Far from home

I have just arrived in Helsinki and I feel far away from home in more ways than one.

Obviously wife and child are far away in the south of France at the minute, but it's the northern chill stepping off the plane that struck me tonight. I think back to my roots and the days of growing up in Newcastle and heading off to the Quayside and Bigg Market for a pint or three in a short sleeved shirt. What the hell was I thinking? I would hazard a guess and say that it would now be physically impossible for my body to accept such reckless treatment. As I got off that plane all I could think was, "where are my gloves and bobble hat". Macho O'Brien from Newcastle has long since bitten the dust.

I was also struck by something else today. I was pleasantly surprised to see that although I haven't had an internet connection for most of the day, the world did not end. In fact, I was actually pretty efficient and had some very useful conference calls. A couple of calls have even spawned further business trips and hopefully AIMS projects in France (C&HT) and Ireland (Products). More anon.

The only other place I would have wanted to be tonight is in Brussels. It is a city that holds a special place in my heart after having worked there for 18 months. Tonight sees the end of the Accenture contract on which I was worked. There is a big farewell do and I was sad to miss it. Hopefully Laurent, Bert, Francois and Jason will do me proud and have a pint for me.

6 week order book

In the days when we used to be a private company (the days of Andersen Consulting), the senior folk used to tell us lowly analysts that the order book only went out 6 weeks, hence the reason why they needed to try and sell new contracts every day. That has obviously changed slightly with the onset of long term outsourcing contracts that we're now so fond of (guaranteed revenue streams keeping Senior Executives and the markets happy). However after having been working on a number of RFPs since I left Fortis earlier this year, I have been reminded of how precarious our business really is.

In addition to that, I was also talking to a couple of non AIMS SEs recently; one lamented the fact he was going to have to make cuts simply because clients were taking too long to sign on the dotted line; the second complained about needing to identify 6-7 senior managers in his group and the negative impact on client relationships that losing these people would inevitably have on his practice. As much as I am all for short term targets in support of an overall strategic goal, (and obviously KPIs and dahsboards to support this because I am from AIMS), I think this is clearly a sign of the "now now now times" in which we live.

Moral of the story: multiple I suppose, including having to lie in the bed you've made, but possibly the most important is to be staffed, and to constantly try and learn new things in which you're genuinely interested. More on that last point either tomorrow or Tuesday. I am travelling to Finland to see one of our favourite clients tomorrow so I won't have a connection for much of the day. I'll be in Helsinki for most of the week working on an RFP response that will involve AIMS guys from all over Europe including the Nordic and ASG regions amongst others. A good experience which will hopefully have a happy outcome - that one's due in on the 22nd April.

What I want to be when I grow up....

I don't know how many of you are aware of SI&T's Managed Delivery programme. It's been running for a year or so but has been focused on Senior Executives and Senior Managers. It seems to be taken fairly seriously - it's the first time I have seen Accenture award "internal certification" in all my time here. I know they are planning to roll this out more widely, but for all of those of you who aspire to be considered as competent delivery managers of technology projects, then I encourage you to get a headstart and start reading some of the materials.....here's a link or two to get you off the mark.

https://kx.accenture.com/ProcessService/Pages/SITSADL.aspx and https://methodology.accenture.com/core_sol_plan_sit/#meth.sol_planning_si/guidances/roadmaps/SP%20for%20SI%20Home_ABE897B7.html

Let me know if you need more information. Also let me know if this scares/bores you to death and prompts you into making a radical change to the direction of your career :-)

Big Brother says the future's bright, the future's BI CCs and MDM!

The future's bright but my copy and paste skills are not...I've just lost my longest ever posting. Don't ask. Let me distill the key points from my endless waffle......

1. You're a good bunch of skilled people. I've more or less finished my round of introductory phone calls and I'm impressed with what I've heard.

2. The pipeline is looking good, much better than January. We've already won some deals e.g. Vodafone. We've been short listed for others (there's a big deal where Davide Corda is flying the flag for us in Dublin in orals next week). We also continue to be invited to speak to clients on a range of topics e.g my visit to a pharmaceutical company earlier this week in the lovely Macclesfield....

3. Everyone wants to talk about BI or IM Competency Centres or Master Data Management (MDM). They are oh so very sexy at the minute it seems. So if you were wondering where to direct your AIMS career....there's your answer.

