CV for Charles James Barr

CV for Charles James Barr

CURRICULUM VITAE

Charles James Barr M.A.

1.CONTACT DETAILS

1. ACHIEVEMENTS

James has delivered tangible benefits to client organisations:

• Designed and implemented a cost effective solution for data flow charts and data definition documentation to meet Solvency II requirements
• Implemented transformation to organisation, processes, data and systems for complex financial reporting process that achieved cost reduction and time-line savings
• DC pensions data migration project completely delivered to reduce costs of administration and to improve data accuracy
• Delivered a working prototype confectionery recipe database system that replaced the paper system and enabled electronic distribution of master recipe data
• Delivered a prototype packaging supply scheduling system that replaced a complex manual process and reduced production outages and integrated with the manufacturing planning system
• Domestic gas billing application successfully delivered into high volume production enabling business to improve operating cash flow.

3.PERSONAL PROFILE

James is an experienced and qualified Consultant Business Analyst with wide business process transformation, requirement analysis, data definition and modelling, data gap analysis, ETL data migration, functional specification, testing and implementation experience gained over more than 33 years. The majority of his customers have been blue chip PLCs.

He is a self-managing, self-starter and is able to:

• initiate a project from a ‘blank sheet of paper’
• estimate, plan and lead the analysis for projects
• help business representatives to shape solutions and drive projects forward
• actively support a project manager with planning, estimating and tracking.

In addition to extensive business analysis skills with UML data and process diagramming methods, he has a sound technical understanding, strong Oracle SQL plus, and some programming using modern internet technology.

Business areas include: Pensions, Life Assurance, Energy (Oil Downstream), Utilities (Electricity, Gas), Food Manufacture (Brewing, Confectionery), Retailing (Computers, Clothing and White Goods) and Local Government.

Application areas include: Solvency II regulation, ETL data migration, automated email customer communications, sales and marketing statistics, sales order processing, customer database, consumer billing, sales ledger and VAT accounting, manufacturing resource planning (MRP), stock control, warehousing and pension administration and calculations.

James is self-motivated, conscientious, takes a structured and methodical approach to project work and achieves high standards of quality.

4.AVAILABILITY

3, 4 or 5 days per week from Monday 13thFebruary 2012 onwards.

5. CAREER HISTORY SUMMARY

SUN LIFE of Canada, BasingstokeContract Dec 10 to present (Jan 12) – 14 months

James was assigned as the Lead Business Analyst to work on the Solvency II data governance work-stream. He analysed the Solvency II CEIOPS Level 2 Guidance papers, assisted with review of the Data Policy, attended the Data Governance Committee and defined the scope, approach and specific design for the data documentation deliverables. James used UML diagramming standards and implemented standard documentation using Enterprise Architect for delivery of the data documentation. James also produced thedata definition standards document and detailed Enterprise Architect user guide. James assisted in selection of a data quality package by defining requirements and score card. Informatica has been implemented for the data quality element of the data strategy. James piloted an approach using Informatica for implementation of business data quality rules and MI. He has trained two business analysts embedded within the business department to produce data flowcharts and data definition documentation that are Solvency II compliant. Data flow charts, data definition and business data quality rules documentation have now been produced for the raw data input files. The remaining period of this contract will be spent quality assuring the deliverables and completing the handover implementation of the process to the business.

LEGAL & GENERALContractApr 10to Nov 10–8 months

James was assigned as a Senior Business Analyst to work on the Savings Division’s Solvency II programme. He led reviews of the centrally produced policy documents against the Solvency II CEIOPS Level 2 Guidance papers and analysed the impact on the Savings business.He also analysed the current financial reporting process and produced ‘to be’ end-to-end business process and timing models for the Savings’ business Solvency 2 operating process.

PRUDENTIAL ASSURANCE Co. Ltd.Contract Nov 09 to Mar 10 – 5 mths

James was assigned as a Business Analyst to work on Prudential's Solvency 2 ( Solvency II ) development programme. His work is on the Pillar 1 Risk Measurement and he is tasked to produce "to be" end-to-end business process models using the iGrafix drawing toolset. James is also assigned to gather detailed Solvency 2 requirements, produce a business design and oversee the delivery of the aggregation process that communicates the results between Pru UK and Prudential Group.

DEPARTMENT of HEALTH, NETSCC Contract July 09 to Nov 09 – 4 mths.

The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Evaluation, Trials and Studies Co-ordinating Centre (NETSCC) is a division of the Department of Health. NETSCC provides funding and project management services for health related research projects. As a Consultant Business Analyst, James was assigned to a business process re-engineering and systems upgrade project for this health research commissioning institute. James delivered a fully worked UML logical data model, which required analysis of current data, consideration of new data standards and requirements, and contact with business subject matter experts and expert users. To capture and document the data model, James used UML logical data model and use case diagrams in the Enterprise Architect (Corporate edition) case tool.

