Simons Old Work (Australia) page
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Strategic Computer
Solutions
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In
July 1999 I found a position as Service Delivery Manager with
Strategic Computer Solutions (SCS). SCS is a growing firm (from 7 to
20 over the last 18 months), mainly dealing with workflow, document
management and messaging on Microsoft platforms.
As they were growing
one of the directors found he was spending to much time on the
operational management of the technical services and hence the need
for a Service Delivery Manager. As such I am responsible for the 7
engineers and the helpdesk, both internally with regards to
performance and structure as externally with contracts and service
levels.
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My
job was at first to manage the day-to-day operations of the 4 (now 7)
technicians and the helpdesk-lady: make sure they handle their request, log
their time, inform their customers etc.etc. On top of that I also project-manage
the more sizeable jobs, including some of the development projects of the 5
developers of SCS.
One of the first and
most enjoyable projects was organising the move of the company itself. We only
moved from the second to the fourth floor, but also from the street to the
riverside! And we got more space, so where I first shared an office with the
helpdesk (in a ‘cubby’ without natural light), I now have my own office with
a river view. Between the office and the river lies a public park an
end-October/early-November we could perfectly follow the Rally Australia races.
The
drawback however is that I am now travelling by bus. This job does not give me a
parking place in town and bus fares are cheaper than petrol & parking
combined. I can’t complain really as the bus stop is only 500 meters from our
house and the bus stops in front of the office-building, busses run every few
minutes during peak-hour (thinning to every 20 mins later) and because of
bus-lanes the trip takes about as much time as by car (which is 20 minutes).
Normally the busses aren’t crowded so you get a seat (or even a double one).
But after this glowing
endorsement of the busses I have to say that of course bus stops aren’t
everywhere and public transport is really focuses to/from town. Going somewhere
else can be a real hassle. Plus that busses can be hot (as can the walk be) and
the trip is sort of passive (rather than driving and listening to the radio),
although I do manage to read.
Curtin
Messaging Project
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Early in 2000, SCS won the tender to
implement a uniform messaging system for the staff of Curtin University in
Western Australia.
With almost 5,000 staff in 10
locations, this was a major project for SCS. For me it meant that since
June I have been almost fulltime involved with this as Project Manager.
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Until recently each school and/or
division within Curtin has been responsible for his or her own mail-system. An
internal analysis has advised to migrate to Novell GroupWise, as Novell was used
for the Network and GroupWise has already been deployed within the Vice
Chancellery. Instead SCS argumented that Exchange/Outlook would be more
future-proof and more of an industry-standard.
The project started with a huge inventory
of existing users and mail-systems and a design for the Exchange-organisation
and Novell NDS integration. Meanwhile we’re in full migration, training,
implementation etc. It has been
quite a struggle and challenge at stages, but I think the result is very good.
Conan Group
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While
working on the Curtin project for SCS,
did I 'intercept' a stray message sent to the IT Manager. It was an
invitation to an ITIL course. A
shock of recognition went through me as this (ITIL) was exactly the
methodology that I had used with Pink
Elephant in the Netherlands, before my migration.
Despite
enjoying the challenges with SCS I decided to contact the Conan Group,
to see what they were doing with ITIL. It turned out the company had
only started in February of 2000, by an ex-Shell/Woodside employee and
a Gartner Group consultant. They were now bringing ITIL to the WA
marketplace and quite successfully too.
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To make a long story
short: they could use someone with experience in ITIL and offered me a position.
Mid-April 2001 I changed and became IT Management Consultant with the Conan
Group. The company currently (May 2001) counts around 10 employees of which a
significant number are contractors. Besides ITIL training and implementation
they also focus on ISO-certification, TCO, Risk Analysis and other (IT)
Management Methodologies.
Initially
I started working on the internal Quality Manual, a clever combination of
written procedures and modern technology. The outcome will be a system through
which the quality processes and procedures are electronically available to all
staff. An added bonus was that most of this work I could do from home
(especially with my parents visiting in April and Joshua being around).
Later
in the year I got involved in the pre-implementation of a number of ITIL
processes (IT Service Continuity, Release & Problem Management) and various
organisations, as well as the development and delivery of several ITIL courses.
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