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What would you consider to be your main area of expertise?
I’d say that carving up the ski-slopes ranks in the top two,
but presumably this question isn’t referring to recreational
expertise.
My main area of professional expertise is computer application
design. I have a passion for attempting to design the perfect
solution for a given set of business requirements and
available technologies. The more complex the business
requirement the more I enjoy the task.
While most of my Peoplesoft experience is in developing
financial reports and interfaces it is database design and
development of online functionality that I enjoy the most.
I find that my accounting knowledge is often useful. The
combination of accounting and IT technical knowledge is
surprisingly rare.
What project have you most enjoyed working on and why?
P&O Nedloyd’s global implementation of PeopleSoft financials
probably ranks top due to the enormity of the project, the
short time frame in which it was implemented, and the fact
that my main role in the implementation was critical to the
success of the whole project.
The Australian National University’s financials implementation
was a pleasure to work on due to the cohesiveness of the team,
the competence of all involved, and the outstanding project
management.
Designing Ericsson’s PeopleSoft Payroll to SAP General Ledger
interface was very satisfying due to the complexity of the
task, especially in building in user-definable parameters to
provide flexibility.
What would you most like added to the PeopleSoft product?
I’d like to see Peoplesoft continue to enhance and grow it’s
product range in order to grow it’s market vertically and
horizontally, but while maintaining the same quality, and
consistent look and feel and architecture across the whole
range of modules.
Customisable help would be welcomed by many customers.
For developers some additional tools would improve
productivity, as would making some of the existing ones more
friendly, such as the Application engine debugger and data
models.
What is the most frustrating thing about the PeopleSoft product?
Probably that more customers and potential customers don’t
fully appreciate the general excellence of the product range,
and the great potential for it to improve the way that they do
business, and to give them competitive advantage.
Admittedly the complexity of the product is sometimes a bit too
whelming, but this is more than compensated for by the
satisfaction that comes from fully understanding the
complexities, and being able to explain them and make
recommendations as to how best to meet business requirements.
Working for Congruent means that there’s usually already
significant in-house expertise relating to the issue that I can
call on, which reduces frustration, saves time and money, and
ultimately leads to greater customer satisfaction, in turn
leading to greater job satisfaction.
What originally drew you to the consulting or the computing industry?
Designing my first complex computer program as part of a compulsory university course, while most others
were failing and complaining, I was finding it easy and enjoying it. A few years later as a trainee manager
in a large financial institution I decided to design a system so that they wouldn’t need to go through
laborious manual tasks in order to accurately allocate dividend income to clients. I enjoyed the work
so much that I’ve been focussing on systems development ever since.
I was drawn to consulting for various reasons:
Being able to provide services to a variety of organisations, in a various industries, without needing to
change jobs.
Potential to enhance my expertise faster than if working permanently for a single organisation.
Opportunities to work alongside a variety of experts, from whom I can obtain valuable knowledge.
The fact that consultants generally spend more time working on high-profile and mission-critical projects
than do IT department employees.
Why did you join Congruent?
Congruent are virtually unrivalled in their PeopleSoft expertise and reputation,
combined with a passion for encouraging and imparting their knowledge to others.
They also know a good beer when they see one.
Where do you want to be in 5 years time?
I’d like to be living next to the ocean managing my investments, but with the flexibility to climb a
few major mountains, and also to take some time out to tele-commute to Pleasanton to work with one of
my ex-colleagues, Steve, on designing part of version 15.
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