Consultant IT Project Manager (Contract) at Aviva Life PLC
York, North Yorkshire
United Kingdom
www.aviva.co.uk
February 2011-Present

Project management of an End to End eCommerce delivery portfolio with responsibility and accountability for high profile business to business projects. Overseeing multiple, Agile & Waterfall teams (up to 70 FTE) including, ecommerce, ESB, Document Management, Back office and infrastructure (Outsourced to HP) teams within complex matrix environment, co-ordinating offshore resource (Wipro) alongside several UK office locations, reporting into Senior Management / Director Level. Portfolio includes; Project Management of several new customer branded websites for Barclays Bank. Involved working closely with the external customer, 3rd party digital media agency, Dare, and internal functions to deliver a non advised journey for Branch & Telephony agents and a DDA compliant public customer facing website. Budget of £7M with £15M worth of deadline fines associated. Project was delivered successfully under budget, on time and to quality. Project Management of several new customer branded websites for Santander Bank and the iterative releases afterwards to deliver additional functionality. Involved working closely with the external customer and internal functions to deliver a non advised journey for Branch & Telephony agents. Budget of £3M. Project was delivered successfully under budget, on time and to quality. Project Management of several new customer branded websites for the RBS Group; Natwest, Royal Bank of Scotland and the Ulster Bank. Involved working closely with the external customer and internal functions to deliver advised and non advised journey’s for Branch & Telephony agents and a DDA compliant public customer facing website. Budget of £1.5M with £4M worth of deadline fines associated. Project was delivered successfully under budget, on time and to quality. The rolled out Scrum to ecommerce teams to allow agile development with all benefits. Aviva where using a fractured rollout of agile in the ecommerce space that was not working due to poor rollout resulting in unrealised benefits. I successfully advanced the internal agile methodology by rolling out Scrum, including; standardising tools, educating teams with training, rolling out culture change in both IT and Account Management, mentoring scrum masters and streamlining the environment to enable teams perform at a high velocity.

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IT Project Manager at DRL Ltd
Bolton, Lancashire
United Kingdom
http://www.drllimited.co.uk/
September 2009-February 2011

DRL LTD (Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies – The Times) Project management of an IT and Business Change delivery portfolio within a pure agile environment. Responsibility and accountability for all ecommerce projects, overseeing multiple, Scrum teams (up to 10 FTE’s per team) within complex matrix environment, including resource management, engagement & management of 3rd party resources, reporting into Senior Management / Director Level. Teams included Graphic Designers, Developers, SEO specialists, Middle Layer Developers, Database Administrators and QA Testers. Portfolio includes; Project Management of the integration between 3rd party navigation optimisation software, FredHopper, and all existing DRL websites and the internal call centre application. The deliverables included; Optimized search, search correction, related products and upselling, optimised navigation and facets, a product filter and a viewed history. Project Management of a new website based on affiliate feeds. A review website that contained customer reviews through integration with Bazaar Voice, customer videos, customer photos and professional photos and video reviews of the product made by DRL. Video hosting was provided by 3rd party, Flumotion. The website allowed customers to review product and get best price through affiliate feeds, even if customer went to an external supplier to the group, the group would make money on the referral. Increased sales on all DRL websites and introduced a new affiliate feed income stream. Project Management of the integration between a website and a 3rd party’s registration portal, Which?. Scope included the main DRL ecommerce channel, the call centre application and database configurations. Team worked closely with Which? To coordinate a go live as the first business partners to use the new registration portal. The project increased Which? Subscription conversion, resulting in over 4000 take ups a month. Project Management of a new call centre methodology driven by upgrades to the call centre application to increase conversions for the warranty sales process. Working with several Business Analysts, to deliver an optimum systematic approach to maximise customer contact and increase conversion. Project Management of a new supplier management and ordering process using the existing in house system to increase availability for all Key Line Stock Items. Working with a Business Analysts, to deliver an optimum systematic approach to maximise the ordering, amending and cancelling of items ordered. Project Management of the rebrand and proposition change for an entire website, covering call a centre application, the database configurations, the graphic designers, and the website port onto a standard web framework. The conversation rates rose from 3% to 5% after the website went live. Responsible for the design, implementation and on-going review of a Project Management methodology based on Prince 2 using Scrum as the controlled break for delivery including documentation standards, processes, reporting, exception handling and initiation, evaluation, analysis, development, go live and closure. Rolling out scrum involved, documentation, training and culture change in both IT and Marketing teams.

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IT Project Manager at Skipton Building Society
Skipton, North Yorkshire
United Kingdom
http://www.skipton.co.uk/default.aspx
October 2007-September 2009

Project management of an IT and Business Change delivery portfolio with responsibility and accountability for projects. Overseeing multiple, multi site delivery teams (up to 20 FTE) within complex matrix environment plus engagement & management of 3rd party resources reporting into Senior Management / Director Level. Portfolio includes; Project management of the migration from a physical server topology to a VMWare virtual server topology with Linux based ESX, utilising HP SAN and Blade Technologies. The platform spanned multiple sites and involved working with 3rd Parties including Hewlett Packard and BT Basilica to. Costing £182m in Capital Expenditure, Expenses and Internal resource, to deliver lower operational costs to the business, offer highly resilient DR solutions and reduce the cost of hardware expansion. Project Management of a Secure Email solution installation and business change, utilising Linux technologies and Google’s Postini, working with HML financial clients; GMAC and Oakwood for pilot, to deliver encrypted email communication, offering higher security to clients. End result satisfied an audit requirement to stay compliant and offered an additional product to sell clients. IT Programme Management of the migration from an internal bespoke print function, to an external print house, Adare. Utilising technologies such as Thunderhead, Biztalk and Connect Direct. The Programme was split into 3 projects, spanning 18 Months and was the first solution to utilise a messaging platform. The programme delivered huge cost and FTE savings as part of a lean initiative and removed multiple DR and BCP risks. Infrastructure project management of a financial reconciliation package, working in conjunction with a 3rd party provider, CODA, delivering 20+ FTE savings via automation of manual nominal & bank reconciliation process. Working with department head to introduce continuous improvements, as part of HML’s lean strategy. This includes: Root Cause Analysis workshops, leading Lean aware workshops and improving process and ways in which the department works and interacts with other departments. My efforts and hard work where recognised and as a result have been placed on Skipton Building Society’s, Rising Star program. The rising star program assists with my career development and training. I am now registered as Mentor at HML, currently coaching someone who wishes to work in a team leader role.

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