Qualifications
• 2009 – Masters in Information Systems (Australian National University)
• 2006 – Certificate IV in Government (Project Management) (Australian Taxation Office – internal)
• 2004 – Bachelor of Applied Science in Computing (Swinburne University of Technology)
• 2001 – Advanced Diploma in Computer Science (Swinburne TAFE)
Profile
My experience is working in a variety of IT Service / Project Management roles within large organisations that utilise the ITIL & PRINCE2 framework for best practice.
My experience & knowledge is of how best to conjugate related areas of IT Service Support and Delivery teams, how they can best work together within an enterprise to deliver appropriate, sensible & practical support & assurance to end-users & stakeholders.
An example is relating to the Change Program with the Tax Office; aiming towards an smart outcome gained from an overhaul of an enterprise’s IT system that covers all primary business activities.
My personal attributes are: being trustworthy, reliable, committed, honest, conscientious, hard working, responsive, working with integrity & being flexible in my approach.
I always am willing to learn & expand my knowledge to new areas, & value having a friendly & professional attitude with everyone I am with co-workers & stakeholders.
My specialties include: ITIL Service Management; Operational & Project Management; IT Developer / Programmer.
Career Summary
July 2012 – January 2015
Department of Industry & Science
Change / Release Manager – Service Operations team
I primarily managed changes & releases for the VANguard section in addition to enterprise systems; managing & supporting authentication services for a variety of B2G & G2G secure electronic communication channels.
• Managing changes, releases, incidents & problems for VANguard’s secure government authentication services
• Planning, co-ordinating & scheduling content & roll-out of changes (network / firewall / gateway, Windows Server / IIS, Web Infrastructure, application & database release packages)
• Ensuring change implementations are communicated, traceable, necessary, secure & correct
• Coordinating releases with affected parties & vendors, ensuring compliance to process, & allocated workloads & resources are available
• Managing & producing a forward schedule of change & release in line with the organisation’s project plans & milestones
• Maintaining the Change Advisory Board & change register, & trouble-shooting & producing impact analysis reports for change requests & regular status reports
• Reviewing & following up on issues relating to Change & Release Management processes, negotiating smart win-win outcomes between work areas & recommending any remedial action
• Managing, maintaining & reviewing procedures, workload schedules & resource planning
• Performing & monitoring configuration audits & initiate consequent corrective action to address inconsistencies.
Feb 2005 – July 2012
Australian Taxation Office
Release Manager – Standard Business Reporting / ICT, Service Operations Centre (SOC) branch
My work & responsibilities in the ICT (Infrastructure, Operations) section often crossed over with my SBR duties, with some refined duties as below:
• Managing the release design, build & configuration for deployments (including WebSphere, Security deployments)
• Managing the release planning, preparation & communication with team resources, managers, vendors & stakeholders
• Managing the installation & distribution of all Tax Office hardware & software (from Mainframe & web content packages to phone & desktop upgrades)
• Reviewing Release Management processes for improvement opportunities
• Undertaking management & reporting activities as per the Tax Office’s operational requirements
• Identifying what the ‘business’ is (referring to hardware & software owners / users) & what is the business ‘need’
• Engaging relevant vendor’s change & release management representatives regarding the risks in failing to align & highlighting the benefits of consistency
• Arranging & conducting regular meetings with teams & stakeholders to ensure services are co-designed & in sync
• Designing & maintaining a Release Policy & Plan with key milestones indicated e.g. identifying peak periods of use for a service
• Consistently implementing the business requirements from the organisation’s & team’s operational plan
• Ensuring the timing, support & resourcing attributes for projects & releases are in line with agreed measures.
Service Manager, Standard Business Reporting –
ICT, SOC branch
Working in / with the Service Management team & co-ordinating changes & releases within a multi-government environment for the Standard Business Reporting capability, some of my activities included:
• Defining the scope & scale of the ITIL-based processes with feedback from involved parties, primarily focussing on Change & Release Management (with consideration for Incident, Problem & Configuration Management)
• Documenting the supporting processes & procedures, & validating them before, during & after go-live of the SBR project
• Providing ongoing operational business & technical support for all SBR service management processes, with a focus on Change & Release Management (operating as the Change & Release Manager)
• Performing enterprise Incident, Change & Release Manager duties when required.
