Alan Riley, Project Manager in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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Alan Riley

Verified Expert  in Project Management

Project Manager

Location
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Toptal Member Since
October 30, 2020

Alan specializes in IT project delivery, particularly software delivery. With a software engineering background, Alan has more than 18 years of experience both as a consultant and an in-house project manager (PM) in a variety of settings, including the public sector, not-for-profit, education, and private industry. Calm in a crisis, customer-focused, and methodical in his approach, Alan loves to build high-performance project teams that deliver superb results.

Project Highlights

World Vision Website in 100 Days
Redesigned and reimplemented the World Vision Australia website in 100 days.
Supercomputer Workflow Management System
Implemented a new workflow management system for running numeric weather prediction modeling systems on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) supercomputer.
Upgrade and Mitigation Analysis for Legacy Weather Post-processing Storage Systems
Took over a project to analyze multiple business-critical legacy post-processing systems and discovered a potential critical hardware failure that required an emergency storage upgrade during Australia's 2020 bushfire crisis.

Expertise

Work Experience

Sessional Lecturer in IT Project Management

2020 - 2020
Latrobe University
  • Updated and created course content in foundational project management principles, covering both traditional and Agile methodologies.
  • Wrote and delivered online lectures and course notes.
  • Set, supervised, and graded student assignments and exams.
  • Supervised master's degree students. Supported and mentored them through workshops, live chat, and team discussion boards.

Senior Project Manager on Supercomputer Program

2016 - 2020
Bureau of Meteorology
  • Contracted as an Agile PM for a large software project on the supercomputer program. Developed the business case, secured funding, delivered proofs-of-concept, prepared and evaluated requests for tender, and developed bespoke software solutions.
  • Implemented a new supercomputer workflow management system, including bespoke enhancements to meet BOM’s extensive operational, reporting, and security requirements. Led a project team distributed across four countries to achieve this.
  • Managed a team to analyze and assess several end-of-life, business-critical legacy systems. This led to continued work on pilot platform migrations, storage upgrades, and recommendations for future application remediation.
  • Demonstrated innovation and flexibility by pioneering the use of Agile methodologies in a traditionally PRINCE2 environment while also using traditional and hybrid methods, depending on the project situation.
  • Seamlessly delivered a crucial storage upgrade for servers supporting mission-critical applications during Australia's 2019/20 bushfire crisis and severe weather season.
  • Demonstrated business acumen through the conduct of several requests for tender, using government procurement rules and procedures, including requirements definition, assessment of tender responses, and contract negotiations with successful vendors.
  • Leveraged security consciousness: All supercomputer work is done within a high-security environment.zone. Collaborated closely with security analysts and architects to ensure each system passed security modeling and security threat assessments.
  • Managed project budgets between $200,000 and $3 million.

SAFe Consultant

2016 - 2016
Monash University
  • Provided short-term consulting advice on the setup of a SAFe Agile Release Train to the portfolio manager and student education and administration functions.
  • Coached teams and individuals on many Agile and Lean concepts such as long-lived, co-located, cross-functional teams; minimum viable products; and last-responsible-moment decisions to cope with uncertainty.
  • Used large, visible information radiators to make projects and progress visible and encourage collaborative discussion of work through regular meetings such as daily standups. This was achieved through the introduction of Kanban and Scrum walls.

Project/Iteration Manager

2013 - 2015
World Vision Australia (WVA)
  • Developed a new public-facing website, managing the project with Agile methodologies and involving a large internal team and four third parties. Delivered in a tight, 100-day deadline, including major server and CMS upgrades plus content migration.
  • Delivered PCI DSS compliance in a project covering electronic and paper credit card records, storage, security, and disposal in all departments and in third-party organizations. Little progress was made in six years, but I delivered in eight months.
  • Replaced, upgraded, or mitigated operational risk for 31 servers and associated applications that were still running on Windows Server 2003.
  • Managed the integration of Everydayhero, a third-party, peer-to-peer fundraising platform, with the WVA CRM and finance systems. This was a key part of developing a new website for the 2014 40 Hour Famine (40HF) event.
  • Managed the pilot implementation of a cloud-based POS system in which WVA staff and volunteers would use iPads at shopping centers and for neighborhood marketing.
  • Improved productivity by using Agile techniques to develop program walls to manage the program of work, calculate program velocity, and prioritize work. Increased velocity of a large Agile team of 30 by 33% by splitting it into three smaller teams.

