SUMMARY
Senior Consultant in the area of organizational change,
enterprise architecture, and process improvement. James achieves success at the executive level by aligning an
organization's behaviors and practices within a framework of proven standards and
practices known to reduce product time-to-market, maximize return on
investment, and increase the contributive value of human resources. From product hierarchy, personnel
development, problem definition, business modeling, requirements gathering, and
architecture to use cases, stories, sequence diagrams, and operation contracts
to design models, test models, and code, James is able to identify, customize,
and execute organizational assets, activities, templates, and methods in a
manner that delivers on the promise of change management and other CxO goals,
initiatives, and aims.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Independence
Blue Cross (IBX)
7/2008-5/2009
Business Architect and Test Architect Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- As a
Business Architect working within the Office of the CIO, led, identified,
extended, delivered, implemented, supported, mentored multiple teams in
the area of organizational change from within the Information Systems
department and lines of business to craft an actionable plan (roadmap)
that was aligned with corporate goals, strategic objectives, and specific
to the cultural challenges associated with enhancing the behavior of IBC
personnel in order to successfully deliver significant and measurable
improvement as pre-requisite preparation for a pending corporate merger to
realize productivity gains in excess of 20% in the form of reduced cost,
shorter time-to-market, sustainable personnel development, and more
flexible organizational structures.
- As a
Test Architect working within the Office of the CIO, extended and
delivered significant re-alignment of the IS Testing people, process, and
tools by mapping testing best practices to corporate goals in a manner
that vastly improved the testing organization’s value proposition to the
lines of business and increased efficiencies in the delivery performance
of the IS Testing function via increased automation, institutionalization
of risk-based testing and decision-making, implementation of traceability
between requirements artifacts and testing artifacts, alignment of testing
processes with solution development processes, and obtainment of
commitment from the lines of business to significantly increase usage of
the IS Testing organization.
Because solution development lifecycle and the testing lifecycle
were both in scope, successful improvement was achieved via contributions
from iterative, RUP, LEAN, Agile, and EPIC methodologies.
UNUM
1/2008-2/2008
Process Facilitator and Business Analyst Portland, Maine
- As a
Process Facilitator working within the Enterprise PMO, extended, delivered,
implemented, supported, mentored, and led multiple teams gathering
business and technical requirements critical to the implementation of a
recently adopted RUP-based software development leveraging business
modeling, iterative development, and other leading best practices.
- As a
Business Architect working within the Enterprise PMO, extended and
delivered critical requirements from business architectural models,
business use-cases and system use-cases through to use-case realization,
design, and code. The focus of the
effort was to precisely capture the business need and ensure systematic
delivery of the need. Although
very few best-practice tools were used, the requirements model was
extremely stable and supported traceability throughout.
United
Services Automobile Association (USAA)
6/2007-11/2007
Process Mentor and Coach San Antonio, Texas
- As a
Process Mentor and Coach reporting directly to the CTO, extended,
delivered, implemented, supported, mentored and co-led a team of 12
Process Engineers influencing programs and projects using USAA’s
Lean-Iterative® evolutionary software development processes right-sized
specifically for USAA and built upon LEAN, AGILE, RUP and other leading
best practices. Lean-Iterative® leveraged industry-leading best practices
from the areas of LEAN including reducing stress (Mura), removing
bottlenecks (Muri), eliminating overhead and waste (Muda); AGILE including
SCRUM, backlogs, features-driven, stories; test-first, release planning and
iteration planning meetings; and ITERATIVE including 2/4 week time-boxes;
and METRICS capturing productivity, waste, velocity (stories per
iteration), and features delivered.
- As a
Process Engineer responsible for properly influencing Project Management’s
implementation of AGILE techniques, assessed team behaviors and identified
the appropriate project/product deliverables required to overcome
organizational impediments such as highly matrixed resources, heavily
siloed lines of business, and off-shore resources not immediately
available to the initiative in order to correctly identify the appropriate
techniques to make the project effort successful at satisfying the
customer needs while meeting executive management’s time-to-market
improvement goals.
