Who We Serve

Managers and leaders in IT, HR, Learning & Development (L&D), Organisation Development (OD) & change programmes who are responsible for developing the capabilities, skills and performance of the IT workforce.

For example, you may be responsible for:

  • Aligning IT people, skills & capabilities with a transformation, merger, re-organisation, a new strategy or new technologies
  • Designing and implementing changes to your IT department structure, roles and responsibilities
  • Implementing process changes and adopting frameworks such as SFIA ITIL CMMI COBIT PCMM
  • Out-sourcing / in-sourcing / re-shoring IT processes.
  • Simplifying your approach for role profiles
  • Introducing a common planning language to support career families, resource management, workforce planning
  • Responding to audits which require improvements to how your people are managed
  • Developing the skills & professionalism of your IT organisation
  • Ensuring you have the right SKILLS in the right PLACE at the right TIME
  • Assessing technical skills and competencies (e.g. SFIA skills assessments)
  • Introducing an IT competency framework or a skills framework such as SFIA / e-CF
  • Increasing engagement and performance of your IT workforce
  • Providing career paths for your IT people – management, non-management and technical career paths for IT
  • Reducing the number of external resources used in your organisation (IT contractors & consultants)
  • Making more effective use of external resources used in your organisation (IT contractors & consultants)
  • Implementing 70:20:10 and other modern workplace learning approaches to the IT organisation
  • Implementing IT communities of practices

If you’re like many of our clients, you face challenges such as:

  • You have a short window of opportunity to act to meet your goals.
  • There seems so much to do and little time to do it.
  • You still need to do your day job while also being responsible for implementing a new initiative.
  • You have not done this type of activity before and are not 100% clear of the best way to tackle this.
  • Your organisation has tried to do this before but without success – how do you re-energise this project?
  • You’ve heard of SFIA but not sure the best way to adopt it.
  • Making sense of competing tool vendors and their “miracle cures”

Our clients come to us when they need to:

  • Implement a new change initiative when the stakes are high.
  • Get an objective perspective on a challenge or emerging issue.
  • Simplify things & find a way to make a complex challenge do-able.
  • Quickly evaluate and implement talent management or skills assessment tools for their IT workforce.
  • Move quickly on a project but don’t have the resource / headroom to do so. They need someone with proven experience who can make things happen quickly … without fuss.

In addition, the individuals we work with are often thinking :

  • How do I integrate my initiative into everything else we’re doing so it supports our strategy as well as immediate problems?
  • How can I engage or re-engage stakeholders who seem cynical whenever I suggest something new?
  • What can I say and do to reach people and make them care about what we’ve got to do?
  • How can I demonstrate the business case or value for money in doing this?
  • I don’t want to lose control of this initiative – how can I do this without engaging an army of external consultants?

Clients are most likely to be successful working with us if you :

  • value tangible business outcomes more than you value inputs, methodologies & tools.
  • value collaboration and joint problem solving. We first take the time to listen to you and tailor a solution which is right for you. Next  we do the right things quickly to deliver the results you are looking for.
  • are not taken in by hype or the latest buzzwords
  • value experience and capability over a brand name consultancy
  • are serious about developing the performance of your organisation and its people. You commit time and resource to make it happen.
  • don’t believe in silver bullets, sticking plasters, band aids or miracle cures
  • you are open to new ideas and new approaches
  • select tools and solutions based on your prioritised requirements rather than a vendor’s list of features

Select from the 4 options below.

I started in the IT industry in 1985 as a COBOL programmer. I had hands on experience in many different IT roles and more latterly moved into Business Analysis and Business Process Improvement roles.

In 2001 I was drawn to helping IT organisations improve their ways of working and how they could get the best out of their people. I found a niche working in the space between IT and HR teams and found I could help the HR teams understand IT people and help the IT teams understand HR / Talent Management jargon and ways of working.

I became well known for being able to operationalise and get value from HR initiatives while building trust on both sides. This experience really paid off when I was able to take a leading role on implementing IT organisation wide process improvements – using CMMI and developing IT Communities of Practice to support adoption of processes and high engagement of IT professionals in their development.

Since becoming an independent consultant I have specialised in high performance and SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age). Through my consultancy work I have helped IT organisations big and small, and in the UK and beyond.

I also run the global SFIA User Forum (on a voluntary basis) which means I have been able to provide informal support for many organisations and people around the world.

I have been using SFIA since 2003 which puts me in a very select group of experienced users.

I became interested in the people side of change after working on large scale transformation programmes as a Business Analyst and Programme Manager.

Having spent nearly 10 years in IT roles – I then completed an MBA with the Open University and went forward with a wider interest in management and performance improvement.

Of course I couldn’t fail to notice that the people side of change was frequently overlooked or ignored with the inevitable negative consequences.

In 2001 I got the opportunity to put this into practice and I lead the integration of people management for 2 large Business Change organisations; working with HR to harmonise role profiles, competency frameworks and career paths and learning and development.

I was also heavily involved, hands on in recruitment and I found a niche working in the space between IT and HR teams. I found I could really add value to HR organisations because I was passionate about people and talent management and could help operationalise HR strategies into on the ground tangible benefits.

The IT teams trusted me because I could speak their language and demonstrate how they could get value from talent management processes.

Through my career I have been a strongly driven self-learner. I have been trained as a coach and I enjoy mentoring people I work with.

I have developed and lead Communities of Practice and as a Head of Professional Skills I had an annual training budget of > £1m.

Having managed teams of IT professionals I was acutely aware of the need to take a 70:20:10 approach to development – and was in a position to ensure that we supported learning both formally and informally – this made a stunning impact.

I enjoy working with L&D people and L&D teams and I interface very effectively between IT and the L&D teams.

The L&D teams get value because I understand and I am passionate about learning (not just training) and how we can use it to drive high impact performance improvement in IT organisations.

I have deep expertise in IT roles, IT skills, career paths and how these work effectively with the major IT process improvement frameworks such as SFIA, CMMI, COBIT and ITIL.

I can help you understand how all this hangs together and how it fits into the context of your L&D team. Whether your focus is on streamlining your own L&D processes , introducing IT skills frameworks, getting more from your training budget or supporting organisational change I can help.

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) is something I have worked with since 2003 making me one of the most experienced users. I have supported organisations worldwide in their use of SFIA.

As a demonstration of my commitment to helping others – I run a pro bono Global SFIA User Forum. Through this forum I have supported hundreds of organisations and individuals around the world.

I am passionate about helping people and organisations achieve the business benefits of change. I have deep experience of working with and leading transformation programmes and I have worked with or alongside most of the big consulting organisations (IBM, PwC, Deloittes, KPMG, E&Y, Accenture) on change programmes.

All of this experience means I know what it takes to deliver effectively in this type of environment and I can make complex challenges do-able. Depending on your requirements I can take a leading role or a supporting role by providing an injection of knowledge, experience. You will also get great value from my services by engaging me to  help you scope and prioritise change and the creation of transformation maps to support your change programme.

Contact Me

8 + 6 =