4. Another bit of good news - we currently have zero analysts or consultants on the bench. The last consultant, Simon Burnett was shipped off to the capital of glamour...yep, you guessed it, Newcastle. He's off to work for HMRC. He only spent a week on the bench so it's really good to see that we are managing to get people back out working quickly. I need to start looking at the manager situation as of tomorrow!

The future's bright but this evening is not. Good night all, until tomorrow.

Information Newsflash 4

Admittedly an article more about content management than BI or EDM, but still very interesting all the same for a number of reasons e.g. the fact that an IM vendor is Britain's biggest software vendor, the resilience of software vendors in the economic downturn (especially IM vendors), the fact that a business publication such as the Economist is talking openly about structured and unstructured data, and the fact that Autonomy was initially funded by a drunken loan agreed over a pint in a pub.

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13185883

Will you still love me when I'm....er....69

Either reassuringly or worryingly (depending on your point of view), I was thinking about you lot whilst reading a couple of articles in the Economist this weekend.

First, the long term navel gazing article - the business section profiled Ram Charan. A 69 year old who is a one man band consultancy. He started out working in a shoe shop in India and is now a trusted advisor to numerous CEOs throughout the world. Quite simply, do you really want to be a consultant at 69 - he racked up 500,000 miles on planes last year and gets clean clothes couriered to him by his executive assistant. Not sure if that's really what I'm after - in fact I'd be happy if my wife just did more of my ironing.......Read the full article at http://www.economist.com/people/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13183962 for those of you who subscribe to this publication.

Slightly less philosophical was the second article, "What can banks learn from the clean-up after the telecoms crash of 1997-2003". I thought this might be interesting for those of you who aspire to work in FS, and for those of you who are working at phone companies (a large number of the group). Conclusion: "For telecoms, the glamour and infamy were followed by mediocrity. Banks are still staggering about in the limelight, but the same fate surely awaits them"....The full article is at http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13185901. Interesting because it might help us understand how long before we can expect to do some decent work in FS again.

Let me know by mail if you are interested in reading the articles but don't have access and I'll read it to you over the phone with cookies and a glass of warm milk.

Would you like fries with that sir?

After having given a bottle of warm milk to a 3.5 month old baby I’m now sitting in McDonalds doing my final emails of the week due to a dodgy internet connection at home. Given the fact that I am in France for the weekend maybe “would you like fries with that” should be “voulez vous des frites avec ca?!” (Just for the record, and contrary to popular belief, the French call their chips simply “frites”, and not “frites francaises” or any variant of that – you see they’re not really that arrogant after all….).

All in all it’s been a good week. We’re on the verge of getting our bench down to a very handsome size – with a bit of luck Sai Chin Li, Neil Dsouza and Amit Shah will all start new projects on Monday. We’ve also had our first transfers to Australia confirmed……now there’s a way to change your life if ever there was one. My work has been going well, and preparation for my workshop for AstraZeneca next week is almost complete. We’re also expecting a couple of big RFPs in the not too distant future and I may be back off to see my old friends at Nokia in Finland in 10 days or so. So all in all much to be positive about! I hope you all have a good weekend and speak to you next week.

It's good to talk

Finally I'm back home after finishing my course in Belgium. Although it was 3 days well spent with copious amounts of mirth and Belgian beer, I'm happy at the prospect of sleeping in my own bed tonight.

I'm also happy that I've managed to speak to most of you on the phone over the last couple of weeks. The intention is to speak to you all to get to know you a bit better so if you haven't received a call yet, it's on its way! Although I'm beginning to see that the role involves a lot of administration, the up side is definitely getting to speak to all of you as well as getting a better view of the upcoming pipeline of work. There is still some industrialisation of certain processes to put in place, but I'm beginning to feel like I'm getting things under control.

Good night all and thanks to Laurent Dalard and Jason Selling for organising the last few days in Brussels.

The world is even smaller than I originally thought...

And that's got nothing to do with VR!! I'm still sunning myself in Brussels at the Solution Architecture course and I've stumbled across a couple of old AIMS friends here - Erwin Vorwerk and Rob Aaldijk - the BI and PCM leads for AIMS in the Netherlands. In fact the Dutch have invaded Belgium by storm this week - 8 of the 15 people on the course over 7 foot tall, rude, pragmatic and look like they've been smoking copious quantities of soft drugs.

