improvement and increasing the ROI for testing activities. I gained traction by deploying tightly focused testing activities in key areas of the system as an interim measure, before developing and deploying a highly successful test automation framework leveraging Quick Test Pro. I was then charged with expanding the framework to cover the entire Lastminute.com site before handing over to an in house team.

Working as part of the Integrated Care Team on the “ERIC” project. ERIC was a web based system utilizing the .NET platform based on an Oracle Database. I joined the project in the closing stages in order to drive the testing through to completion. The role was made increasingly challenging due to the relationship between the client and the software vendor; it required a pragmatic and political approach to test management. Coming in at the latter stages required me to pick up project concepts, build relationships and raise quality in a short space of time.

Indigo was founded to develop bespoke websites from the ground up using original creative designs and cutting edge technologies. This was a successful and enjoyable role which involved setting up the technical/programming side of website development. I was originally responsible for all development and testing. However as the company grew, I stepped back in order to coordinate the outsourced development and test teams.

Working on the Atlas application, I started as a contracted Test Lead, before joining the company permanently as a Test/QA manager. Running on a Unix/Oracle platform, the Atlas System was a comprehensive application covering the companies Telecoms/Network Management and maintenance business. I had a permanent test team of 6 an offshore team of around 20 and a group of 30 users available to me worldwide when running the UAT cycles. During my tenure, three companies merged to become Orange Business Services, all CRM/ERP systems were linked and finally merged. I was charged with managing the testing efforts throughout.

Working as part of the MOBIL Project. This project covered the automation of London Electricity’s Meter Operations and Billing processes. The role required me to lead a small team focusing on a specific area of the billing operations. The role required the creation of testing processes that fitted within the program framework, but were flexible enough to drive a high degree of quality into the group testing activities.

Part of the Business Integration and Acceptance Team which was in turn part of the larger (industry wide) ‘98 Program. The ‘98 program was Yorkshire Electricity’s entry into the deregulated electricity supply market. The position entailed the end to end testing of Yorkshire Electricity’s metering to billing Operation covering many departments.