MITPM Conference 2006

Chair, Board of Directors, Project Management Institute

Topic : Project Management as a Strategic Partner

Iain is currently the chair of the PMI Board of Directors, and has also held Director-at-Large and Vice Chair positions. In 2001 he was awarded the status of Fellow PMINZ, the first such award, in recognition of his efforts within the global profession and the New Zealand component.

Iain is internationally recognized for his expertise, experience and insights into project-based management approaches. He is the managing director of Project Plus Ltd., a New Zealand-based consulting organization with a specific focus on the provision and global delivery of total project management services across many industry sectors.

Iain has been practicing project management for over 25 years. He holds diplomas from the United Kingdom in engineering and production control, and is actively involved in the engineering, petrochemical, utility, construction, IT, telecommunications and defense industries around the world. Iain initially gained his project skills by working for global engineering company Brown & Root, with clients such as BP, Shell and Conoco, and contractors Bechtel and Mitsui. He then held several senior assignments across different sectors, which allowed him to acquire his leadership skills and hone his project management knowledge.

Iain has been very active within PMI globally. He has held positions such as Director of Regional Advocacy for the Asia/Pacific region, covering eight separate countries. He served three years on the global Board of Directors Nominations Committee, and was chair in 2001. Iain is a founding member of PMI New Zealand. He served as vice president in 1995, national president in 1997 and 1998-receiving five international awards-and immediate past president in 1999 and 2000.

His passion and expertise means he is regularly called upon to speak at conferences, seminars or deliver workshops on project management-related topics to businesses and governments around the world. Many of these papers have been published in formal business magazines.

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VP Globalisation, Project Management Institute IT & Telecom Specific Interest Group

Topic : Managing The 'Critical Path' From Strategy To Execution : Issues And Challenges In IT & Telecom Portfolio Management

Petra has been the VP-Globalisation of the PMI IT&T SIG since December 2003, and is a member of two PMI Chapters: UK, and Northern Italy. She was an invited speaker at PMI's Beneluxday in Antwerp in 2004, where she gave a presentation entitled: "Hit The Road Jack(ie)! - Cultural diversity and the back-packing project manager".

Petra has extensive experience managing large and complex IT and Telecom projects throughout Europe, with budgets up to EUR 28 million. She has worked as a Consultant at leading edge, highly successful companies such as AT&T, BMW, IBM, Nortel, Siemens, Sun Microsystems and Unisource, ECB (European Central Bank), and MasterCard. In her role as programme manager, she enjoys motivating staff, building teams focused on getting results, and dealing with people of different cultures. She has a track record of delivering results in fast paced, constantly changing environments and, as a PMP, is fully conversant with Project Management methodologies throughout the project life cycle.

Petra has published the WebLink Training Manual for Energis plc in 1998, as well as several websites. She obtained a UK Private Pilots Licence in 1980, and enjoys cross-cultural exchanges, emerging technologies, current affairs, canoeing, QED, traveling, music, and time out with friends and family. Petra is fluent in English, German (native), Dutch and Italian, and able to survive in French.

Abstract:
Successful organisations achieve high performance by integrating strategy execution, portfolio, programme, and project management best practices. Information Technology best practices, in particular, set high performers apart from the rest. The increased pressure to 'Do More with Less' and to demonstrate business value of IT and Telecommunications investments, forces us to better align IT efforts and articulated business strategies. Decreased availability and increased scrutiny of IT funding need to lead to a greater focus on effective project prioritisation and allocation of IT resources by way of IT portfolio segmentation for ROI analysis and IT alignment for project success. We will look at current issues and challenges when faced with choosing the 'right' project with the 'right budget and resource' allocation, and also at the latest development undertaken by PMI on programme and portfolio management standards, as it is imperative we implement and follow best practices to upgrade governance and prioritisation processes and thus build more responsive IT organisations.

The endeavoured learning outcomes of this presentation are:
• Understanding of the differences between Project, Programme and Portfolio management
• Raised awareness of current trends on how PMI is approaching portfolio management. The speaker will supply samples and a basic toolkit of how to segment IT portfolios into generic categories for ROI analysis.

