August 2012 – January 2013 – Absoft Limited – Project Portfolio Manager

Absoft Limited is a small but leading company within the SAP development and distribution space. My requirement was to come in as a Project Portfolio Manager on various projects in both the Energy and Education sectors. Whilst my core responsibility was to deliver the projects within the portfolio there was a need to lead a reasonably inexperienced team and build tools and processes which would not only utilise their current understanding but help build upon it.

The main responsibilities of this role are:

Deliver several SAP software developments and RDS projects within time and Budget.
Introduce an internal change process for the project group.
Work with the Operations Director and Professional Services Manager to build process, procedures and tools for project group based on SAP own Methodology (ASAP).
Work with the Solutions Manager to build process, procedures and tools for internal project regardless of Infrastructure or New developments to enhance service or for business opportunities.

As with all businesses which continue to grow at a fast pace, change is required to ensure that the growth is not limited or detrimental to the company. Alan was instrumental in driving through change to both culture and process not only within the Project Management space but also throughout the business.

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Job Roles

Nov 12 2011

Programme/Project Manager – FTSE

November 2011 – July 2012 – FTSE Group – Programme/Project Manager

FTSE Group’s IT Service Delivery is a young team in terms of governance and structure. Alan has been brought into this company as a programme/project manager, to bring his considerable knowledge and experience in the wider professional community and help shape the IT Service Delivery model as they strive towards being a Centre of Excellence.

The Core responsibilities of this role are:

Programme Manage the selection, purchase and implementation of a replacement Global Service Management Tool.

Introduce the governance and structure already being implemented within the Programme/project management group within FTSE Group.

Deliver IT Service Delivery Infrastructure Projects including the current DR Datacentre Migration.

Work with the Service Delivery Director to streamline process and procedures within team.

IT Service Delivery currently offers a 99.99% availability service to both internal and external customers. Alan is also working with each of the ITSD teams to help improve their individual processes and to help shape their 2012/13 Roadmaps to maintain that through a period of large change and continual annual growth of around 25%.

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Feb 12 2011

Integration Project Manager – LBG

February 2011 – September 2011 – Lloyds Banking Group – Integration Project Manager (Limited Company Contractor)

Advertised as Europe’s biggest Banking integration to date, Alan was seconded into Release C for LBG. An issue had been identified that would affect 3500 colleagues post the go-live weekend. The project had been running for some time with little movement until Alan was asked to take over the role of Integration Project Manager.

Core responsibilities:

Ensure that the 3500 colleagues had access to the future business applications by implementing a “Windows Login renaming plan” across 11 business areas including branch networks.
Create the strategy for the rename implementations.
Create plans for complete change including recovery plans.
Ensure continued access to current applications.
Where appropriate work with business areas to create strategy for remuneration and bonus where the change would cause a breakdown between upstream and downstream processes/applications.
Keeping financial records for the change including internal & external resource and forecasting.

While working to ensure continued access to current applications, Alan managed the investigations into all applications used by every business area, role and all personnel as many of these would require authentication with the Login ID. An understanding had to be gained of the upstream and downstream relationships, interfaces and links of these initial applications. Application authentication with the Login ID fell into 2 categories:

Authentication could be maintained by internal table update
Application required full development lifecycle to ensure continued access

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Job Roles

May 12 2010

Programme/Project Manager – LBG

May 2010 – February 2011 – Lloyds Banking Group – Programme/Project Manager (Limited Company Contractor)

Since starting in the role Alan had been assigned to many different Programmes/projects, the first of which spanned most of his time on this assignment. This programme, as with most of the other projects assigned during this time, had been running for around 18 months previously without clear vision or end in sight. It was Alan’s role to complete these programmes/projects

Oracle Improvement Programme Manager – Responsibilities

Chair weekly Implementation workgroups – Ensure the focus was on each deliverable and any risks, issues are managed with escalation as appropriate.
Give clear vision to each of the workstream leads to bring the workstreams to a close.
Create clear reporting lines from workstreams through to Senior Management.
Review current Datacentre Infrastructure to ensure platform met application needs.
Upscale/Downscale where necessary.
Engage 3rd Party suppliers where required for delivery.
Production and maintenance of a Programme Plan on a Page – High Level reporting tool for each deliverable/group of deliverables.
Production of Programme Implementation plans – ensure these were delivered by individual workstreams.

