Simon’s Profile

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Simon is a PMP (Project Management Professional) certified by the Project Management Institute and also holds ISACA’s CGEIT (The Information Systems Audit and Control Association’s Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT) qualification, the IPMA’s (International Project Management Association’s) IPMA-D qualification, PRINCE2 Agile® practitioner and is an ex-PRINCE2® examiner (when the qualification was essay rather than the current multiple-choice basis) and previously held registration as a Management of Risk practitioner.

Simon has worked in projects since the start of the 1980s; the last 25+ years as contractor or consultant. Client’s projects have ranged from the small to the massive in sectors ranging from construction, defence, government, oil and gas, utilities, banking and not-for-profit.

He was a full member of the Isochron Dimension Four® Project Management Think Tank until its founder retired. Simon continues his focus on benefits realisation and pioneering the second generation techniques to integrate PMBoK, PRINCE, Agile, Lean, SixSigma etc with a focus on Managing Change from Board-Room to Boiler-Room™. and is the author of all LogicalModel’s library of training materials.

The company is a fully AXELOS Accredited Training Organisation with authority to administer PRINCE2 and PRINCE2 Agile® exams.

Simon has had papers and articles published by The American Society for the Advancement of Project ManagementProject Manager Today, The Guardian Project Management Supplement and APM’s ‘Project’ magazine. Simon will become a self-published book author this year with a title exploring how to succeed in change with guidance inclusive of but broader than ‘project management’.

Current / Previous assignments (in no order) include:

  • (Current) Develop and support the assessment and development processes for a global engineering company’s “IS Level 3 Program Managers (roughly those with budgets over USD10m and a ‘change the business’ remit)”. He has developed a procedural tool and adapted competency criteria from GAPPS, PMI, AXELOS and internal company assets to create an assessment tool. A simplified and anonymised version is (will be) here.
  • Developed and delivered virtual training courses using SabaCentral and WebexTraining. Topics have been, Managing Global Virtual Teams Without Authority and Leading Complex Projects. Delivery via virtual platforms creates new opportunity that in-person classes don’t have! But also introduces challenges, For example multiple short sessions over a longer time frame have both pros and cons.
  • Training in Assured Outcome Delivery (2nd generation techniques) to local councils and partners seeking to radically revise their operating models in the face of central government reductions in funding. Focus spans senior and middle management direction and operational lean, agile delivery.
  • Running a fully accredited PRINCE2 Training Organisation: Authoring accredited materials, creation and operation of organisational QMS and authorised to provide PRINCE2 and PRINCE2-Agile exams.
  • Since 2003, Simon has been part of a very small core team authoring  and delivering BAE System’s internal PM training. His focus covers integration of the organisation’s own governance framework (‘Life-cycle management’) with well known PM principles, Defining project scope and matched quality regimes, Planning and Tracking with Earned Value Analysis, Soft-skills and Communications, Managing Risk, Opportunity and Procurement. In the UK, Simon’s deliveries are aligned to the APM syllabus. He also delivers these topics in the Middle East plus the PMP Exam preparation and executive management modules to the Middle East business units.
  • Review team member for PMBoK 5th and 6th Edition, ASAPM aPro Competency framework (Now IPMA-USA), PMI’s 3rd edition Portfolio and 3rd and 4th Edition Program Management guides, AXELOS’ P3M3®, PRINCE2 2009 revision and 2017 Edition.
  • Practical implementation of PRINCE2 into a telecoms software house. This role was specifically about coaching a division’s technical and managerial staff in every-day use of P2 for teams using agile delivery techniques. Coaching (and training) scope has been broader than an exam focus; covering foundational planning techniques and skills that P2 assumes. The client requirement was for a wholly pragmatic approach to managing within a high-pressure and volatile client driven environment; nothing to do with passing exams!
  • Consulting on the implementation of IT Governance across all IT disciplines to a UN agency using the CobiT™ framework. Facilitating training workshops for auditors using COBIT & ITIL for IT governance in a global consultancy
  • Training at basic and advanced level on all topics with-in Project Management and IT projects. Delivered to a wide variety of organisations and industries over the last 15 years.
  • Author and speaker on Recovering ‘Challenged’ Projects and on Managing Complex Projects via Complex Adaptive System’s theory. Delivered to participants with combined budgets well over $50bn and working environments from Sweden to Italy and Saudi Arabia, from IT to sales and civil engineering.
  • Delivering the training portion for the sustainment of a leading UK based global gas company’s own in-house Value Assurance Framework, Governance structures and tools for large-scale capital projects (budgets in the $20bn+ range). These roll-out activities are ‘hearts and minds’ sessions to improve the flow of status info to board decision forums using an extensive set of policies, standards, guidelines and a suite of support tools for through-life benefits management.
  • Providing Masterclasses in Estimating Skills to a broad selection of needs – for example: to software engineers writing satellite control systems, and the UK Navy’s ship repairers.
  • Consultant to a retail bank’s Organisational Change and Efficiency department’s project methods roll-out.
  • Workshops in health safety and environmental issues during large-scale capital projects in the oil industry. Delivered circa 10 times to 200 personnel, some with individual budget accountabilities in excess of several $bn.
  • Consulting to the Group Programme Office of a major UK retail bank on. ‘what world-class Lessons Learned and Benefits Management looks like’.
  • Programme office manager for a 400 person, £100m software development project.
  • Creation of governance structures for two £25m p.a. software development programmes in the insurance market using PRINCE2 principles.
  • Speaker at PMI Ireland conference on, ‘Sparkling Project Governance’.
  • Member of programme management team for a corporate restructuring project in a $6bn subsidiary of GE.
  • Author of Learning Tree International’s catalogue courses on Enterprise Disaster Recovery and Software Configuration Management, and a variety of bespoke courses in response to client requests. Author and instructor for many other project management and software management courses.

Simon’s original background was 11 years software development and project management at the London Stock Exchange followed by many contract roles in complex projects, mostly within politically rich blue-chip environments.

Simon is Edinburgh based. Married with 2 adult children.
DOB July ’58.

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