Senior Project Manager

2010 - 2012
Coles Supermarkets
  • Decommissioned the legacy store order management and procurement systems and several sub-systems. Developed the business case seeking $650,000 from the CIO, engaged a team of 30 technical and business staff, and established the steering committee.
  • Project managed the migration of the legacy warehouse management system from an old Alpha server system to a new Itanium server platform. Also developed the business case and secured funding for this work.
  • Managed minor works of approximately $300,000 that were delivered in 10 software releases using external (offshore) service providers.

Senior Project/Delivery Manager

1996 - 2010
IT Consulting Firm
  • Served as the service delivery manager for the firm's major account, focusing on pre-sales while simultaneously managing multiple projects, managing other PMs to deliver a program of work, invoicing, and managing the operational support team.
  • Served as the quality manager, leading a project to prevent the loss of the firm's ISO 9001 accreditation, thereby preventing loss of market share and vendor panel membership. The firm had received non-compliance warnings.
  • Managed the conception, development, and implementation of a national support center to provide a new revenue stream and value-add proposition for the firm's customers.
  • Delivered many projects to a wide variety of clients in a variety of industries, including bespoke software development and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) implementations.
  • Provided services through a wide variety of roles, both within the firm and at client sites, including senior analyst programmer, business analyst, systems analyst, test analyst, team leader, and pre-sales support.
  • Delivered multiple implementations of COTS packages for multiple clients, including Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains, Sharepoint, Dynamics CRM, and Pivotal CRM.

World Vision Website in 100 Days

https://www.worldvision.com.au

Redesigned and reimplemented the World Vision Australia website in 100 days.

The challenge was to redesign and upgrade the World Vision Australia (WVA) website. The site won the 2015 Sitefinity Website of the Year Award in the non-profit category.

https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms/website-of-the-year/2015

Supercomputer Workflow Management System

Implemented a new workflow management system for running numeric weather prediction modeling systems on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) supercomputer.

This project required attention to detail, as it was scientifically complex, technically demanding, and had very high data volume, security, and performance requirements.

It comprised several components:
1. Installation of the standard workflow engine for orchestrating cycling systems.
2. Multiple levels of security assessments and penetration testing to determine compliance with BOM's extremely high security requirements. Security gaps were identified and organized as product upgrades and security patches.
3. Development of bespoke enhancements to meet BOM's operational support, reporting, and analysis requirements not met by standard functionality.

While managing a consortium of developers and third-party vendors spread across four countries to deliver the project as expected, I developed an extremely secure software release and upgrade process to ensure the security of the supercomputer.

POC of Next Generation Numeric Weather Prediction Post Processing

Performed a proof-of-concept of the next generation of numeric weather prediction post processing systems for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).

Numeric weather prediction modeling produces terabytes of data per day. This data requires considerable post-processing before it can be used by weather forecasting systems. The UK MetOffice developed the next generation of post-processing systems, and I performed a POC on the suitability of these systems for the Australian BOM. The POC was completed under budget, two weeks early, and the recommendations were accepted by senior management.

ACHIEVEMENTS
- Developed a business case to win funding and approval for the work.
- Negotiated licensing and collaboration arrangements with the UK MetOffice for the provision and future development of the systems.
- Orchestred security assessments of the MetOffice software to ensure it met BOM security requirements.
- Set up an appropriate test environment with suitable test data at the BOM.
- Performed testing on the post-processing software.
- Analyzed gaps between the MetOffice software and BOM requirements.
- Ensured scientific verification of test outputs.
- Assessed and produced a report on the suitability of the MetOffice software for use at BOM, including recommendations for moving forward.

Upgrade and Mitigation Analysis for Legacy Weather Post-processing Storage Systems

Took over a project to analyze multiple business-critical legacy post-processing systems and discovered a potential critical hardware failure that required an emergency storage upgrade during Australia's 2020 bushfire crisis.

At the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), I took over a project to analyze more than 70 legacy post-processing systems, including many critical emergency services systems, and developed a strategy for their future. The analysis also investigated the platform running the applications and uncovered a number of issues, including critical problems with the disk storage. This necessitated a storage upgrade that had to be carried out during Australia's 2020 bushfire crisis.

ACHIEVEMENTS
- Assessed all 70 applications and developed a strategy for migration, mitigation, or replacement of all applications. The report was presented to and accepted by senior IT management.
- Fast-tracked the engagement of the storage vendor via government procurement processes, then worked with the vendor to develop a storage upgrade strategy. This was not easy because of incompatibility issues due to the age of the software and hardware.
- Negotiated with many system owners for an outage period and upgrade process that minimized impacts to emergency services during the bushfire crisis.
- Achieved seamless delivery of the storage upgrade.
- Upgraded all third-party support and maintenance agreements related to the platform.