There are actually quite a few of you based on international projects including Adrian Hiliary in Norway and our perennial traveller Andrea Sulzenbacher who is on her way to South Africa now after recently finishing a stint in Singapore. There's much to be learnt from different cultures and it's often quite different from working in the city in London. Register and then check out https://www.globesmart.com/portal.cfm to understand how best to work with people from different cultures (the way the world and our company is going; if you haven't worked with an offshore delivery centre yet, it's only a matter of time).

From Information Builders to Skill Builders

Today's epistle comes from sunny Brussels. I am doing the mandatory SI&T Solution Architect course. I have to say that apart from a single one day course I attended recently, I find the quality of Accenture training courses to be very high; much improved when compared to the courses I used to attend a few years ago. This one has started well so fingers crossed that the standard is maintained for the next two days.

This course has the added advantage of being in Brussels, where as you may know, I spent the last 18 months working for Fortis Bank. I also assure you that it's pure coincidence that it is St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. I'm off for a small "warm up event" with some former clients and team mates so I wish you a pleasant evening and don't look too early for tomorrow's posting!

Information Newsflash 3

Check out this link from Information Builders to access the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms. Again you may need to register to access it: http://www.informationbuilders.co.uk/about_us/analysts_reports.html

I am guessing Information Builders must have come out of it fairly well if they are publishing it on their website, but hey, it's probably worth a read if you consider yourself a Business Intelligence professional.

In fact you should all know that there is an even easier way to access all Gartner content via myresearch.accenture.com. I will prepare a short communication about it soon, but if you can't wait that long, then give me a ring and I'll explain how to get it straight away.

Side splitter

Thursday finished off well with a visit to the Comedy Store with my counselees and a certain Shane Groeger. Some of the acts were positively hilarious but unfortunately I don't think I will be able to weave many of their jokes into my next presentation at an AIMS event or upcoming client workshop. You can be assured that if you hear me mention "language dwarfs", "Wayne Rooney's brother" or "the dunk of optimism", then you know I've stolen the material. Catch me in a calm moment offline and I'll happily share the references with you!

It's a small world

It's been a funny old day. I've spent time in the QVS and FCS offices today and bumped into some old faces that I haven't seen since my analyst days of yesteryear. I've even bumped into old faces that have left the firm and just happen to work in the neighbourhood (John Masters for those who know him). Just goes to prove both the old maxim that the world's a small place, and the less well known but equally valid saying, "when unstaffed it's good to hang around the office and go to the cafe to buy dolly mixtures and jelly beans". The other good news is that I'm beginning to get a handle on who's in the group, who knows what, plus what the demand pipeline is looking like.....more anon. I'm in the middle of doing mid-year reviews with my counselees. Happy campers so far. The next one is due soon so I'll sign off here.

Information Newsflash 2

Here's somebody who's been punched a lot more than me recently....Bearing Point...check out the report at http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=lcUS21734309 Note that you might need to register for this news source but well worth it to understand why one of our niche BI competitors has come a cropper...

Punch Drunk

The Punch Bit: Yesterday's SI&T Call - it went ok; I exited the call slightly bruised and battered but nothing more serious, this week. Mr. Oates is looking for a significant reduction in our bench (he includes people on training and vacation in the overall bench figure). We need to get it down from 24 odd people to 5-8. Lots more work to be done and extra pressure on us (including myself) to get out on chargeable roles. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me or Kelly if you having trouble finding a role.

The Drunk Bit: I'm really looking forward to seeing some of you in the pub tonight. Don't forget, low (no) budget and high mirth content at The Ship, 3 Hart St, as of 6.30pm with a bit of luck.

What a feast! Cue Indigestion and Contentness.

They say the early bird catches the worm. If that's the case and if I were actually a bird, I would be suffering from a heavy bout of indigestion right now. For some reason I'm up ridicuously early - the worms wouldn't know what had hit them.