Capital
Group
1/2007-3/2007
Process Mentor and Coach Los Angeles, California
- As a
Process Mentor and Coach reporting to the executive board, extended,
delivered, implemented, supported, mentored, and executed projects using
CUP® and/or CRISP®; two software development processes right-sized for
Capital Group and built upon RUP, EPIC, and other leading best practices.
In addition to the standard RUP concepts (use-cases, UML, etc.),
CUP®/CRISP® leveraged best practices from the areas of business process
modeling, risk management, scope management, iterative project management,
change management, and production readiness to maximize certainty and
agreement surrounding the business need, software features, and project
activities. CUP®/CRISP® addressed specific systemic challenges brought
about by the legacy of Capital Group’s organizational structure and
operating within a highly regulated industry.
- As a
Process Engineer reporting to the executive board, extended and delivered
a CUP® process profile focused specifically on integrating maintenance
best practices into CUP®. This maintenance extension well positions CUP®
implementers to receive the benefits of true production readiness by
improving the success of maintenance and operations activities including
backup, disaster recovery, defect/enhancement planning, urgent/emergency
response updates, and application retirement; all in the normal course of
software development.
U.S.
Department of Homeland Security
12/2006-1/2007
Process Engineer Arlington, Virginia
- As a
Process Engineer reporting to Director Chertoff, extended, delivered, implemented,
supported, mentored and co-led projects using Karl Wieger’s method for
Requirements Engineering and Software Process Improvement in a manner that
was aligned with the RUP framework, yet, included Agile and Lean
principles. Standing SCRUMs and
other Lean principles were at the bedrock of a pragmatic approach to
implementing CMMi process improvement.
An approach was developed with adoption as the goal, this addressed
specific systemic challenges brought about by DHS’s global scope of
responsibilities, multi-cultural and multi-lingual information exchange
networks, and operating within a highly regulated/monitored industry.
- As a
Process Engineer reporting to Director Chertoff, single-handedly designed
and delivered a practical extension to the requirements method that
provided real-time report generation of Earned Value and other metrics by
leveraging traceability across feature decomposition, technical
requirements gathering, and use-case modeling.
Amgen,
Inc. 1/2006-11/2006
Process Engineer Thousand Oaks, California
- As a
Process Engineer and RUP Lead Mentor reporting to the Enterprise PMO,
extended, delivered, implemented, supported, mentored, and led projects
using AmgenRUP®, a customized solution development process built upon the
RUP and EPIC methodologies and other leading best practices. In addition
to the standard RUP concepts (use-cases, UML, etc.), AmgenRUP leveraged
best practices from the areas of risk management, scope management,
iterative project management, change management and estimation to maximize
certainty and agreement surrounding the business need, solution features
and project activities. AmgenRUP
addressed specific systemic challenges brought about by Amgen’s bias
towards COTS-based solutions, commitment to cutting-edge business
partners, and operating within a highly regulated industry.
- As an
AmgenRUP Course Developer and Amgen RUP Trainer, designed, extended and delivered
key foundational course material while single-handedly crafting the
practitioner learning hierarchy.
This training material (in conjunction with mentoring), established
the capability amongst the Project Management and Analyst communities to
align with the 2007 corporate mandate requiring all solution development
to be AmgenRUP compliant. One of
the key contributors to the adoption success of the Amgen’s approach was
how training and mentoring were delivered as a set during the definition,
implementation and rollout of the process; ahead of any commitment to
tools and infrastructure.
Citigroup,
Inc.
4/2005-11/2005
Process Architect New York, New York
- As a
MAp® Process Architect working with Desmond D’Souza and reporting to the
Architecture CIO, extended, delivered, implemented, supported, mentored,
and co-led a model-driven software development process that leverages
leading forecast-driven (e.g.: RUP) and feedback-driven (e.g.: Agile and
Lean) practices for this global banking firm in order to provide a
service-oriented architecture [SOA] technical solution that is
hyper-aligned with organizational goals and core business functions. In addition to the RUP process
architecture, model-driven architecture [MDA] and Lean’s holistic
principles were included in the form of goal models, domain models, use
cases, sequence diagrams, object models, test models, balanced
score-cards, CMMi models derived from KAOS, JSD, RIVA, EPIC, Catalysis,
Agile, XP, and other knowledge domains delivered a process that
facilitated clear communication and crisp decisions amongst the business
and technology communities.
