Case Studies

Deirdre was requested by a very large Irish plc to take on a senior IT management dual role in January 2014. However Deirdre was not able to join the company until March 2014 due to other contractual commitments.

The dual role was – (a) Interim Head of IT for the Irish operating companies and (b) Transition Manager for the Irish companies.

The IT Department had a team of 12 IT professionals including an application services manager, who looked after the day to day business and IT projects for the companies in the Irish shared service. The previous interim Head of IT was let go the week before Deirdre commenced.

The Transition Manager role had a team of 5 students to help with rollout of hardware to the 30+ sites around the country, with two contract project managers looking after application migration to the managed service data centres.

Despite the fact that two of the infrastructure architects were due to leave in three months, Deirdre believed she could achieve the transition to the managed service in six months and also ensure the BAU elements of the business was managed via the role of Head of IT.

Deirdre had an advantage in that she had worked with some of the team members three years previously and thus knew how best to motivate them. For the transition team – she recruited a contract PM and started to line up resources to cover the people who were scheduled to leave in June.

Once the transition plan was created and agreed by the business, the managed service supplier and the local IT team – a daily stand-up meeting ensured the plan was closely followed. Weekly steering committee meetings were held to appraise the business and its sites of their place in the plan and to ensure them of reduced levels of disruption.

The normal BAU work of the Head of IT was supplemented by the projects that were needed to remediate many of the applications prior to their move to the data centres. This had to take place while the “car was running” and without causing burnout of the BAU team.

Communications needed to be handled carefully as the plc group company consisted of many functions and several VIPs who demanded premium treatment. It was really important to give plenty of warding of upcoming activities and deliver when we said we would.

The agreed savings were realised by the reduction in staffing levels for BAU by 33%, the transition team were all contractors and had completed their assignment.

By September the transition was complete and a permanent incumbent had commended in the role of Head of IT for Ireland. Deirdre provided a detailed handover and departed to another part of the plc to take an new interim role, satisfied that the Ireland work had been completed on time.