Projects included:

10g Upgrade – Oracle
Network & Vulnerabilities – Oracle
BAU RAC Upgrade – Oracle
Support Analysis Tool – Unix

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Job Roles

Nov 12 2009

Programme Implementation Manager – LBG

November 2009 – May2010 – Lloyds Banking Group – Programme Implementation Manager (Limited Company Contractor)

Bancassurance L-Day is the first major integration programme within the Lloyds Banking Group. The aim of this programme was to deliver a front-end system which allows all Financial Advisors within the group an integrated solution on one platform, regardless of which heritage they are housed within. Below are Alan’s responsibilities within the programme.

Programme Implementation Manager – Responsibilities

Production of a Roadmap – ensure visibility of all deliverables for getting to the Implementation L-Day itself.
Production of RACI Matrix – Identify owners of each deliverable.
Build a plan – Detail the outline shape of the journey to L-Day.
Production of Checklist – Low level reporting tool for each deliverable.
Production and maintenance of a Plan on a Page – High Level reporting tool for each deliverable/group of deliverables.
Chair weekly Implementation workgroups – Ensure the focus was on each deliverable and any risks, issues are managed with escalation as appropriate.
Production of Programme Implementation plans – ensure these were delivered by individual workstreams at the appropriate times for Release Management to deliver the Release plan.
Production of Implementation Playbook – Summary of the L-Day weekend event including, summary implementation plan, escalation routes, governance, Incident Management.
Dress Rehearsal of L-day – Run through of playbook, using “what if?” scenarios to test the processes.
Implementation Governance on L-day Itself.

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Job Roles

Sep 12 2008

Change Programme Project Manager – Hays

September 2008 – November 2009 – Hays Specialist Recruitment – Change Programme Project Manager (Limited Company Contractor)

Adapt 2010 is a ground-breaking programme within Hays, which has delivered their first Global, Front End resource management application. It is also the first programme in Hays history which has delivered on time. The programme has the strongest, most dedicated team. Listed below were Alan’s functions within the programme.

Implementation Manager – Responsibilities

Implementation of the new Front End Application being developed within Hays.
Creation of the hour by hour Implementation plan to enable delivery of each new code deployment out with core hours.
Creation of back out strategy should deployment fail.
Test Full implementation plan and back out strategy during Operational Acceptance testing.
Arrangement of full support, in house and third party, for Implementation weekend.
All communication to senior management throughout each implementation.
Defect management during implementation.
Testing during implementation.

Infrastructure Project Manager (Client/Server Office Based to Datacentres) – Responsibilities

Timely delivery of new infrastructure to a global programme to enable the largest change programme to date within Hays.
Full project lifecycle management.
Continual change management as each delivery cycle of the front-end application programme is taken from concept to delivery.
Upscale of Infrastructure to meet application needs.
Management of third party supplier as sole supplier of infrastructure to the programme.
Lead on creation of backup strategy and service agreements on behalf of the programme for development, test, training and Production infrastructure.
Quality manager for each delivery of infrastructure to the programme.
Risk/Issue management.

Environment Manager – Responsibilities

Management of all infrastructures when delivered to the programme.
Ensuring each environment had the required infrastructure for each Code delivery cycle.
Planning and deployment of code at each stage within the delivery cycle to the appropriate environment; Development, Systems Integration Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Operational Acceptance Testing and Production.
Planning for and requesting additional infrastructure when additional functionality was required within a delivery cycle.

Alan was also instrumental in setting up the testing areas within the programme. Although there is no formal background in this area he took this challenge and with both hands and created the initial test team. Due to increased workloads from the above responsibilities and other projects including decommission of the old Adapt V8 system and Performance test initiation project, a Test manager was then recruited to carry the test team forward.

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Job Roles

Feb 12 2008

Implementation Manager Business Change Programme – HBoS

February 2008 – June 2008 – HBoS – Implementation Manager Business Change Programme (Limited Company Contractor)

One of two Implementation Managers on the third of four releases of this major banking, business change programme, this role has the following responsibilities:

Creation of: –

Implementation approach document.
Implementation strategy document.
Implementation Readiness Checklist.
Implementation Incident Management Plan.
Implementation Governance documentation.
Implementation Playbook (Daily activities during Implementation)
Resource support matrix for implementation.
Co-ordination and consolidation of all Implementation plans.
Co-ordination of the Implementation of the Release 3 of the Business change programme.
Co-ordination of User provisioning for the release.
Clash management of any changes raised within and out-with the programme.