New 40 Hour Famine Website

Co-developed a new website for World Vision Australia's 40 Hour Famine fundraising event.

In 2014, World Vision Australia (WVA) decided to build a new website to run the annual 40 Hour Famine (40HF) fundraising campaign. The 40HF website was developed and hosted on a third-party, peer-to-peer fundraising platform. The majority of the project was integrating the 40HF website with the WVA CRM and finance systems.

This was a major piece of B2B integration work that necessitated working closely with the vendor to develop screens that provided the best user experience possible, far exceeding what had been done in previous years. It was completed on time and on budget. And it allowed WVA to raise more than $7 million that year.

PCI DSS Compliance

Achieved PCI DSS Compliance for World Vision Australia (WVA).

Took over the management of The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance project at WVA. The project had been running on and off for nearly six years with a variety of project managers and little success. Within nine months, I delivered the PCI DSS compliance certification within the project budget.

ACHIEVEMENTS
- Analyzed and redefined the cardholder data environment, both internal and for a multitude of third-party service providers.
- Identified all key departments managing credit card information and developed a corporate team comprising PCI champions from each area and a new chief security officer.
- Set up PCI DSS project governance structures and recruited a strong project sponsor.
- Identified and hired a suitable quality security assessor.
- Performed a PCI security gap assessment and documented all vulnerabilities.
- Remediated all vulnerabilities and updated business policies and procedures where necessary.
- Performed a contractual and compliance review of third-party service providers.
- Trained staff in new security policies and operational changes.
- Developed and tested an incident response plan.
- Set up vulnerability scanning.
- Validated compliance with WVA's bank.

Legacy Warehouse Management System Migration

Migrated the legacy warehouse management system from an old Alpha server system to a new Itanium server platform for a major Australian supermarket chain.

Developed most of the $3 million business case for this work. Since most of the migration expenses were infrastructure-related, an infrastructure project manager was appointed to run the project with my assistance. This project was delivered on budget and ahead of schedule.

The project was challenging because several of the required layered products used by the systems were not available on Itanium. Implementation was also complex because Coles warehouses operate 24/7, and the legacy system was a distributed database, thus requiring separate implementations for each state of Australia.

ISO 9001 Certification

Managed a project to prevent the loss of a consulting firm's ISO 9001 certification, thereby preventing loss of market share and vendor panel membership. The firm had received non-compliance warnings.

The IT consulting firm had gained much of its revenue from governmental and semi-governmental bodies by participating in government vendor panels. Conducting this business required ISO 9001 certification for the firm's project management methodology.

When I took on the role, the firm had already received two non-compliance warnings and was due for another audit soon. A third non-compliance warning would have resulted in losing the ISO 9001 certification and, therefore, a major loss in business revenue.

ACHIEVEMENTS
- Earned an internal auditing certification for ISO 9001.
- Performed root cause analysis for non-compliances and discovered the main problem was lack of senior management focus.
- Secured a delay for the next audit from SAI Global (the auditors and certification body).
- Raised the issue to the CEO and convened an ISO 9001 governance body comprising the CEO and senior managers.
- Reviewed and revised the firm's project management methodology, including remediating non-compliances, with appropriate support and authority from the governance body.
- Retrained staff in the use of the methodology.
- Achieved compliance at the next audit!

Decommissioning Legacy Store Order and Procurement Systems

Decommissioned the legacy store order management and procurement systems and several smaller sub-systems at a major Australian supermarket chain.

This project began with developing a business case that secured a $650,000 investment from the CIO. Once the funding was approved, I engaged 15 technical staff from different functional teams and vendors and more than 15 representatives from different areas of the business, and I established a steering committee.

The project required extensive systems integration work as business-critical data flows were rerouted seamlessly from the legacy systems to a new central merchandising system. The rollout affected all 750+ stores in the chain. The work was particularly challenging because of the need to solve several problems previously attempted by other projects but descoped because of their difficulty. The retirement of these systems allowed the company to downsize the applications support team, saving Coles approximately $1 million per year.

Windows Server 2003 Upgrade

Replaced, upgraded, or mitigated operational risk for 31 legacy servers running Windows Server 2003 as it came out of Microsoft support.