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Founder and CEO, Business Technovise International
Formerly Managing Partner, Andersen Worldwide

Topic : The Challenges Of Implementing Your Strategic IT Plan

Tan is founder and CEO of Business Technovise International (BTI). In BTI, he has:
• pioneers the niche market penetration of e-FSI strategic initiatives and Integrated Business Process Management for clients in ASEAN and East China (Taiwan, Korea)
• develop vision-to-end solution suite for click-and-mortar and virtual organizations
• integrate business processes to achieve customer focus, efficiency and cost competitiveness
• align vision to people, process, technology and business strategy, and implement the required business imperatives

Prior to BTI, Tan was the ex-Managing Partner, Andersen Worldwide managing the consulting practice in Mauritius, Madagascar, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. Mr Tan, an ASEAN scholar and a First Class degree holder from Imperial College, UK, has more than 17 years of consulting experience in financial services industry, helping MNC clients in IT Strategy Formulation and Implementation, Business Process Re-engineering, Change Management, Performance Management and, e-Commerce Strategy and Implementation. He was previously the Vice President, Technology of Citibank N.A., Singapore.

Tan was conferred the (CITPM, Senior), the Singapore National IT Project Management certification on 26 November 1998. Based on his professional work in Singapore, Mauritius and Africa, he was independently nominated and admitted to the International Who's Who of Professionals for 1999. Tan also sits on the Board of Assessor for the Singapore's National IT Skills Certification Programme - IT Project Management since its inception. He is also a Senior Member of the Singapore Computer Society and has been listed on the "SCS Roll of Honour" in recognition and appreciation of his valuable support and contribution to the Society. Tan has given Project/Programme Management conferences both locally as well as internationally. He travelled extensively and had successfully completed assignments in about 30 countries.

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Executive Director - Outsourcing, Privasia Sdn Bhd
Formerly Director of Consulting, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)

Topic : IT Outsourcing : Managing Transition And Changes

Douglas is the Executive Director of Outsourcing with Privasia, the leading Malaysian service provider in Spend Management and IT/Business Process Outsourcing. He is an expert in the role of outsourcing to support and extend the business objectives of an organization.

Prior to joining Privasia, Douglas worked on the regional expansion of eknowhow, a web-based marketing and internet communication organization, and was the Director of Consulting with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), a leading global technology services company, focused in the areas of technology consulting and outsourcing.

Of particular note, he led the team who won the RM1.3billion (US$342 million) outsourcing relationship between Maybank, Malaysia's largest financial institution, and CSC.

Douglas' primary focus has been in working with organizations to formulate and execute strategies through a strategic, rather than functional or overly technical, perspective.

He has particular experience in the Asian Financial, Exchange and Transportation industries. Mr. Brown brings his perspective to organizations by focusing on performance enhancement through the use of technology.

Douglas is a summa cum laude ( highest honours ) graduate of the College of Business at Drexel University in the United States of America with dual degree in Finance and Economics.

Douglas has spoken widely at conferences around Asia and contributed to many business publications in Malaysia, particularly in the areas of outsourcing and its role in competitive advantage. He has presented insights to the Commonwealth Association on Corporate Governance, the APEC IT/HRD Seminar and the Malaysian Federation of Public Listed Companies among others.

Prior to joing CSC he instructed executives on corporate strategy and competitive analysis using customized business simulations designed and developed by Douglas and his team at Strategic Management Group (SMG). These simulations provided executives with a "living laboratory" to experiment with concepts affecting their businesses. Douglas was involved in the business analysis and technical development, in countries including Australia, Thailand, Venezuela and numerous engagements throughout the United States and Western Europe.

In this capacity, he has also conducted workshop at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.

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Service Integration Manager, Shell Information Technology International

Topic : Effective Project Risk Management for Global Complex Application Deployment - "The SHELL Experience"

Serge has total of 17 years of global ICT project experiences for oil & gas business. He has successful implemented Shell Gas (LPG) ERP in The Netherlands, The UK, Belgium, Luxemburg, Spain, Portugal and Romani and he is currently the Asia-Pacific and Middle-East Service Integration Manager for one of the world largest oil and gas company.

Serge is a PMI's certified Project Manager Professional (PMP®) and Project Manager and recently certified in IT Infrastructure Library ( ITIL )Service Level Management business.

He has successful work on end-to-end integration of IT services delivery in the business and successful development and implementation of project management processes for Global SAP Programme involved more than 142 countries around the world. He is constantly looking for global challenges and learning different cultures, ways of working, approaches.

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System Design, University of Bolton, UK

Topic : Can Agile Methodologies Ensure Satisfactory Delivery of User Requirements?

Jim has been involved in many aspects of software development over a period of thirty five years. His degree in Computer Studies was followed by commercial experience involving mainframe and mini computers with roles as a programmer and later an analyst. He followed this with work in sales of microcomputers following which he worked as a senior technical adviser assisting in the development of systems integrating microcomputers with mainframes.