LEGAL & GENERALContract Mar 06 to Dec 08 – 34 mths.

As Consultant Business Analyst, James was assigned to a business process and systems re-engineering transformation programme for Legal & General's board reporting and external financial reporting process.

• This process had required involvement of more than 100 actuaries and accountants to prepare year-end and quarterly results. This was a costly process that required staff to work under severe time pressures.
• The business process required complex deterministic and stochastic modelling calculations, using the Prophet modelling package and complex hand-offs between several distinct organisational departments.

• The analysis of this process identified that tangible cost savings and time-line reduction could be achieved, by organisational integration of the currently separated departments, more appropriate deployment of skilled staff and systems automation.
• The transformation programme required extensive daily contact with the company's actuaries, accountants, administration teams and their managers, which James conducted through departmental business process workshops and business team sessions.
• James was required to capture the scope, benefits, process, data and functional requirements and perform data gap analysis for the various valuation bases that were being calculated by the actuarial models. The bases included European Embedded Value (EEV), Peak 1, 2 and Statutory Solvency (Solvency 1).
• Problem areas, opportunities for improvement and data gaps were identified, followed by design of new processes and gathering of detailed requirements.
• James provided project management support through Prince 2 methods and reviews, was a lead analyst in the team and deputised for the Project Manager at the Review Board.
• To both project and operational business managers, James presented weekly status reports, MS-Project plans, risk and issues logs for several work-streams to which he was assigned.
• James worked with stakeholders, SMEs, system users and suppliers to develop the organisational changes, skill / role definitions and system solutions. He held regular meetings with business users and stakeholders to confirm that the proposed solution designs met with their agreement and complied with the requirements.

• James used the following diagram types from the UML method, captured in Visio diagrams and MS-Word, to document a business organisation, process and functional view of the transformation requirements:
• UML Use Case Diagrams with Actors to capture an overview of the business requirements and the interactions that each Actor will have with the Activities comprising the business system. He further broke down the use cases as text that described the interactions of the actors with the business system and the requirements in more detail.
• UML Activity Diagrams that describe the Business Process in terms of a timed sequence of steps, with swim-lanes to partition the diagram by the Actors. James documented both current state and future state diagrams and identified the changes that were needed.
• UML Class Diagram to describe the data structures, classes, and their relationships with one another, the cardinality between classes and allowed actions. From these James performed data gap analysis between the current systems and the future system.
• Entity-Relationship Diagrams, from which James has also worked extensively on previous projects (particularly Prudential's data migration project).
• Detailed functional specifications for the new system elements to communicate with the developer.

• James led the analysis and contributed to the completed delivery of changes, which required staff job role specification, recruitment, business team organisational change and systems improvements.
• Significant improvements in timing, effort and cost for these processes were achieved at the following year-end reporting cycle. James’ role was as a business analyst, directly assigned to several sub-programme work-streams, which included all phases in the life-cycle including scoping, requirements, design, UAT and post-implementation warranty period and benefits review.
• Also, as the senior member of a team of business analysts, James acted as a mentor to less experienced members of the team.

PRUDENTIAL ASSURANCE PLC Contract Oct 2002 to Feb 2006 - 40 mths.

As Consultant Business Analyst from Oct 2002 to Nov 2005, James made a major contribution as the lead analyst to a multi-million pound project that achieved reductions in administration costs and improvement in data accuracy.

• These benefits were achieved by migration of defined contribution (DC) pension records data from an older product and mainframe IT platform to the strategic product and modern platform Aquila/administrator.

• In the first three months, for the project start-up phase, James researched major business issues and co-authored the strategic options document. This document examined the business options for the project (pension product, legal and processes) and recorded benefits and disadvantages.
• A six month project initiation phase followed and James documented a detailed migration business process model and data model (including entity relationship diagrams, using Visio, and validated the data dictionary (source & target) and live data value analysis).
• From these he developed data gap analysis and high-level business requirements for changes to both the target IT systems and business processes. This was achieved through running business workshops with close involvement from business subject matter experts.
• The phase then examined the feasibility of technical options, which required extensive contact with Prudential's Legal, Actuaries and IT division and external suppliers. James' previous experience with data migration and an offshore development project was particularly helpful with this contact.
• For risk minimisation, the project planning recommended a multi-stage approach to construction and implementation.
• The initiation phase was completed with supplier ITT, evaluation of supplier responses and preparation of the cost and benefit investment model for the first development stage for migration to Aquila’s PMS/administrator using the Informatica ETL tool.
• James was then involved in all stages of the delivery project, which required establishment of a new business team with personnel who had been trained in performing administration of the pensions through the new application.
• For the data migration, James also prepared a detailed functional specification for an automated system, with an automated 100% data reconciliation and controls reporting sub-system, plus the automated ETL application to migrate the data.
• The software was developed offshore (India) and on delivery, the James was involved in extensive User Acceptance Testing of the automated migration system. James was then involved in the software delivery, implementation and migration of pension schemes’ data in batches, which was completed successfully, delivering all the objectives of the project brief.
• The project took approximately 3 years to complete all stages of the life-cycle, from a short brief to all the batches of company pension schemes running on the new platform, with a newly established business operations team, completion of the warranty period and post-implementation review. Throughout the project, James supported the Project Manager with weekly status reports and MS-project plans, using the Prince 2 method that is mandatory within Prudential.