Build, Environment & Configuration –
ICT, Enterprise Applications (EA) branch, Change Program
Overall I managed the progression & deployment of releases into lower environments for the Change Program (an enterprise transformational change that upgraded & overhauled the Tax Office’s legacy systems)
A number of my duties were:
• Project managing two capabilities (1- Siebel Reference Data; 2- Inbound/Outbound Correspondence)
o Responsible for the whole project lifecycle, from scope definition through to deployment
• Managing, planning & scheduling of upcoming changes, & upgrades of enterprise & legacy systems
• Managing the configuration, technical & change / release deployment to the development, testing & production (& disaster recovery) environments of the following areas:
o Live / Production environment fixes to resolve high-severity incident, problem & change events
o A multi-government secure business reporting project (www.sbr.gov.au)
o Other major ICT projects including Change Program, network & web infrastructure upgrades
• Supervision of the application, versioning control & code base packages of production systems (midrange & mainframe levels, including approx. 8 systems & 100 applications)
• Controlling deployments to the testing & development environments (~30 environments)
• Managing & maintaining the enterprise Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
• Performing impact analysis & reviewing enterprise-wide Requests for Change (RFCs)
• Performing higher duties as the Change & Release Manager, including:
o Submitting, administering & monitoring RFCs from initiation to delivery, to post-deployment support
o Representing the team in internal / external meetings e.g. Change Advisory Board (CAB), Change & Release meetings within the Tax Office & vendors (HP / Accenture / IBM / Verizon).
Siebel Reference Data Team Leader –
ICT, EA branch
• Managing the team’s test defects & work items, including incident / problem & RFCs
• Managing & co-ordinating team members‘ resource & work plans
• Liaising with internal & external technical & business support teams
• Ensuring the bi-monthly production deployments are successfully released & are accepted by end-users.
Application Support Analyst –
ICT, Change Program Support Function branch
While working with the Change Program section my responsibilities included:
• Providing level 2 technical support to Tax office staff & business groups for Change Program releases
• Resolving & managing client queries & work items through service & test management applications (InfraEnterprise & HP Quality Centre)
• Exposure to enterprise systems, specifically Siebel & IBM applications (CMDM, DataStage, DB2, WebSphere)
• Specialising in IBM Content / Document / Records Management (CMDM) applications
• Managing & administering the team’s resource & project plans in Microsoft Project Server (~80 members)
• Ensuring business areas & team members are engaged in the correct work process
• Ensuring my communication outcomes & resolutions are clear, concise & understandable
• Documenting & peer reviewing service management processes to check they are practical & sensible.
Agreement Analyst (SLA / OLAs) –
ICT, Service Level Management (SLM)
As the Change Program section required some bridging with the organisational business as usual (BAU) areas of the Tax Office, this required refining & creating new SLAs & OLAs to ensure our vendors were meeting agreed service level targets. To do this I operated in the following areas:
• Developing, maintaining & managing Service & Operational Level Agreements (SLAs / OLAs) in consultation with Business, ICT teams & fellow team members
• Maintaining the Tax Office’s IT Service Catalogue & Service Specifications
• Attending meetings & workshops in preparation for newly implemented enterprise (Change Program) services
• Collaborating with team members of a business background in providing technical advice by translating technical requirements & specifications into business concepts & language.
IT Developer –
ICT, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) team
In support of the government-wide PKI / authentication system my duties included:
• Training & developing encryption & cryptography technologies (creation & management of digital certificates)
• Coding of SQL scripts for retrieving reporting data from SQL Server database
• Analysing Java code (including Applets) in response to work requirements.
IT Graduate (Part of the Graduate Program)
• Training in & exposure to Australian Public Service & Tax Office material
• Completion of a Certificate IV in Government (Project Management).
Jan 2003 – Feb 2005
Website Developer / Designer – Techno Phobia (IT services) – plus other companies
In order to support Techno Phobia’s clients & streamline the new internal auditing system I performed:
• Liaising with clients to assist & solve various PC problems
• Brainstorming, generating ideas & planning with staff & managers on developing an internal inventory / reporting / auditing IT system
• Coding, development & design of web technologies in HTML, ASP & an Access database.
Jan – Dec 2002
Programmer / Developer – Nagler & Company (German financial consultancy firm)
As part of my work experience developing, supporting & upgrading the in-house accounting system my responsibilities included:
• Developing & maintaining (as part of a small development team) a web-based inventory / accounting system
• Conducting IT technical work on assigned projects e.g. CVS administration, Java (Web Services), web & database (PostgreSQL) development & coding, Linux (SuSE) server configuration & administration
• Maintaining & monitoring accurate processing of financial calculations to ensure correct invoices were produced & reported to internal / external consultants & contractors
• Learning & experiencing the German language & culture while residing in Bavaria.
Other Training & Certifications
• Member of the Australian Computer Society & the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF)
• 2015 – PRINCE2 Foundation (self-study; in progress)
• 2014 – ITIL v3 Practitioner Level – Planning, Protection & Optimisation (DDLS, APMG/BCS)
• 2013 – ITIL v3 Practitioner Level – Operational Support & Analysis (DDLS, APMG/BCS)
• 2011 – ITIL v3 Practitioner Level – Change, Release & Validation (ALC Training)
• 2008 – Managing Major Projects (ATO internal)
• 2008 – ITIL v3 Foundations (Excom)
• 2007 – Business Systems Analysis (Software Education)
• 2007 – ICT Leadership & Management Fundamentals Program (ATO Internal)
• 2007 – ITIL v2 Practitioner Level – Change / Release / Configuration Management (Pink Elephant)
• 2006 – ITIL v2 Foundations (ProActive)
