Here’s my Business Analyst CV
Debby Hallett
IT professional with over 20 years experience in publishing and financial services, most of them as a business or systems analyst, gathering requirements and designing large, international business systems as well as small, bespoke web systems. Leading stakeholder workshops that capture diverse business requirements, developing strong partnerships with business users; clear, non-technical communication helps business users contribute their knowledge to each project. Capable data modeling and effective use case construction ensure business needs are met in the deployed systems. Most recently in a role trusted to work with IT managers and their teams to improve software delivery performance and project managements success.
Career Summary
Jun 2008 – Owner, Treehouse Coaching
Present Personal development coach and consultant
- Leadership development, performance improvement , career transition
Apr 2004 – Blackwell Publishing, Oxford
Jun 2008 Technology Performance and Quality Manager
- Headed a workteam of Quality Assurance Engineers, and liaised closely with the Systems Architects and Technical Authorities, Testers, Project Managers, Analysts, Web Producers and Directors to improve our effectiveness in software delivery.
- Defined and led the company-wide IT software delivery process improvement programme, based on the CMMI framework. We used GE-style workouts to empower staff to collaborate in defining define their own business processes.
- Introduced good practices for project monitoring and control: quality gates, requirements and design inspections, project audits, project sizing (using function point analysis), new and more accurate estimation techniques, and principles of Lean software development.
- Created and led a cross-team management group to oversee our process improvement activities.
- Introduced and tracked new performance metrics; KPIs, based on a Balanced Scorecard, encouraged team managers to track their performance against targets.
- Implemented formal defect tracking, which enabled us to identify defects early and fix them when it’s cheaper. This practice alone reduced our exposure to over £1m per year in costs.
- After implementing project monitoring and control practices:
- Projects completing within budget increased by 78%
- Projects coming in on time increased by 85%
- Presented our results at international SEPG conferences (software engineering process groups).
- Coached, and consulted with, project managers, team managers, web producers and analysts to achieve business performance goals.
- In 2008 this position was made redundant. When Blackwell Publishing was bought by John Wiley & Sons, my entire group (Architecture and Quality Assurance) was made redundant.
Jun 2001 – Blackwell Publishing, Oxford
Apr 2004 Business Systems Analyst
- Lead analyst for Global Rights project, which delivered the most complex system ever built at Blackwell. The Rights System was used to manage various content rights, including invoicing, royalties, customer management and content management, in multiple currencies. System was delivered to wide praise by the business community and supported a multi-million pound per annum business.
- Led database analysis and administration functions on Global Rights project.
- Introduced Use Case modelling to Blackwell for functional specifications. Time and resource constraints on this project encouraged creative use of these models for technical specs as well. The use cases served as system reference manuals and documentation throughout the system’s life
- The system was retired during the harmonisation after Blackwell Publishing was bought by John Wiley & Sons.
- Trained and coached junior staff in principles of Requirements Engineering, data modelling, process flow documentation, GUI design, requirements workshop facilitation, UML, SQL, Visio, Rational Rose.
- Evaluated diverse systems for requirements elicitation and capture, as well as software tools to support requirements management over the project lifecycle.
Nov 1997 – CitiGroup, Reading
Jun 2001 Business Systems Analyst, Project Leader
- In 1997 I joined Avco Financial Services. In 1998, Avco was bought by The Associates. In 2000, The Associates was bought by CitiGroup.
- Business Systems Analyst and UK Project Leader for Direct Debits system replacement for the UK and Republic of Ireland. Development spanned three platforms (CICS, MVS, ALCS) across three continents (North America, Europe, Asia) and four countries (US, UK, Ireland and India).
- JAD sessions in the US helped define the problems with the old systems and determine direction for new solutions.
- I was responsible for User Requirements documentation, liaison between the business users and the developers in the US and India.
- I planned and coordinated the data migration for both countries.
- I interfaced with users, developers, bank reps in the UK and Ireland, third party suppliers of software and telecoms equipment, in-house technical teams and DBAs to assure their tasks were understood and completed on time.
- I arranged for the test environments, training curricula, and covered post-implementation support.
- I did everything from translating arcane BACS requirements into technical specifications, to directing communication with end users and resolving their post-implementation issues. This project lasted over a year, and was delivered on time virtually problem-free. It was the largest project the US team had ever undertaken. It was widely regarded as the most successful in long memory. The system is still in use as of 2004, despite the company twice being acquired by other corporations.
- After Avco was purchased by The Associates First Capital Corporation, a complex system conversion followed. My responsibility was the conversion of all our banking links and functions. Third party suppliers (banks, security printers, application software providers) and outsourced systems meant diverse team members to be coordinated and tracked. I developed the Requirements and Functional Specification, reviewed and approved the final technical specifications, evaluated and recommended technical and communications solutions, tested, trained, migrated the data and supported the users.
- Served as Project Lead and Analyst for the conversion of the Irish banking systems to the outsourced Euro-compliant system.
- Served as the IT Lead for system enhancements to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act of 1998. Our in-house working party comprised staff from Legal, Accounting, Data Security, Risk, Marketing and Decision Science.
Prior to 1997 (In USA)
Project Manager for Emminger Corporation, Martinez CA
Programmer Analyst for Avco Financial Services, Irvine, CA
Education (all in the United States)
John F. Kennedy University: MA, Consciousness / Integral Psychology, 1996
Computer Learning Center: Programming Certificate, with honours, 1987
California State University, BA, Psychology, with honours, 1987
Fullerton College, AA, Psychology, with honours, 1976
Skills and Knowledge
Business Process ModellingUse Case ModellingData modelling: ERD/ELHD
Database design and implementation
UML
Business Process Re-engineering
GUI design for usability
IT Industry Best Practices
Lean principlesCMMI
Agile software development
Balanced Scorecard framework
Function Point Analysis (Mark II)
BCS Industry Structure Model (ISM)
SFIA – Skills Framework for the Information Age
XML
Software:
Mind Manager
MS Project
MS Office Suite
MS Sharepoint
MS Visio
Rational Rose
SQL Server 2000
Personal Interests
I’m the UK Bureau Chief and an associate editor for the Integral Leadership Review. I’m active in the Oxford Integral Circle, and I lead the Oxford Action Inquiry group. I score the Leadership Development Framework sentence completion tests for Harthill Consulting.
I’m certified to deliver the Leadership Agility 360 assessment, as well as the Leadership Development Framework. Both of these assessments are based on a developmental model of human psychology.
I’m a qualified professional coach, with experience in performance improvement coaching and individual development coaching.