As the end of support for Windows Server 2003 approached, the company had 31 Windows 2003 Servers running a large variety of applications. Some of these applications were mission-critical. The business risk of running applications on an unsupported platform was unacceptable, so a decision was made to upgrade to Windows Server 2008R2 or Windows 2012 before Microsoft extended support ended in July 2015.

I led the project and collaborated with the infrastructure and business systems owners to complete the transitions. The project was completed on time and within budget.

ACHIEVEMENTS
- Identified all servers running Windows Server 2003.
- Audited each server to understand what it was used for, what applications ran on it, and the criticality of each server and each application.
- Prioritized an upgrade or replacement path for each server and each application running on the server.
- Actioned each server and application plan in consultation with the business owners to ensure minimal business disruption.

POS System Implementation Pilot

Implemented a pilot of a cloud-based POS system whereby World Vision Australia staff and volunteers would use iPads at shopping centers and for neighborhood marketing.

World Vision Australia (WVA) wanted to replace the paper-based systems they were using on shopping center stands and for door-to-door neighborhood marketing with a cloud-based B2B POS system running on iPads. Unfortunately, the solution decision had been made without adequate consultation with the IT department. IT could not support the chosen solution and refused to be involved in implementing or supporting it once it was live.

Serving as a PM consultant, I was asked to assist the marketing department with a pilot implementation. The marketing area did not have adequate IT knowledge to complete the pilot, and I was instrumental in its success.

ACHIEVEMENTS
- Developed project plans, including a workable schedule.
- Managed the software vendor to deliver the customizations required by WVA.
- Provided interfaces with the WVA back-end systems.
- Led the marketing department to develop procedures for managing the iPads before and after deployments (e.g., recharging and securing them onsite).
- Advised marketing on managing iPads once they were deployed. This led to the introduction of mobile device management software to lock down and manage the usage of each device.

Finance System Upgrade

Upgraded World Vision Australia's (WVA) core financial system.

This project was commissioned to replace WVA’s aging Sun v4 finance system with Sun v6.

ACHIEVEMENTS
- Engaged and managed the vendor to perform the technical components of the upgrade and user training.
- Led the finance department to plan and perform pre-upgrade activities (e.g., cleansing and preparation of business rules and data), define acceptance criteria, prepare for UAT, update business procedures, and report to the project steering committee.
- Managed WVA’s IT department in the provision of suitable hardware infrastructure and organized IT support for the finance department both during and after the project.

Accounting Package Upgrade at Tenix Solutions

Upgraded and extended accounting and job costing software.

Led the project to upgrade the accounting software (Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains and WennSoft Job Cost) at Tenix Solutions Ltd. This COTS package implementation was important, as it was the first project at a new client account for my employer. To the delight of the Tenix CFO, the implementation was completed under budget and on time to meet end-of-period accounting constraints. The excellent work and relationships built resulted in being engaged for further work at Tenix.
1994 - 1996

Master's Degree in Information Technology

Swinburne University of Technology - Melbourne, Australia

1983 - 1986

Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science and Accounting

Monash University - Melbourne, Australia

JULY 2017 - PRESENT

ICAgile Certified Professional in Program and Portfolio Management

ICAgile

FEBRUARY 2017 - PRESENT

ICAgile Certified Professional in Enterprise Product Ownership

ICAgile

JUNE 2016 - PRESENT

Certified SAFe Agilist

Scaled Agile, Inc.

MAY 2015 - PRESENT

Certified Scaled Agile Framework Practitioner

Scaled Agile, Inc.

JUNE 2014 - PRESENT

ICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Team Facilitation

ICAgile

MAY 2014 - PRESENT

ICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Project Management

ICAgile

JUNE 2013 - PRESENT

ICAgile Fundamentals

ICAgile

AUGUST 2012 - PRESENT

Problem Solving and Decision Making

Kepner-Tregoe

APRIL 2012 - PRESENT

Building High-Performance Teams

The Coles Group

SEPTEMBER 2008 - PRESENT

Internal Auditor

SAI Global

MAY 2008 - PRESENT

The Essentials of Communicating with Diplomacy and Professionalism

SkillPath

FEBRUARY 2007 - PRESENT

Managing Multiple Projects, Objectives, and Deadlines

SkillPath

APRIL 2006 - PRESENT

PRINCE2 Executive Briefing

Tanner James

MARCH 2006 - PRESENT

Enhancing Your Program and Project Management Capability

Tanner James

DECEMBER 2001 - PRESENT

Developing Business Cases for IT Projects

Australian Computer Society

OCTOBER 1997 - PRESENT

Project Management

The Thomsett Company

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