I am an independent consultant, currently working for clients on agile software development, business analysis, IT architecture and continuous delivery. Recent assignments include specification of business requirements for an online service, coaching product owners, development of continuous deployment architecture, delivery of agile awareness workshops and training, and project review and agile coaching for a UK government agency. See the projects below for a summary of some recent activities.

My client, a provider of global training and examination services, was struggling with adoption of a new administration system. This had been purchased with the aim of simplifying administration, reducing costs, eliminating paperwork and speeding up the delivery of examination results to candidates, but it had had the opposite effect. I began by running a series of workshops to analyse the problems and identify some quick wins. Then I worked with the internal teams (administration, IT, project management etc.) and the external software developer, to develop and manage implementation plans, gradually introducing a more agile and responsive way of working. Results have been impressive, with implementation of a customer portal providing online booking and results delivery, and a reduction in exam turnaround times from months to days.

I have developed a 1 or 2 day course that introduces agile concepts to project managers, development teams, creative designers, marketing executives and managers. It is mainly based on Scrum but also touches on other approaches such as extreme programming and lean/kanban. I have delivered the course successfully to the NHS, Barclays Bank and a variety of digital agencies, software developers and marketing consultants. Follow the link to view a selection of feedback comments

The Skills Funding Agency has been charged with delivering the new Apprenticeship Levy as a digital service by April 2017. I ran an initial Discovery project, managing a multi-disciplinary team of user researchers, service designers, business analysts, policy specialists and technical architects, to successfully define the scope of the levy service, identify the minimum viable service (MVS) and set up the Alpha phase.

I provide a combination of technical architecture, delivery management and consultancy services to the infrastructure and devops teams, particularly focussed on designing, provisioning and managing up to 30 development environments in order to support continuous integration and deployment. I acted as the main interface between the business specialists (who expected to be given a separate environment for every conceivable variation) and the technical teams, who were frequently overwhelmed with the volume of work that satisfying just a proportion of the demand entailed.I also got heavily involved in ways to deliver and licence Oracle DBMS in private clouds, and wrote a couple of articles summarising my findings, published here.

A continuation of my job at ioko, which came about when Kit Digitial merged with ioko.I led the delivery of a VOD programme in the Middle East, which implemented a new player application and infrastructure, in record time. This was the first such service in the Middle East, and had a great reception from customers and their user base.

I was involved in a whole raft of activities, including account management, technical consultancy, project/program management, offshore development & business development. As programme manager I delivered a range of multilingual web sites for a pharmaceutical company, and oversaw the transition to a full managed service. I also ran a programme to develop a new VOD platform and service that could be used by a range of end customers.

Open source software development and services company. Worked with teams of developers in Asia and Eastern Europe to deliver cost effective solutions.

I joined Sapient as a technical architect, and was promoted to Director of Technology. I led the technical implementation of several large Internet applications, for Schroders, Lloyds of London, the UK government and Vielife. It was at Sapient that I came to appreciate the vital role of user experience in delivering effective web applications.

I ran my own consultancy, which specialised in object oriented analysis and design, UML, RUP. I provided training, consultancy, and hands-on development, for a number of clients in finance, telecoms, engineering and the public sector.