Nationwide
Insurance Companies, Inc. 11/2004-3/2005
Process Engineer Columbus, Ohio
- As a
Process Engineer and Process Mentor defined, designed, delivered,
implemented, supported, mentored, and co-led a program-level software
development process that combined Rational Unified Process [RUP] and Agile
practices for this leading insurance company to develop a custom solution
that leveraged the Insurance Application Architecture [IAA] framework and
J2EE technologies to rapidly generate insurance products. Based upon the RUP process’ use cases,
sequence diagrams, models, test cases, and Agile methodology, delivered a
process that blended industrial best practices and prevailing
organizational processes; including RPW, Agile, XP, CMMi, IAA, MDA, and
PMBOK.
- Successfully
integrated the IBM IAA framework into the software development approach,
and leveraged Product Line Practice [PLP] to yield a low-risk and high
return development proposition.
This approach did gain some adoption via defining, leading, and
implementing an engagement plan; including presentations, mentoring,
training, workshops, and support activities that were able to cultivate
executive and practitioner support alike.
Toyota
Motor Sales, USA Inc.
1/2003-10/2004
Process Engineer Torrance, California
- As a
Process Engineer and Process Architect, defined, designed, delivered,
implemented, deployed, supported, and led a team of four (4) in the
application of BluePrint, a software development process for this leading
automobile manufacturing company to develop custom, COTS, and mainframe
technology solutions that facilitated management of sales, demand, and
supply chain processes. Based upon
the RUP process’ use cases, sequence diagrams, models, test cases,
delivered a web-based process that blended industrial best practices and
prevailing organizational processes with the principles of lean-thinking;
including RPW, Agile, XP, CMMi, ITIL/COBIT, MDA, and PMBOK. This
development process provided high levels of measurable success as it was
implemented across numerous high-visibility projects and ultimately
established as the organizational standard for development. By adding one (1) additional phase and
two (2) additional disciplines, the resulting process greatly reduced
rework costs and significantly improved customer satisfaction. The development process was suitable
for projects of all sizes, types, and levels of complexity. Leveraging the
success of Lean principles from the manufacturing verticals, Lean extended
BluePrint into a holistic approach by incorporating the stakeholder’s
needs in a SCRUM manner that significantly contributed towards the
successful institutionalization of BluePrint and gained overwhelmingly
adoption via defining, leading, and implementing an engagement plan
including presentations, mentoring, training, workshops, and support
activities that were able to cultivate executive and practitioner support
alike. BluePrint is still being
implemented as an organizational standard to this day.
Oracle
Corporation
3/2002-10/2002
Process Engineer Mountain View, California
- As a
Process Engineer and Process Architect reporting to the CIO and Practice
Manager, defined, designed and delivered a software development method for
this leading software company to deliver its consulting and outsourcing
services; as it relates to J2EE development. Based upon the RUP process’ use cases, sequence diagrams,
models, test cases, delivered a web-based process that preserved some of
their current data-centric methods while moving the development approach
from waterfall and structured engineering to being iterative and
object-oriented. This method was implemented across several customer
accounts and spanned three (3) continents. In addition to the technological capabilities, it was
designed to manage multiple cultural, political, and architectural issues. Utilizing this approach, was able to
provide an approach that would allow offer this leading software company
to raise the perception of quality, increase the value proposition to its
customers, and migrated the customer relationship from vendorship to
insidership. Additionally provided knowledge transfer via presentations,
training, workshops that were able to engage and cultivate executive
support.
BP AMOCO
11/2001-3/2001
Process Engineer Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, UK
- As a
Process Engineer and Enterprise Architect consultant reporting to the CTO,
applied modern software engineering methodology mentoring and consulting
to multiple project and program initiatives (including the largest SAP
implementation to-date) at a major oil exploration and refining
company. Facilitated leveraging
modern software development processes featuring risk-confronting,
architecture-centric, use case driven, iterative principles into cost-reduction
and time-to-market development capabilities. Mentored the team member's discovery of potential risks,
prior to their impact upon the project's budget and/or timeline. Able to customize and blend the RUP
process’ use cases, sequence diagrams, models, test cases, and other
existing best practices in order to arrive upon a
"built-for-purpose" process that delivered improved business/IT
alignment, ii) validated architectural assumptions and iii) assured time
and budget constraints. With
project budgets reaching $80MM, was able to minimize budget overruns by at
least 15%. Utilizing this approach, was able to offer this leading energy
provider company an executable framework for managing strategic asset
development initiatives across any and all their software development
outsourcing providers (Deloitte, Accenture, PriceWaterhouse et al);
especially in the absence of the company's internal IT organization.
