Project Highlights

chevron_right

Technology Separation

Summary

A nine month all-of-technology project to separate a subsidiary company and migrate to a new owner (Hong Kong based). The project required a new Microsoft Azure infrastructure build, migration, and change management that included:

• Establishment of a new Azure landing zone.
• Full email migration (including archive).
• New Wide Area Network (WAN) build, including physical switches, routers, and wireless access point, install and configuration.
• New unified communications through Microsoft Teams, including number porting and call flow design.
• Refit of meeting rooms with full conference technology.
• Virtual desktop build and management server for thin clients.
• Procure laptops and build new profiles.
• Migrate applications including a third party document versioning and archiving application, requiring seeding and cutover of data.
• Penetration testing.
• Onboarding and technical support set up and on site “day one” support.

Challenges

• Key vendors across multiple time zones.
• Security requirements of the new owner often got in the way of completing configuration work.

Highlights

• The final week leading up to cutover where we had most of the project team on site, including representatives from Hong Kong.
• The detailed cutover plan I created allowed the team to stay focused throughout a tough cutover weekend and helped ensure staff were able to log on to the new domains on Monday morning.

chevron_right

Automation of a Financial Governance Process

Summary

The project team was tasked with building a manual sales approval process into a proprietary CRM. A timeframe of 12 months was set and met. The deliverables included:

• Converting and validating criteria and margin tolerances for a range of different sales contracts, so they could be coded.
• Designing approval workflows and gates, at which approval notifications would be sent based on DFA.
• Automate a weekly agenda that could be executed to generate a presentation of sales deals that required a sitting committee to approve.
• Integrate with the existing order workflow to ensure approved sales contracts could enter the build and order workflow without additional intervention.
• Large sales training and operational support/change management workstream.

Challenges

• Personnel issues between the project team and one of the lead developers.
• Initially under-forecasted efforts by SME’s required changes to the MVP to meet the deadline.
• A previous project that was considered related to this had not gone well and therefore my team unfairly inherited negative sentiment from the sales team.

Highlights

• Despite the early issues with team collaboration, the project had one of the smoothest change management phases I have ever run. This was due to the incredible attention to detail paid by key members of the project team throughout the design, build, and testing phases.

chevron_right

Incident Management Web App

Summary

Create a web app as a front end to an underlying proprietary CRM technicians can use on their mobile devices. Deliverables included:

• Queue Management:
• Ability to create jobs manually.
• Assign jobs.
• Receive jobs from the main CRM into the technicians’ queue.


• Time Tracking Functionality:
• Store time tracking data in a database for reporting purposes.


• Invoice Generation:
• Generate invoices from a customizable template.
• Invoices should include details related to time, materials, and sync back to the CRM.


• Deployment of New iPads for Technicians:
• Create a support and onboarding process for users.


• Training at Sales Branches:
• Travel to sales branches to train users.

Challenges

• The initial design wireframes were completed in a rush by a person who left the company before I took on the project. It therefore required further interactions as the project progressed. Due to having a very small project team, this was a role I had to step into.
• The executive stakeholder changed expectations of the project late in development and wanted to limit the ability for technicians to manually set certain parameters.

Highlights

• While working on a project for a different client a year later, I interacted with the technician team and was issued an invoice. It was a great feeling to see it come full circle and understand the effort that went into the details that were presented to me in the end product.

chevron_right

WiFi Replatforming and Upgrade

Summary

Build a new management platform that can be used for multiple customers, and migrate an initial customer (A large New Zealand postal company) to it:

• Design, build and test the new WiFi platform, hosted on core infrastructure.
• Plan and execute site by site upgrade at all 50+ sites.
• Each site must have a WiFi coverage test.
• New process and support documentation for both internal and customer was required.

Challenges

• The number of sites, varying site sizes and the critical nature of specific locations made the logistics of this project a challenge. Many spreadsheets and a lot of communication was required to carry this out.
• The project was both an internal and customer combined project with the customers WiFi network under customer scope and the platform under internal scope. There were several occasions where these came into conflict, particularly when it came to time and material charging of effort.
• The benefits of the new platform had been overstated and therefore expectations had to be realigned.

Highlights

• Upgrading all critical sites without unexpected issues or outages.

chevron_right

Core Network Monitoring Project

Summary

Running a critical network management project, developing and deploying a new software-based platform to replace legacy tools and systems. This was an Agile value-based delivery initiative run using backlog, sprints, roadmaps and other Agile principles.

I ran multiple cross-organisational workshops to understand requirements and product design, and I reported milestones and financials directly to the CEO.

Challenges

When I took on this project, it was 2 years into its lifecycle and not in a good state. I worked on the project for one year to bring the project back on track before moving on to other projects. Key activities to achieve this included:

• A complete redo of the forecasted budget, time, and deliverables.
• Presented the new forecast to the executive and CEO. The new budget and timeframe was approved at a board level.
• Run workshops with the vendor and internal teams to develop a more robust plan and understanding.
• Refocus the project ceremonies and ways of working.
• Conduct a complete review of the backlog with the product owner.

Highlights

Delivering the MVP into production. The first production deliverable in the more than two and a half years of the project's life up to that point.