Flexmanager - project manager / programme manager

project manager / programme manager

Work Experience

Period March 2004 – Now: (Self-employed)
Roles: Project advisor (PRINCE2® Project Assurance), PRINCE2® and MSP™ trainer.
Activities:
• Derbyshire County Council: guidance and consultancy at the start of a strategic change programme.
• United Nations – CTBTO (Vienna): strategic consultancy for process improvement
• European Patent Office: Programme Manager PRINCE2® implementation. Implementing PRINCE2® needed a major cultural change with clear roles for the business and their internal suppliers. The PRINCE2® implementation led to advising senior management and introduction of MSP™.
• PRINCE2® / MSP™ trainer and advisor. Formal PRINCE2® Practitioner training and advising customers on PRINCE2® implementation. Main customers:
o Accenture, follow-up (see below) of more than 20 consultants.
o Cargill Europe. Training of over 150 ICT professionals and managers from plants in Europe and Western Asia. Also advising on implementation of PRINCE2®, aimed at changing culture and organisation.
o For several UK based training organisations, such as AFA, QA, CES, Remarc, Datrix, Getronics (PinkRoccade) UK, Quanta, Xpertise and Inspiration Systems. delivery of formal PRINCE2® training for staff from of NHS, IBM, BT, Barclay Card and other organisations.

Period April 2003 – March 2004: Parity Solutions, CT&C
Roles: Project advisor (PRINCE2® Project Assurance), PRINCE2® trainer.
Activities:
• PRINCE2® trainer and advisor. Formal PRINCE2® Practitioner training. Customers: Delta Lloyd, Accenture, Cargill Europe.
• PRINCE2® implementation consultant. Customers: Royal Dutch Navy, Organon, Cargill Europe.
• Screening Parity projects (Assurance) and advising Parity senior management.
• After the bankruptcy of Parity some activities were taken over by CT&C. Among these were PRINCE2® related activities.

Period 2000 – 2003: CMG Public Sector
Roles: Interim Manager, Project Manager, project advisor, PRINCE2® trainer, Recruitment Officer, Project Board member.
Activities:
• CMG Public Sector. PRINCE2® trainer and advisor. Formal PRINCE2® Practitioner training and advising several projects on PRINCE2® implementation and set-up.
• Ministry of Defence, Royal Air force. Project Manager advising and taking over project management during an E-learning pilot.
• Start Uitzendbureau. Project Manager responsible for planning and restructuring of the SAP implementation. Advising CMG management and helping existing project management to regain control.
• Ministry of Health, CIBG. Project Manager Public Key Infrastructure.
• CMG. Project Manager for the CRM implementation (Customer Relation Management) for CMG Public Sector.
• Ministry of Health. Acting as Project Board member (supplier) as representative of CMG. Discussing the direction of the project and steering the CMG consultants.
• CMG Public Sector. Recruitment Officer responsible for recruitment for all companies within CMG Public Sector. Advising and cooperation with the MD’s and reporting to the Sector Director (President CMG Public Sector).
• Ministry of Agriculture. As Interim Manager responsible for steering several projects and preparation for a regular manager to take over.

Period 1999: EDS Project Management Competence Centre
Roles: Project Manager.
Activities:
• EDS. PM Toolkit. Responsible for development, maintenance and support of the electronics filing tool for EDS project managers.
• Nerefco. Project Manager of migrations from machines that were not Y2000 compliant to compliant platforms.

Period 1997 – 1998: Freelance
Roles: Programme manager, project manager, consultant, senior analyst.
Activities:
• Philips International, Corporate Treasury. Consultant on behalf of Origin Euro Service Line. Guidance of the implementation of the Euro.
• Philips Components. On behalf of Cap Gemini managing a project for the conversion of financial software. Targets: Y2000, Euro compliancy en continuity.
• Xerox. On behalf of EDS Project Manager of the implementation of a financial data-warehouse and project manager of a Y2000 project.
• IBM. Senior analyst within the GTS project for ABN AMRO.

Period 1995 – 1997: CMG Finance
Roles: Project Leader, Senior Analyst, Interim Manager, trainer, Quality Auditor.
Activities:
• CVB Bank: Redesign of the back-office of the bank.
• ABN Amro bank. Division International, Information Management Treasury. As interim line manager responsible for support (business) and implementation of the bank-system.
• Dutch Central Bank. Planning of a conversion project.
• CMG internally: trainer and support at the certifying of CMG Finance (ISO).

Period 1991 – 1995: Lync
Roles: Project-/Product Manager. Analyst.
Activities:
• Internal software development; sales.
• Assignment at Zwolsche Algemeene (insurance) en the council of The Hague.

Period 1985 – 1991: GDI, IT centre of the council of The Hague
Roles: Programmer, Designer, Analyst, Quality Auditor, Project Leader. Project Manager.
Activities: Working on projects and in a supporting role for the council. Until 1987 as part of project teams. From 1987 having project responsibility, often in fixed date projects.

Education

PRINCE2 Practitioner - project management
MSP Advanced Practitioner - programme management

Skills

I am available for assignments as Project - / Programme Manager, Crisis Manager or Interim Manager in general. Although I have knowledge of and experience with the financial sector and (local) government, I am generally available because of a wide experience and because of specific characteristics: quick understanding of the business and great insight.
But more than that, the main focus is always on the results. Not just what a project has to deliver but what the customer want to achieve with these deliverables: added value. I strongly believe that a technical approach to project management, only focus on the deliverables, is a main reason for failure.
Other characteristics: talent for organising, consciousness of politics, awareness of quality. Because of a clear and open, honest way of communicating, I have been successful as project manager and interim manager.
I am certified PRINCE2® and MSP™ (Managing Successful Programmes) Practitioner and accredited PRINCE2® and MSP™ trainer by the APM (Association for Project Management).

