Leeds, England, United Kingdom
I have over 18 years IT experience gained, using a variety of languages on multiple platforms, working in support, development, test environment and non-functional testing roles. I exhibit strong personal qualities in a team environment, demonstrating a drive to succeed whilst improving my own skill set. I have developed an excellent technical knowledge across many platforms, allowing me to consistently deliver quality output to satisfy business priorities. Throughout my career my key strengths have been my ability to identify, analyse and quickly assimilate information and I have shown I am capable of researching complex issues and presenting well-reasoned recommendations for action. I am responsive to change, with the ability to adopt a flexible approach and cope under pressure, adopting a pragmatic approach to problem resolution. I possess good interpersonal and communication skills, am capable of communicating to and coordinating with stakeholders having different levels of technical understanding and I am able to manage stakeholders with realistic and clear expectations. I am quick to learn, with an aptitude for picking up new skills. I have proven my ability to operate and influence in a complex and diverse stakeholder environment by building and maintaining effective relationships and networks to enable successful delivery of project objectives. Through all this, I have gained significant experience and enhanced my reputation in the organisations I have worked.
In my current role as Lead of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Service Virtualisation and Test Injection within the QA Environments Tools and Automation team for Lloyds Banking Group, I am responsible for facilitating, managing and supporting the roll out and continuous usage of the CA LISA toolset within all CIO areas. Additionally, I am a key proponent of the use of Service Virtualisation, promoting the benefits of using LISA, highlighting ease of use, increased pace of delivery, reduced costs and improved quality. Under my management, the Banking Group has realised benefits in excess of £8 million through the uptake of LISA, with around 1,000 users having downloaded the tool. Skills Overview • Excellent analytical, presentation, verbal and written communications skills. • Able to provide clear, insightful reporting and commentary. • Experienced in operating and influencing in a complex and diverse stakeholder environment, building and maintaining effective relationships and networks. • Able to identify, analyse and quickly assimilate information. Capable of researching complex issues and presenting well-reasoned recommendations for action. • Responsive to change, with the ability to adopt a flexible approach. • Effective at managing own time & that of team members. • Adopting a pragmatic approach to incidents and problems, being able to provide resolutions under pressure and when priorities are changing. Innovating where options appear limited. Drawing on personal knowledge and experience to expedite informed decisions. Being unafraid to challenge proposed solutions. • Good interpersonal and communication skills, capable of communicating to and coordinating with stakeholders having different levels of technical understanding. • Able to manage stakeholders with realistic and clear expectations.
Core Accountabilities: • Responsible for the strategic test environments and the end-to-end design and definition of these environments. • Technical Design Lead coordinating activities across multiple platforms, build teams, and business units. • Subject Matter Expert for Test Environment application architecture. • Acting as the bridge between the offshore testing team and key project stakeholders. • Providing technical knowledge and leadership within the ‘Study and Build’ stages of programmes, providing governance of all tasks associated with these phases. • Ensuring the scope of testing is fit for purpose and achievable within the timescales, adopting a risk based approach. • Providing insight and commentary on the status of projects and delivery of programmes. • Working with key stakeholders to ensure expectations are managed and that all aspects of the service are understood. • Providing a consultancy service on all aspects of NFE and Test Environment builds. • Effectively contributing towards the development of NFE and Environments strategic direction. Key Responsibilities: • Development and implementation of new procedures in line with Group IT policy. • Maintaining effective relationships with stakeholder teams, platform delivery managers and technical resources. • Creating and distributing Environment and Release Definition Documents, Frameworks and other deliverables. • Signing off and distributing Master Test Plans, Detailed Test plans, End of Test Reports and other project deliverables. • Assessing and signing off change requests to the requirements for projects/programmes. • Reviewing the master application list for the projects/programmes and supplementing with additional applications required to deliver end-to-end testing functionality. • Establishing Sharepoint sites and trackers for projects/programmes. • Maintaining and updating the Application Information Matrix (knowledge base).
Key Responsibilities: • Management of the test environments, coordinating new code deployments, data and code refreshes, taking baselines and overseeing post-deployment sanity checks. • Responsible for environment uptime and coordinating availability with project stakeholders. • Driving preventative maintenance activities to reduce the number of operational incidents. • Acting as first point for escalations and providing 2nd line support, coordinating any resulting problem resolution. • Formulating and managing strategic and operational plans to ensure test environments continue to meet requirements for project teams, with inbuilt flexibility and optimised resource costs. • Meeting challenging key performance indicator targets for improving the efficiency of the team through adoption of improved processes and driving a high performance culture. • Developing and managing the team to build capability through coaching, training and performance management. • Seeking opportunities to propose, define and implement process changes that improve the overall effectiveness of the environment provision function. • Attending regular project team meetings reporting upon/discussing specific test environment issues. • Working on multiple projects, under own initiative and as part of a team.