ZOKRI

Strategy and OKR Consultant

Outcomes Thinking 

I help product organisations change their focus from outputs to outcomes. 

My typical clients are high-growth tech-oriented startups.  

I coach leadership teams to articulate their strategy, define persistent metrics and set powerful goals. 

Then I work with their teams to employ fast learning cycles to significantly improve their chances of delivering the outcomes the organisation and their customers need.

https://www.outcomesthinking.com/learnokr

Strategy and OKR Coach

Elsevier

At Elsevier I focused on achieving a few key goals. 
* Building organisational alignment through the implementation of OKRs
* Coaching and training product teams in outcomes planning product management techniques
* Managing the organisations largest portfolio of product investments

Achieving this has drawn on my three key work passions
* Through the implementation of OKRs I helped colleague understand the 'why?'
* Collectively we promoted inclusion and psychological safety with the teams we worked in
* I helped strengthen the bond between strategy and execution.

I also learned from working with a rapidly growing and highly capable technology organisation as part of the leadership team. 

And learned from the things I’ve tried that didn’t work and continue to do so!

Senior Portfolio Director

Program Manager

Pearson

In a technical product management role, I pioneered the use of semantic technology at Pearson, with a purpose of connecting data to provide organisational, content and customer insights. Created the strategy for linked data and formed a vision that spanned the key data that drives Pearson. 

Led a team that built the first Pearson tool to utilise semantic technology.

Head of Semantic Technology

Department head, accountable for the solution design, technical strategy, development and business fit of global content related products. Launched an image management product for educational content authors.
Accountable for three significant international digital products. Led a team of c. 45 mixed domain people.

Head of Content Management - Systems Development

Marsh

Brought on board in an interim role to kick-start the implementation of corporate web based content management systems. Accountable for re-focusing the programme and fast tracking a return on investment. Introduced Agile techniques to this inflight programme.

Provided department wide guidance on programme management best practice.

Interim Program Manager

Director level consultant, leading engagements with EMC’s highest profile clients all with budgets exceeding £1m. Consulted on transformation and change management for clients in a range of sectors, including finance, insurance and oil and gas.

Principal Consultant

Interim Project Management of a difficult IT project replacing key systems in insurance and reinsurance functions. 

Successfully re-focused scope of the project and delivered the system to pilot groups within the business.

Interim Project Manager

Envoque

Founding Partner

Strategy and Business Analyst

I am a strategy and OKR coach who helps organisations from household names to hyper-growth unicorns align and focus with OKRs. 

Do you want to connect your work to your strategy? Do you want to  focus on the things that really impact your customers, your employees and your organisation? 

If so, let’s talk.

If you want to know more about what I do, my clients can tell you better than I can.

“Collaborational, easy to work with, reliable, sticks to his words, inclusive, really values including everyone and pays attention to detail and each member of a (workshop) group”
Olivia Hupfeld, EQT Ventures describing a recent on-site workshop

“Pragmatic, hands on, flexible and business oriented expert who can apply OKR principles in a practical way to any organisation” - 
CPO, Insurtech Unicorn.

“With Ian's help we made a huge amount of progress last quarter from a standing start. The OKRs are incredibly clear and specific. We established a really good basis.”   
CEO

“Deep expertise and recognised OKR Leader”
CoS, Unicorn

"Yes, we definitely saw a difference. I would like to thank you a ton for the pro-active collaboration last year – it really helped us move forward!" - COO Unicorn Fintech

”Senior team had a range of complex personalities…. your approach was to build relationships and manage stakeholders carefully which paid off”



“You helped the Leadership Team become outcomes driven”

"Huge amount of progress last quarter from a standing start"

“Ian was particularly good at holding us to account”

“Ian is a terrific facilitator. The right balance of seriousness, knowledge, humour and patience.“

Ian Harvey

Deloitte

Specialist Leader

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma & Texas

DevOps Manager

Blue Cross Blue Shield

Manager

HCSC (Blue Cross Blue Shield

Reduced the Cost of an Enterprise License Agreement with a major vendor by 50%. Realized savings of $1.6m.
*	Collaborated with teams of Architects and Development Managers to prove and implement a light-weight, low-cost JEE application Development Platform.
*	Collaborated with European experts from an open source project to implement web services for integrating disparate tools from various vendors.
*	Created an enterprise-wide framework for Software builds and deployments. This plug-and-play framework accounted for all key concerns of a development organization: Dependency Management, Memory Profiling, Continuous Integration, and Code Quality through Better Automated Testing, Better Unit Testing, and Increased Static Analysis etc.; Lead - Architecture Domain on SDLC; Lead a team of Architects from across the enterprise. The team is responsible for setting the direction of Future State Architecture in the domain of SDLC tooling. 

*	Created a lab for conducting POCs and POTs (Proof of Concept) and (Proof of Technology) on Emerging Technologies in SDLC space. 
*	Managed several POCs and POTs in emerging technology areas to prove out market trends and their feasibility within the HCSC environment.
*	Created the Future State Architecture of tooling for two consecutive years. Specifically focused the future of SDLC tools in HCSC on Developer Productivity and Audit &amp; Compliance with SOX and NAIC MAR audit requirements. 
*	Introduced several Open Source technologies and solutions in place of expensive and problematic software tools in niche areas.
*	Consulted and Collaborated with several analysts from Gartner, Forrester and other strategy consulting firms to carve out a direction that fits the unique needs of HCSC.
*	Piloted projects for Production applications to ensure that the architecture standards that were being created were not detached from reality.
*	Standardized Testing tools as well as Source Control Management tools for the Enterprise.

Lead - Architecture Domain

Business Application Solutions

Manage a team of SDLC Tooling Experts, who implemented and supported a variety of distributed development tools across the phases of SDLC. 