Additionally delivered and applied, in parallel, an overall business
engineering process that leverages the deliverables of the software
development process (enterprise architecture, vision, etc.) as inputs into
the Unified Process (software development process) while maintaining
complete UML compliance and process traceability; in order to deliver a robust
end-to-end operating plan for digital asset development, maintenance and
refactoring.
Gulf
Publishing
8/2000-1/2001
Business Architect Houston, Texas
- As a
Business Architect reporting to the CIO, applied a new product development
process to online publishing and web-based delivery. Architected the activities surrounding
business modeling, business process, system modeling and technology
architecture, in order to deliver a robust business plan for consumption
and ratification by the board of directors. Utilizing this approach, was
able to offer a strongly-branded, distinguished, 100-year old
brick-and-mortar institution challenged with a dwindling print marketplace
an executable technology plan for transforming their traditional upstream,
midstream and downstream publishing products and services into a digital
product-portfolio that could then deploy distributed web-based
content-management services. World-wide; including contextualization,
culturalization, privatization and self-service. Additionally delivered and applied, in parallel, an overall
business engineering process that leverages the deliverables of the new
product development process (business plan, vision, etc.) as inputs into
the Unified Process (software development process) while maintaining
complete UML compliance and process traceability.
Kemper
Insurance Companies 11/1999-6/2000
Enterprise Architect Chicago, Illinois
- As a
Process Engineer reporting to the CTO, responsible for the identification,
definition, extension, selection, and customization of a leading software
development lifecycle process to be used for an object-oriented, JAVA/EJB,
web-based, enterprise-wide, insurance industry eCommerce initiative. Led
and mentored the implementation of the Unified Process methodology for a
development team of fifty (50) employees.
Achieved an increase in software quality and re-use; increase in
the quality of project estimation: timeline, budget and software quality;
successful re-start of a previously failed project effort; and reduced
project burn-rate by over 60%. Utilized generally accepted best-practices,
Zachman diagrams, Rational tools and Objektika tools (OO design
quality). Development tools and
environment included Rational Development Suite (Rose, RUP, ReqPro, etc.),
Sun JAVA/EJBs, C++, VisualAge, IBM WebSphere, IBM's IAA business and
analysis model in conjunction with Objektika's implementation of the
design object model. As a manager,
also managed and provided thought leadership in the area of Data Modeling
Standards & Architecture Management.
Managed a data modeling and standards team, utilizing industry best
practices. Incorporated techniques and standards surrounding process and
tools; utilizing ERD to UML mappings in order to support object-oriented
project development. Additionally Vitria's BusinessWare was used to
redeposit the business rules within the process layer, using UML's
activity-based diagrams as the communication and modeling standard
throughout the business re-engineering effort.
Encyclopedia
Britannica 11/1996-3/2000
Application Architect Chicago, Illinois
- As an
Application Architect reporting to the Enterprise CTO, architected and
designed an enterprise application component responsible for delivering
(on-demand) the complete geo-political world statistical data catalog. Was
also responsible for delivering and utilizing an enterprise-class data
modeling design to support multi-faceted statistical constructs. By
introducing the Objectory/Unified Process, the process engineering
significantly reduced the application effort and risk consistent with
Client/Server Database Design and Development using UML, MS Access, VB6/VB5/VB4, SQLServer,
Informix ODS/Universal Server [Illustra] AND ORACLE to enhance rapid
deployment and delivery of multimedia publishing content into various
electronic and print formats.