Implementation risk Management.

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Job Roles

Aug 12 2007

Project/Programme Office Manager/Deputy to Application Delivery Manager – EDS

August 2007 – Present – EDS – Project/Programme Office Manager/Deputy to Application Delivery Manager (Full Time Employment)

The role is split into two main areas due to a leveraged resource within the EDS organization.

The main role as Project/Programme Office Manager has the following responsibilities:

Finance Management – i.e. Profit and Loss analysis, outlooking, project finances & reporting, credit control, client billing, journal processing, purchasing processes.
Business Process Re-engineering
Administration Team Management (managing local admin team)
General Office Management (liaison with landlord, facilities management team, responsibility for space charging)
Staff Management (administering Performance Management Process etc. for a small group of staff)
Participation in bid work for follow-on or new work
Project/Programme Management as necessary.
Risk Manager for all projects within the Commercial Group in Aberdeen.

The Application Delivery Manager Deputy (covering for Application Delivery Manager during periods of absence) role has the following responsibilities:

HR responsibility for up to 50 Staff, Inc. training, development, PAYE, expenses etc.
Forecast/Resource for any project requiring the skill/expertise of any of these members of staff
Within both these areas the following skills are required:

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Job Roles

Mar 12 2007

Transition Project Leader (RAF Kinloss) – EDS

March 2007 – Present – EDS – Transition Project Leader (RAF Kinloss) – Infrastructure and IT Delivery

(Limited Company Contractor)

The role of Transition Project Leader is to manage the creation of the Service Delivery Documentation to allow the successful transition of Services and Posts from an MoD based IT Team at RAF Kinloss into a Supplier based Team i.e. EDS/ATLAS Consortium.

Main responsibilities of this post are to:

Co-ordinate to collation of information related to the service(s) given in the current model.
Collate the Staff details i.e. HR details MoD personnel, civilian and contractor, rates and expenses etc., and Roles & responsibilities for each post held.
Create the Take on Service Plan (ToSP) which details the Current Service Delivery Model and what needs to be done for the Future Service Delivery Model.
Create Cost Models for the staff and their requirements.
Where required put together plans for recruitment of posts not filled after transition.
Co-ordinate and create any Transition Service Agreements (TSA) required between EDS/ATLAS and any current 3rd Party Suppliers/Contractors, thus allowing ATLAS to utilize existing service agreements they hold with the MoD.Co-ordinate and create any Transition Service Procedure (TSP) between ATLAS and MoD organizations that currently provide a service to the current Service Delivery Team, thus allowing them to provide a successful service.
Managing risks & issues.
Reports by exception to the Programme Manager including the creation and update of Project Plans.
Other indirect of responsibilities include:
Highlight service deficiencies in the current model to allow ATLAS to provide a better service.
Highlight staffing deficiencies i.e. if MoD personnel, other duties may interfere with service delivery work and cause service degradation. This allows ATLAS to request funding for additional contractor staff to alleviate these problems.
Liaise with on-site staff to help with their impending transition in EDS/ATLAS

Alan Forrest 0 Comments

Job Roles

Feb 12 2006

Deputy Senior Implementation Manager – EDS

February 2006 – March 2007 – EDS – Deputy Senior Implementation Manager – Infrastructure and IT Delivery

(Limited Company Contractor)

As well as attending to the responsibilities outlined below for the Implementation Manager a Deputy Senior Implementation manager has the following additional responsibilities:

· First point of escalation for Implementation Managers within a given area.

· Communication of Risks/Issues/Change and site progress within the given region.

· Chair weekly update meeting between MoD and Implementation Managers.

· Attend Weekly Regional meeting between consortium work towers and MoD.

· Communication of new process and any relevant documentation to Implementation Managers within the team.

· Requests for resource and interviewing candidates for the Implementation team in the region.

· Arranging cover for any absences within the team.

Other areas of responsibility include deputizing for the Senior Implementation Manager when unavailable, whether it is for a few hours or weeks. Full authority for that post given.

These responsibilities would include:

· Scheduling and sequencing of sites within the project for the Region.

· Managing Risks/Issues and Change for the Region.

· Managing work towers within the project for the region.

· Escalation of all Risks/issues at a regional level.

· Report the weekly update through management chain

· Management of Implementation Management Team.

Alan Forrest 0 Comments