Created, modified and reviewed transition plans, approach documents, standards documents, staffing & workforce plans and budget forecasts to improve planning, document processes and improve team management.
Managed a multi-departmental team to implement an enterprise-wide Source Control and Build Management system with specific emphasis on Audit and Compliance with NAIC-MAR requirements.
Regularly interacted with a group of Application Directors in charge of providing excellence to production applications. Focused on improving quality for these applications to reduce cost of production and elevate quality. 
Created and managed several projects from idea to implementation improving the quality and developer productivity at HCSC. These projects ranged from implementation and rollout of a new more sophisticated tool to the introduction and revamp of best practices for HCSC Developers.
Created and executed a plan to reduce cost of software being used at HCSC. Saved the company over $1.6m by optimizing the vendor software footprint at HCSC.
Piloted the latest industry software and technology including those on the Jazz platform by IBM Rational like Rational Team Concert, Rational Requirements Composer, etc. 
Developed the team by taking a number of progressive steps, including creation of new career path jobs, improved knowledge sharing by using team-rooms, knowledge-base and brown bags, improved Customer Service provided by the team by automating the engagement model for the team, and improved management of employee schedules with team-wide calendars, improved status reporting with structured projects, etc.

Supervisor

Trained to conduct quality audits on Chicago Business Unit Projects to ensure that the projects are run under the guidelines of CPMF framework
Developed an understanding for Quality Management, ISO-9001-2000 standard, CGI Quality Manual, CGI Management Frameworks and CGI Satisfaction Assessment Programs.

MFASIS Project for the State of Maine

Internal Quality Auditor

Planned, executed and controlled the project through implementation, using tools like action-items database, issue-list, Change-request-control board and database, incident-tracking database, etc.
Negotiated with the client to set expectations on major deliverables, keeping a focus on product quality and project scope. 
Collaborated with CGI-Product Engineering to come up with an appropriate approach for the State, given their unique requirements. 
Brought structure and direction to the team by dividing the project team into sub-teams highlighting areas like testing and infrastructure design and development by dedicating key staff to the activities.
Streamlined core team processes by laying down step-by-step cradle-to-grave guidelines for General Interface Design. Setup version control to store important project team artifacts. Formalized the approval and sign off process for Interface Designs and undertook the activity of obtaining sign-off on all designs.  
Managed risk by becoming involved in communication with agencies, formalizing signoff processes, raising project level issues at appropriate forums, creating and maintaining project and team level issue logs and conducting periodic status meetings with the project team as well as other stakeholders. 
Created thorough training documentation for the team so that important resources within the team would not be pulled away to support new members joining the team.

eMARS Project for the Commonwealth of Kentucky

Interface Project Manager

Senior Consultant

Planned the performance test of the financial application, including online, nightly batch and daytime run batch processes. 
Created the performance test plan, specifying resource allocation strategy, test plan, target response times, transaction mixes and target transaction throughput for the financial application. 
Refined scope of the effort and negotiated major goals with the client to come up with reasonable and acceptable standards.

Testing Manager

Planned the project for creation of over 300 interfaces with systems from different agencies and departments in the Commonwealth and Advantage Financials: A Java J2EE application based on IBM WebSphere platform.
Created the scope statement and an approach document for the project. Created the WBS to include all tasks in the plan. 
Developed quality and performance standards for departments and agencies so that all interfaces are integrated easily. Provided XML based interface templates to all departments and agencies to facilitate their effort in creating interfaces. 
Created work plans, identified deliverables and roles and responsibilities for managing the Interfaces effort.
Created communication plan, training plan, cutover plan and quality assurance plan for eMARS Interfaces. 
Created a risk response plan by analyzing risk factors, verifying assumptions, identifying risks and planning mitigation strategies.

Interfaces Manager

Managed a multinational and multi-site Development Team for two software releases of the application. 
Managed a System Architects' Team for two software releases including several transitions to and from new environments.
Dealt with the client on a regular basis; negotiating software release content, delivery schedule and discussing critical issues.
Transitioned technical activities to Canada. Effort entailed building a new team and technical/development environment in Canada.
Regularly involved with making staffing decisions about design, development and testing team.

MARS Project for the Commonwealth of Kentucky

Technical Project Manager

Developed various parts of Procurement Desktop (Client/Server based procurement system), including integration with Advantage Financial (Mainframe financial system)
Developed functionality for reporting systems, accounts payables systems, web-based item source searches etc. as well as stand-alone procurement systems like Procurement Cards. 
Maintained, designed and implemented an intricate system of web servers

Technical Analyst

Midwest Business Unit

Wisconsin Integrated Tax System

Managed a team of 10 - 15 developers divided into three sub-teams, through post-implementation phase of the project.
Managed several modifications and maintenance of a JAVA based application based on IBM WebSphere platform using Versata.
Negotiated delivery dates of critical software components with the client. Ensured that client needs are addressed in every solution.
Actively controlled scope of all tasks assigned to the team. Ensured that each change was acceptable, tracked and that each requirement was used to drive the design and implementation of the solution provided.
Developed, communicated and enforced quality standards. Created a framework of auditing quality of work done within the team.
Used RUP (Rational Unified Process) tools like Rational ClearQuest, Rational ClearCase and Rational ReqPro, extensively, to manage the project

Development Manager

Advantage Revenue EJB

Oversaw development of the Returns Processing subsystem of Java-based baseline software for Advantage Tax System.
Learnt the functionality/Business model for a tax system as well as architecture of the application in relatively short period of time. 

MARS Project for the Commonwealth of Kentucky

Returns Processing Team Lead

DevOps Leader with experience in the health insurance industry. Skilled in DevOps, IT Strategy and Management.

taplio

The Battle

Ian Harvey

Tashfeen Mahmood

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