For someone about to enter the "Jeremy Oates Lion's Den", where many a man has met a gory end, I'm feeling rather chipper. The Lion's Den, otherwise known as the "Weekly SI&T Scheduling Task Force Conference Call", happens every Tuesday morning at 9AM. The call regroups a single executive from every CSG and Growth Platform to explain their bench and share ideas on how to get people back working (think Oates = market maker armed with pick axe). Despite being something of a "voyeur" on the call last week as John made his parting appearance, this is the first time I go it alone. Strangely, I'm feeling rather upbeat, although they do say ignorance is bliss. My confidence is due to both our bench being slightly lower than last week, and because I feel I have all the necessary information at my finger tips. For that, my thanks go out to Kelly Ann and Sanjay Patel (a highly impressive, no nonsense SE who really knows how to manage his stuff for those who don't know him).

If your correspondant survives the morning ahead, I'm sure there will be another posting soon enough. Keep busy and as an old friend of mine likes to say, "work harder".

Pandora's Box

I hope you all had a good weekend. I was delighted that the rain held off for the show jumping yesterday. Overall everything went well, although I narrowly lost out by less than a second to a 70 year old ex French Olympic rider (Dominique Bentejac). At least I still have time on my side.

Handovers are essential but it's only when you start flying solo that you really see what needs to be done. With John diving in Mexico and completely unreachable, I've started to look under the bonnet in more detail....hopefully we'll manage to get a few more of you off the bench today and back into the swing of project life. My next major task will be to get a clearer view on the different roles out there that we need to get staffed....matching demand with supply if you like.

It's actually the first time in 9 years that I've been on the bench so it's giving me an interesting insight into this part of company life, (as well as giving me more time to understand exactly what I need to do to replace John). I also intend to use some of that time to start making contact with many of you. A process which will probably take a at least a few weeks given the size of the group. More anon....

Information Newsflash 1

Apologies for a second posting in the same day, but I couldn't resist. Talking to clients about the latest features of the next release of a software product rarely cuts the mustard. Talking about real world events where data plays a key role tends to resonate much more. In this blog I will try and help make you more "real world information aware" with the odd random post like this one. Check out.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7927487.stm

Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing here?

Although I've promised Paul Stainsby (AKA "The Delinquent" to his close friends and family) of the AIMS Newsletter a more in depth interview, here's a quick starter biography....

Despite not being a believer in the ethnic nation, I am actually the holder of both Irish and British nationality. I originally hail from the North East and have been in Accenture for 9 years. I have spent time as a member of the London, Paris, Manchester and Newcastle offices. As you can see, I've basically done a round trip. The only slight issue is that on my way I picked up a French wife and child, meaning that I now spend my time between my native Newcastle, the south of France and wherever my project work is....

My greatest achievement in life was avoiding being staffed on the NIRS project as a new analyst,(as a Newcastle lad graduating in Politics, Philiosophy & Economics from Oxford, it was a bit of an obvious choice for the firm to try and send the Geordie back to where he came from). I joined the Resources CSG and have been working with "data" ever since. I left the CSG as a C2 to move into the GTC Business Intelligence group in France. Despite the rumours, my decision had nothing to do with the fact that the Resources CSG was being run by a real rogues gallery including Royce Bell, Nick Millman and Will Gatehouse.

I've been back in AIMS UK since 2007 but I continued to work in continental Europe, notably in Belgium with the the well known sharp dresser and loveable Davide Corda. I'm currently finishing off a couple of RFP bids, understanding what I need to do in this new role, and waiting for some big projects to come through so I can get myself off the bench.

That's probably a rather large bite sized chunk so I'll leave it there. Have a good weekend all; the start of the French amateur show jumping season is on Sunday so I'll go and have a crack at that. Until next time.

The First 100 Days starts here

As we both commence our new assignments, I think there are already a few differences between me and Barack. While he's launching his $825 bn stimulus plan I'm battling to get some budget for some informal introductory drinks next Wednesday. I also hope that the PCM guys are going to be nicer to me than the Republicans are being to Barack. There are however a few similarities e.g. a successful handover. John Adams has done a sterling job and F&PM's gain is our loss - all the best for the future my friend!

The purpose of this blog is not only to keep in touch with you all in a semi-informal bite-sized way, but also to give you a little insight into who am I, what I am up to, and where I see us all going together. Speak to you tomorrow troops.