Peter John Hastings

Marks & Spencer moved their head office to a state-of-the-art purpose-built building. While the builders were still on-site putting the finishing touches to the office itself, I managed the entire process of testing the two local infrastructure centers for failover, connectivity, and performance.

After stalling with limited progress, I injected direction, control, and pace into this project, ensuring the delivery of a core platform to manage the integration and several phases of correspondence through design, compliance review, development, transition, and launch.

The organization’s original business model was based on a monthly payment plan. However, annual payments had to be accepted after purchasing a client book from another company. It was handled with workarounds for many years until I pulled together the range of change requests, enhancements, and overhauls into a single work program with a critical mass that allowed a solid case to be approved and drive investment in the business.

The eCommerce re-platform project moved game.co.uk from an outdated VB-based bespoke site to a fully-fledged, white-label .NET platform. The project saw eCommerce sales increase tenfold and adopted Agile methodology for the post-go-live releases, which resulted in over 100 successful releases of new functionality.

GAME’s advanced merchandising project further built on the success of the eCommerce platform by providing more powerful product management and merchandising on the site, along with flexible faceted navigation and an enhanced user experience. I led the infrastructure project end-to-end, delivering the largest environment GAME had seen to support the powerful Endeca engine.

The demerger of Marks & Spencer Financial Services into a joint venture with HSBC to form M&S Money demanded a clear division of information and data that was previously open across both organizations. I led the project to identify, analyze, and migrate data to its correct location.

I managed a team of 10 working on blockchain, IoT, solution architecture, mobile and web application development, infrastructure design and build, database administration, cloud implementation on AWS, quality assurance, DevOps services, and business analysis.

I managed a team of 10 to design and develop Scan & Go mobile app, from proof of concept to production rollout. They also rearchitected the platform to ensure the app’s scalability to 500 plus stores and developed the app for Android and iOS.

I led over 20 project managers, business analysts, developers, and testers to develop the FaaS architecture layer for the multinational retailer’s eCommerce, PWA, and responsive web design with an integrated front-end layer and Salesforce-based back end.

I managed a team of 20 project managers, business analysts, developers, and testers while co-owning COVID-19 pandemic-specific mobile and web solution design, development, and support. It has a highly scalable, microservices-based, cloud-hosted back end and assured scalability through containerized, cluster-based deployment. I led the project in a distributed agile manner across China, the UK, and India.

RESULTS
• Faster time to market with rapid development and deployment in under six months.
• Real-time bidirectional communication.
• Data self-sovereignty and ID2020 certification for the platform.
• Joint product roadmap and backlog development.
• 7-point static testing and early performance testing of APIs.
• Device cloud for end-to-end and compatibility testing.

I led a team of over 50 individuals across various disciplines, skills, and technologies, with 24/7 support via a secured delivery center. We provided end-to-end POS testing through a remote POS testing lab, 24/7/365 end-to-end cloud management, and AWS landscape support. In addition, we developed and rolled out the mobile application, provided support, conducted business analysis, quality assurance, POS testing, architecture consulting, and data integration, and oversaw cloud support, infrastructure security services, and UI/UX design.

I managed, facilitated, and created a digital transformation strategy with two consultants for a multinational construction firm. We delivered a detailed report that described as-is processes, associated pain points, and recommended to-be processes and tools. We also delivered a digital transformation strategy document that provided a consolidated view of selected change opportunities, the principles underpinning the strategy, and a roadmap for change prioritized by benefit and immediacy of opportunity. I identified quick-win opportunities for transformation that could be delivered within the timeframe of the strategy phase itself at negligible cost and effort. Where the recommended to-be process required submitting a feature request to an external development group, documents detailing the nature of the feature requests were delivered. In addition, I estimated the level of effort and cost involved in the implementation and formed a team of representatives from across the organization’s functions and hierarchy who became the agents of change in the implementation stage.

On-site construction teams log and submit site diary entries in various formats, from physical paper diaries to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. This wide range of formats leads to inconsistency in the data collected, and the data is also often unstructured. These two considerations mean that construction firms cannot report against or aggregate the data submitted meaningfully.

This project built site diaries as Microsoft Power App, considering business continuity, disaster recovery, training material preparation, training delivery, provision of training environments, business process documentation, system documentation, engineering, project management and administration, IT security, software development, and communication.

This SAP implementation—the world’s largest B2B ISU data migration—changed the organization’s business, processes, and systems. I managed the rollout and transition and then handled all aspects of engagement and delivery, including pipeline, proposals, estimation, process, development, testing, release, transition, and support. As an on-site account manager for Cognizant CBC PMC, I closed a £20 million program of work, reducing headcount to zero, maintaining stakeholder contact, and using consultative selling to build propositions and win projects, with sales totaling £5 million. I also managed a team of 200 across multiple disciplines across the UK and India.

This program delivered a platform for growth using Agile techniques. I led areas of the program that needed the company’s attention, including data migration, promotions, disaster recovery, payments, refunds, UAT, logistics transition, launch planning, production testing, and service transition. I also project-managed the development of target operating models and planning processes, managed onshore and offshore resources to deliver aggressive plans on time and budget, and developed a transition approach across multiple infrastructure locations and DR sites. Finally, I reviewed testing while developing new tools that rolled out across the organization.

Project-managed the initiation, design, and delivery of a 3-year program, delivering cross-skilling, workforce management, consolidated location strategy, and AI shift-left initiatives. Built the governance structure and project management ways of working and wrote the full AI and RPA strategy for the customer service function. Project-managed the ServiceNow implementation and new contact center solution.

Managed a group of senior executives and their teams to deliver an end-to-end brand update across products, marketing, sales, and operations, updating websites, emails, printed documents, marketing materials, event equipment, and social media. Provided leadership in planning the preparation of updates and the detailed planning of the cutover.