APPLE COMPUTERS UK LTD.Contract July 01 to Sept 02 15mths

As Consultant Analyst and Project Leader James

• Led both the project planning, and analysis work on all phases of a pan-European project to increase ‘add on’ sales via Apple’s online internet direct “E” shop.

• This improvement in sales was achieved through an automated email communication with customers who placed orders via the internet shop.

• This required gathering of business requirements, writing detailed functional specifications and defining a required data model and data gap analysis.
• The system interfaced with SAP using Vitria middleware.
• An intranet module, deployed using HTML forms in MS Internet Explorer, maintains a library of multi-language, parameterised HTML email templates stored on an Oracle database.
• Email generation was by means of a sophisticated Java program that parsed the email templates for parameters and transmitted personalised HTML emails automatically.
• The construction phase was outsourced offshore and required very detailed functional specification and strong communication skills with the supplier during design, testing and implementation stages.

PRUDENTIAL ASSURANCEContract Dec 99 to May 01 1.5yrs

As Consultant Analyst James led the analysis work on all phases of a project to achieve cost reduction in cash administration for Defined Contribution pensions.

• This was achieved by de-commissioning a legacy system and streamlining the process to an existing alternative system.
• James was required to make simultaneous improvements both to IT systems and business processes.
• Extensive interaction with user groups and the Prudential technical development staff was needed.
• The project was successfully progressed from user requirements, through data gap analysis, functional specification, business process revision, to implementation, live running and post-implementation support.

James was then extended in June 2000 for another project at Prudential to streamline administration of DSS rebate receipts by consolidation of data from several legacy systems into a single Oracle 8 database. All phases of this project were included. Post-implementation support required writing a number of complex Oracle PL-SQL queries.

EASTERN ELECTRICITY & NATURAL GAS

part of TEXAS UTILITIES (TXU) Contract Aug 96 to Nov 99 3 yrs

As Consultant Analyst working on all phases of Domestic Gas programme from user requirements through implementation, live running and post-implementation support:-

Logica Nexus Gas Utility software package implementation Project:

• Testing and implementation for Supply Point Administration and Billing,
• Testing and implementation of BACS Direct Debit processing,
• Requirements analysis, functional specification, testing and implementation of high volume laser printing for bill production on Xerox colour laser printers implemented using the Doc1 language,

• Specification, testing, implementation using Oracle DB and Unix for Multi-site billing and Barclaycard Energy branded billing.

Dual Fuel (Electricity and Gas) Project (Lead Analyst):

• Requirements, functional specification, testing and implementation of Dual Fuel Gas & Electricity marketing offer using Oracle PL/SQL, NT/Client, Delphi.

Migration of Pilot Customers (Lead Analyst):

• Planning, requirements analysis, data gap analysis, functional specification, testing, implementation and data quality control for the data transfer of 12,000 customers from the pilot system to the Nexus Oracle/DB system,

• Data quality reporting using SQL and MS-Access.

Pilot Domestic Gas Utility Billing Project (Lead Analyst)

• Analysis of business process and information requirements,
• Functional specification, data gap analysis, testing and implementation for pilot domestic gas billing system written in Visual Basic, MS-Access, Windows 3.1 and VB SQL,

• interface to Sun Accounts Unix software package.

EASTERN GROUP ITContract Oct 95 to July 96 10 mths

As Consultant Analyst:-

Design, construction and testing of a consolidated project resource estimation system.

Preparation of project reporting statistics for Group IT Investment Committee.

BP OIL UK LimitedContract Nov 91 to July 95 44 mths

As Senior Systems Analyst working on all remaining phases of the ESP project (see overleaf) through to implementation and live running in several European countries. With changing responsibilities as the project progressed, for:

Analysis and documentation of change requests for the ESP project,

Designing a change reporting system using Visual Basic, SQL and Oracle database,

Designing a User Contact reference database for Visual Basic, SQL and MS-Access/DB,

Assisting in the design, testing and operation of a configuration control and software delivery system based on the PCMS package,