For the past twenty years he has been involved in academia but has maintained his links with the commercial world by developing systems such as the integration of decision support with transaction processing in a database LAN environment. He has worked extensively as a systems designer and has used SSADM, SADT and DSDM methodologies. He currently teaches at the M Sc level, delivering a course entitled 'Systems Theory and Practice'.

Abstract:
The presentation will analyse the nature of project management in differing contexts, highlighting the difference between the 'real world' without an 'undo' button and the world of information systems. Information systems are themselves abstract models but real-time systems have links to the external world and this changes their nature substantially.

The significance of the system development life cycle to project management will be considered with a reflection upon historical perspectives and comment upon the maturity of methodologies. The more mature the methodology, the more easily it can be used, and this alters the role of the participants. Twenty years ago, end-user development was a serious approach based on database technology and fourth generation tools.

Since the introduction of the PC, there has been a need to re-define IT infrastructure for client-server technologies, Windows techniques and now the Internet. These technological developments have changed the software tools and these are still evolving, and so the methodologies of design are also changing.

These developments are giving rise to new needs within the system development life cycle and this has given rise to development approaches that are typically referred to as agile methodologies. The background and current success of these is presented and compared with alternate approaches.

The presentation will contain a summary indicating hundreds of pages of high quality articles available from the Internet. The conclusion contains an analysis of how the "Malaysian cultural perspective" should have offer significant insight into the shared nature of responsibility within project teams and the need for a range of communication skills.

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Systems Integration Consultant
Terminal 2 Project of Shanghai Pudong International Airport

Topic : Managing Complex System Integration Project In A ZERO Defect Environment

Tony is an independent consultant who has worked in the IT industry for 38years, 30 of which were spent with IBM and 7 with the local Malaysian company XYBASE. He has worked in the international environment since 1981. Tony has a wide range of knowledge of business and financial systems from his early career days; however for the past 19 years, he has concentrated on the Air industry and in particular Airports, being deeply involved in large systems integration projects in a number of countries, including China, Malaysia, Turkey, Korea, USA and Spain. He is currently the Systems Integration Consultant for new Terminal 2 project in Shanghai's Pudong International Airport and recently led the SI project for Soekarno Hatta Interntional Airport in Jakarta.

Over the last 10 years he has evolved a set of "tools" to assist in the integration process; these tools assist with requirements definition, the interface identification, the actual integration including the implementation and test phases. A key element in this methodology is the detailed approach to testing which is seen as one of two critical success factors to any IT project, the other being user requirement specifications. These tools have been successfully used in both airport and non-airport projects such as the Malaysian Government's Accountant General Project and been copied in various forms by a number of the worlds leading systems integrators.

Abstracts:
Any software development needs to follow a planned cycle of activity utilizing an accepted methodology, this requirement takes on exponential orders of magnitude once put into the systems integration environment when multiple systems from several vendors need to interface and share common data. Testing of a single application to ensure that all specified functionality is delivered as required may appear a simple task but there are almost always problems. To then bring 10, 15 or 20 such applications together and making them work together and achieving a zero defect environment is a real challenge. However it can and has been addressed.

Key to achieving a successful project are two factors, Discipline and Attitude. Discipline by the client, the SI and the vendors, Attitude emanates from the SI. These backed by a tried and tested methodology that will be described in detail in the presentation will provide much of the risk mitigation that we all seek for such projects.

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Senior Consultant
Clarity Division – Computer Assocaite (CA) Inc

Topic : Portfolio Management -Maximize the Value of IT Investments

Shamith is a Senior Consultant in the Clarity Division of Computer Associate(CA). He joined CA in 2001 as a member of the CA Technology Services team, and has been actively involved with the Business Services Optimization (BSO) and recently with the IT Governance solution suite of CA. He has been involved in architecting and implementing ITIL based service management, change management & IT governance projects in key customer accounts across industries. He has spoken in a number public forums/seminars including Microsoft Regional Architect Forum 2004 and ITIL Service Management seminars for CA.

In the present capacity as a senior pre-sales consultant at CA he is responsible for working closely with clients to understand their business objectives, architect solutions to maximize the business value and develop IT governance solution strategies. One of his key focus areas has been IT project management and service management solutions. Prior to joining CA, Shamith held various positions in application development, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) consulting and application integration.

Shamith is a graduate in Information System Engineering from Imperial College, England and holds a Masters in Business Administration from University of Leicester.