R R
Donnelley & Sons 5/1999-10/1999
Enterprise Data Architect Chicago, Illinois
- Defined
the data standards and architecture principles and practices utilizing
leading enterprise architecture frameworks such as Zachman and Rational
Unified Process software engineering methodology. Successfully provided a framework for
how to raise the overall SEI CMM rating of the organization. Successfully applied enterprise
application integration [EAI] techniques in the areas of migration,
loading and cleansing for data warehousing preparation and OLAP
development in order to support the proposed data warehouse architecture.
Andersen
Consulting
11/1996-11/1996
Application Architect Chicago,
Illinois
- Architected,
modeled and developed an MS Access RDBMS (acting as an operational data
store to various mainframe and Telco hardware) to define and process
long-distance telephone products and promotions for a major telephone
company.
S&H
Citadel
3/1995-10/1996
Application Architect Chicago, Illinois
- Architected,
modeled, and developed an MS Access relational DBMS, ported from Sybase’s
Powerbuilder, peaking at over 2000 TPDs to track, manage and report on
1996 Olympic ticket and travel processes for over 10,000 customers, their
family and guests across six countries. RPCs in C and Visual Basic
(AccessBasic) exceed over 3000 lines of code.
Bank
America
2/1994-6/1995
Application Architect and Designer Chicago, Illinois
- Developed
an MS Access database application to track, manage, report and monitor
user hardware and software resources. Required ODBC interface to Sybase
Server, MS SQLServer, IBM DB/2, Lotus Notes, Lotus Approach and Access
tables.
Ameritech
1/1995-2/1995
Data Architect Oslo,
Norway
- Developed
a preliminary interface for potentially larger scale engagement.
Globalization of application required handling multiple file formats,
extended character sets and data normalization.
Andersen
Consulting 6/1992-1/1994
Application Architect and Designer Chicago, Illinois
- Developed
an MS Access database application to track, assign, and report training
faculty and student demand (implicit and explicit) & predict warranted
resource commitment level. Interfaced w/Lotus Notes API. Employed
numerical methods analysis to better manage contingent need dynamics.
EDUCATION
Morehouse College
Bachelor of Arts, Finance
TRAINING
Certified SCRUM Master
Training, Philadelphia, PA
Precise Models of Business,
Warren, NJ
ITIL/ITSM certification
received: Foundation level certification of the Information Technology
Infrastructure Library [ITIL].
ITIL/ITSM is the worldwide standard for best practice in the provision
of IT service.
New Product Development
Best Practices, Houston, TX
The e-Software Paradox,,
Philadelphia, PA
Unified Modeling Language,
New York, NY
Achieving SEI CMM
Improvement with ISO9002, Moscow, Russia
International Business
Process Management, San Francisco, CA
Enterprise Architecture,
New York, NY
Rational certification
received: Qualified Practitioner of the Rational Unified Process [RUP]
Microsoft Certified
Professional in Object Oriented Analysis & Design
eCRM - Enterprise Customer
Relationship Management, Chicago, IL
TECHNICAL SKILLS
AGILE Methods, Backlogs, Business Objects, Caliber RM,
Capability Maturity Model Integration [CMMi], Define IT, Lean Principles,
Rational Unified Process [RUP], EPIC, Extreme Programming [XP], OOAD, UML, IT
Infrastructure Library [ITIL], IT Unified Process [ITUP], Jacobson Use Cases,
Rallye, Rational ClearCase, Rational ClearQuest, Rational Method Composer,
Rational Process Workbench [RPW], Rational ProjectConsole, Rational
RequisitePro, Rational Software Architect [RSA], Rational Software Modeler
[RSM], Rational Rose, Rational RUPBuilder, Rational TestManager, Project
Management Institute Body of Knowledge [PMBOK], SCRUM, Software Engineering
Body of Knowledge [SWEBOK], Version One, Wieger
Oracle 9i/DB/AS, Oracle Designer, Oracle JDeveloper,
SQLServer, MS Access
J2EE, J2ME, JAVA, JAVA (EJB), JBuilder, C, C++, Objective C,
CaseWise, Borland,
UNIX, VMS, DOS, Windows
Enterprise Data Application, Web, eCommerce, EAI Messaging
(MQ Series, Vitria, ORACLE), Interwoven, Information Technology Infrastructure
Library (ITIL), Model Driven Architecture (MDA)