Technology Director for a full-service Publishing company (2014 – present)
Scenario:
A 40+-year-old publishing company in a niche market with multiple lines of business. Product lifecycle managed in-house and on-premise, with the exception of hardcopy printing. From market research to warehouse inventory, the entire process being managed with legacy systems and homegrown processes.
Results:
As Stephen Covey states: Begin with the end in mind. For me, the goal was to create an integral modern platform that was flexible and sustainable. The first challenge to moving toward this goal was to understand the present realities, identify the obstacles, connect the dots, and begin to identify component replacements with the resources available. Once a road map was derived, begin an agile replacement approach while maintaining the legacy systems.
Not unlike many homegrown businesses, getting to the “Why” was a large obstacle. Many business processes did not understand why they performed their task or what the impact was on adjacent systems. The old adage of “It’s what I was told to do” appeared often. This creates a much larger task to encompass the entire operation and intersecting points which took more than a year to collect the main flows. Within homegrown processes and tools, 3rd party software is interlaced, special customer conditions and obscure triggered events. The scenario was high complexity and low throughput, with far too many errors and exceptions. At the core of the matrix were two legacy 3rd party systems, these systems provide legacy continuity, but also was the largest handicap toward progress.
A parallel system implementation approach was researched and is being designed to work with the resource limitations. While a much longer implementation window, it allows for gradual progress and less dependence on the legacy systems.
Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) Consultant for a major insurance provider (17 months)
Scenario:
One of the major Insurance and Financial company’s headquartered in the Midwest region of the United States with dozens of products and lines of business. This assignment was in one of the middleware organizations that provided services to most of the major lines of business. The company initiated a Service Management effort across the Enterprise and this group required an ITSM Specialist to organize the group and integrate with the Corporate functions.
Results:
While some ITSM functions were fairly robust (for example; Change Management), the integration of data from Incidents, Problems, Change, Configuration, Release and the core Catalog was non-functional within the unit and clumsily attached Corporately.
An inventory of current reporting and the value each provided was reviewed with the appropriate stakeholders. SLA’s and OLA’s were reviewed and updated to match the current realities. As the sole ITSM representative for the unit, I built connections with the appropriate corporate offices to ensure unit compliance, while assisting sister units in the division with compliance. New dashboards and reporting were established to provide the management teams a useful view of their performance metrics from which they could make informed decisions. The contract ended as part of a corporate restructuring.
Global Services Director for a Telecommunications System Provider (10+ years)
Scenario:
With annual revenue over $3 billion, this software and services provider offers solutions to telecommunications and media giants in more than 90 countries. Working from one of the primary North American centers, this job was multi-dimensional with local and global responsibilities.
Results:
Under the umbrella of Site Management Services, locally the role included customer contracts, Service Level Management (SLM), Quality Management (QM), and the Project Management Office (PMO). Intranet and internal automation were also under this organization’s responsibility.
Daily the SLM Team was responsible for managing millions of rows of data to ensure contractual SLA compliance as well as alert internal management of trends or incidents affecting the agreements. The QM Team was responsible for certification and standards compliance for items such as ISO9001, CMM/I, Lean/Agile, and SSAE16/SAS70. The PMO was tasked with ensuring the integrity and continuity of each units projects/programs within the unit and across the affected enterprise.
Globally, the role was the contractual expert in service level and compliance agreements. Utilization of this role extended from Sales to Managed Services leadership. Challenges included a large amount of short-term international travel, contract negotiations, then building functional teams in a managed services model to promote standards across the enterprise.
Previous roles:
- INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGER (1 Year)
- DATA CENTER OPERATIONS MANAGER/ASSISTANT DIRECTOR (5 Years)
- COMPUTER OPERATIONS SUPERVISOR – (1 Year)
- HIGH SCHOOL COMPUTER TEACHER – Part-time (1 Year)
- AUTOMATION DEVELOPER – (1 Year)
- SYSTEMS AND CUSTOMER SUPPORT – (1 Year)
- SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR – (1 Year)
- COMPUTER AIDED INSTRUCTION DEVELOPER – (2 Years)
- CLASSROOM INSTRUCTOR – (1 Year)
- VEHICLE MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN – (4 Years)