Last major assignment: European Patent Office
After two years investing in the improvement of project management with PRINCE2® (with disappointing results), the EPO hired Nico to reach structural improvements. By reaching out to all involved parties, active and passive support of dozens of project managers and by creating buy-in of senior management results were achieved that were described as “exceeding all expectations”. Enthusiasm was created as well as a will to improve: a contribution to an EPO wide change of culture to an attitude that became more result-driven. This was credited to a practical application of a concept that was until then seen as purely theoretical.
When in 2007 EPO launched a strategic change, demand was created for the introduction of and support for programme management. Using MSP™ Nico gave wanted and unwanted guidance and advice to create and implement change.

Languages

Dutch / English

Other

1985- 1991: City of The Hague, GCA/GDI
After several smaller jobs, already showing a natural talent for leading and managing, in 1985 I joined the IT systems development department of the city of The Hague: the GCA later called the GDI. There I took part of an extensive training programme delivered by VOLMAC TopTraining. I hugely appreciated them promoting the focus on requirements and wishes rather than the focus on technique. I consider that an example for some current IT training! Under inspiring leadership of my then manager, I had all opportunity to persist in that attitude resulting in "first time right" and lots of appreciation by my
customers and users. But also at that time I noticed that our attitude was unusual within the IT community: our attitude was supposed to be a theoretical one and the achieved successes were mainly seen as lucky flukes by the seasoned IT-staff.
In 1988 I was made responsible for my first major project. A fixed time project was out of control and looked like failing. My explicit criticism on the (traditional IT) approach challenged the management and they decided to give me the assignment to recover the project. After
restructuring the project teams and repairing the focus the project finished with a successful result and on time. The ultimate result was a very happy and relieved customer. Immediately after this result I got an enormous assignment: the first implementation in Nederland of a new
parking tax system. Because of extreme time pressure caused by politicians and a very late start
the resulting quality was not great, but this was predicted and communicated. Unfortunately the
appreciation came only years later, along with the realisation that the project delivered a great
result under the circumstances.

1991 - 2004: Various consultancies, CMG
With great confidence after these experiences I joined the private sector. During these years I hugely appreciated the experiences at CMG.(Finance and Public Sector). At CMG I became convinced of the value of a strong culture, the organisation (cell structure, in The Netherlands made famous by BSO), and by the business-like and open, fair engagement of all stakeholders. Unfortunately these values got under pressure after CMG floated to the stock market, eventually causing serious problems resulting in CMG being taken over.
But also during these years, especially working for different companies than CMG, I always had the feeling something was seriously wrong with this industry. But what?
Although I was again very successful in those years when restructuring a department, project or programme, like at ABN AMRO (International Division, Treasury Support), the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nerefco, and Philips, consultancy companies and me never really got on. Consultancy companies never appreciated or understood my approach and thinking; often I did not agree with their approach. Once this resulted in a manager telling me that he did not understand what I did, but it certainly was not project management. So he sent me to a PRINCE2™ course. After that week my confidence was fully restored. This was what I had been doing all those years: a focus on the goal, clear roles and responsibilities and focus on
quality, not on technical issues. My conclusion : IT consultants do all kinds they call project management, but it is not worth that title. I feel the reputation of IT projects justifies that view and I take it even further: there are no IT projects, only projects with a business justification. IT is a tool never a goal. This is something the IT industry does not fully understand, resulting in lots of jargon and where real involvement of users was not appreciated. Non fitting IT tools are dumped in an organisation unable to work with them.
With this conclusion and observing the market (IT bubble), I realised that the market and me could not stick together much longer. I got the opportunity to become APMG Approved PRINCE2™ trainer. In the economic climate of those years, this was an extra labour opportunity.

2004 - now
Because of economic circumstances (redundancies and bankruptcies) in 2003 I lost three jobs. After that I had enough; I thought I could better myself and continued self employed. The problem was that after the internet bubble there was hardly any work in The Netherlands and certainly not for a project manager with my ideas (although in theory everyone works according to PRINCE2™). The conclusion was as contingency I would work as PRINCE2™. I also went where the work was and that was why I mainly worked in England and for English "Approved Training Organisations".
After PRINCE2™ I also became Approved MSP™ trainer. Currently I am associated with about 15 mainly English ATO's. Since 2004 I have successfully delivered training in numerous countries:
The Netherlands
England
Scotland
Northern-Ireland
Belgium
France
Germany
Switzerland
Austria
Ukraine
Bulgaria
Rumania
I have also been involved with more structural processes of organisations wanting to improve their (project)management.
Consider courses and workshops at Cargill and British Telecom (BT) and more extensive consultancy assignments, like recently at the European Patent Office (EPO).
During these assignments I distinguish myself with integrity, focus on results and a practical approach.

The future?
Delivering training courses is very satisfying for me. Working with people and handling different cultures is very interesting. Supplying and sharing knowledge is great.
But most of all I am an experienced (project) manager who can also deliver courses very well. So I am always available for managing challenging projects and programmes. But I am only interested when the focus is on added value (Business Case) and not on technical issues. I am still convinced that the traditional approach does not work and I prefer not to be involved with that anymore!
Since 2008 I am also affiliated with AFA so that I can independently offer PRINCE2™ courses and MSP™ courses.
Obviously I offer open courses but I also like to deliver client-specific courses and workshops; tailored content, specific locations, etc.
I value my experience, both positive and negative, and I learned from them. Therefore I am certain that I can mean a lot for my clients as (project)manager.

My motto: More results with less effort!
Improvement, different thinking!