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President, Malaysia National Computer Confederation
Formerly Deputy Director General of MAMPU and CIO of the Malaysia Public Sector

Dato' Dr. Raja Malik was the Deputy Director- General of MAMPU and the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Public Sector. Prior to this, he has given distinguished service to INTAN, the Ministry of Education and other relevant agencies. He is also the President of Malaysian National Computer Confederation, the recognized body for ICT professionals in Malaysia as well as the former President of the South-East Asia Regional Computer Confederation or SEARCC.

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Vice President
Multimedia Development Corporation

Topic : MSC PMP Capability Development Programme Initiative

Ms Ng Wan Peng is Vice President of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC), heading its Capacity Development Division. MDC is a Malaysian Government owned company, responsible for the coordination, promotion and development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the country. Her areas of responsibility include creating conducive environment for ICT companies through providing world class infrastructure and telecom services, promote Cyberlaws and IP protection, and developed programmed to help enhance companies' competitiveness. Some of the capability development programmes undertaken by the Capacity Development Division are the Software Improvement Programmes, Software Testing, Project Management Capability Development programme and so forth. She also chairs the Technology and Commercialization Committee of the MSC Multimedia Grant Scheme.

Ms Ng has more than 16 years of experience in the ICT field. She has extensive experience in managing large-scale projects, in the areas of Strategic IT Planning, Project Management, Systems Integration, and Methodologies Development. Ms Ng has consulted for both private and public sector organizations in IT policy and project implementation in government, defense and education sectors in Malaysia and abroad. She obtained her Honours Degree in Computer Science from Universiti Sains Malaysia.

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Topic: Corporate and IT Governance: Achieving Success through Process and Project Management

Randel D. Powell, PMP® manages the Developer Skills team for IBM’s World Wide ISV & Developer Relations team. Randy and his team of technical and business industry professionals work closely with developers, business IT professionals along with collegiate MIS and CIS faculty to exchange information on the latest technologies, standards, and tools. Through the developerWorks Web, developerWorks Live! and IBM Business Perspective events, the team provides briefings, articles, tutorials, demos, webcasts, and workshops globally.

As an experienced global technology professional, he is also a certified project management professional with over twenty years of management and project management responsibilities, primarily for the Computer Software and Hardware Development Industries. Previous positions include General Manager with DisCopyLabs, Inc. and was the Director of Strategic Development with Nimbus, Inc., in 1996, when he was recruited into IBM in 1996 to support the development, implementation and support of global SAP business transactions systems. His international experience includes management of localized technical, supply chain and marketing/sales support teams in Asia Pacific, Europe, North and South America. You can contact Randy at randelp@us.ibm.com.

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CEO, MSC Technology Centre

Topic: Why is Project Management Critical? - Perspective from Regional and MSC Flagship

Suhaimi Tahir is CEO of MSC Technology Centre, a consulting company specialising in ICT strategy and program management. Suhaimi has more than 21 years of experience in ICT industry, particularly in Public Sector, Transportation, Highway Infrastructure, and Financial Services. He has worked for IBM Corporation, co-founded a start-up company, and served as a Senior Project Manager in a Malaysian conglomerate before joining MSCTC.

In the last several years years, Suhaimi has focused his consulting effort towards ICT strategy development and program at the national and international levels. He has led a team to help Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to develop the "Guildeline for national IT strategy", advised on "E-commerce national plan" for a Middle East country, and led his team to formulate the state ICT blueprint for a state government in Malaysia. His areas of interest are in ICT policy and programs for development, especially in critical sectors such as education, health, and environment.

He holds a BSc. in Data Processing from Loughborough University of Technology, Leicestershire, UK. He has also attended the Harvard Senior Management Development Program (SMDP) in 2004.

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Veteran IT Project Manager

Anita Ong has over 20 years of I/T Project Management experience. Her career in I/T began some 30 years ago as a programmer with John Hancock in Boston, Manulife in Toronto, and eventually with DuPont where she held numerous positions in Asia Pacific, North America and Europe.

In her work for DuPont, she had spent many years managing IT projects in different parts of the globe, with the last assignment as IT Manager in Europe/MEA.

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Director of Publications, Project Management Institute Malaysia Chapter
Senior Consultant, AME Malaysia Sdn Bhd

Brian started his career in health IT as the project manager of the world’s first paperless and film less Selayang Hospital Total Hospital Information System project in 1996. He has since project managed or been involved in the delivery of health IT solutions for various turnkey projects in Malaysia (Pandan, Kepala Batas, Lahad Datu and Serdang hospitals). He also successfully completed data warehouse projects for Fuzhou and Guangzhou General Hospital in China.

Brian has been invited to present paper on health informatics conferences in Fuzhou, Shanghai, Guongzhou and Hangzhou, China. He is currently a Senior Consultant with AME Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

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