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David Blakey's career

Summary

Introduction

Contact information

Name	David John Blakey
Postal address	PO Box 74-235 Market Road Auckland
Mobile telephone	025 953 794
Nationality	British New Zealand residency
Driving licence	New Zealand Class 1

Experience

David Blakey has over 30 years' experience with information systems and services, during which his roles have ranged from software development to strategic planning. He has worked for both vendors and customers, and his clients have included both corporate and government organisations.

Skills

• Manager
  David is a highly competent manager, skilled in delegation, counselling and coaching, projects, strategy and communication.
  
• Director
  During his career David has been involved in the formation of two companies; he was a director of one of them. He also set up the consulting branch of a software and services company.
  
• Instructor
  He is a regular and sought-after public speaker and instructor, specialising in the acquisition of information systems and services and the application and construction of service level agreements. His presentations and courses challenge the audience to work from first principles and to be led by their objectives rather than by tools and techniques. He has planned, developed and delivered a number of training courses.
  
• Writer
  David has contributed articles to the Web Developer's Journal and is the editor of Consulting Journal.
  
• Consultant
  David is highly regarded for his pragmatism, often telling his clients that his two major skills are to work from first principles and to apply common sense. He views consulting as the delivery of results rather than as the delivery of recommendations. David is comfortable discussing business issues with all levels of business personnel, and is able to generate and maintain relationships based on honesty, openness and trust.

Consulting

David is currently working as an independent management consultant, specialising in the following areas.

• Service-based view
  David advises clients on shifting their perspectives from a systems-based view of the IT department to a service-based view. This includes taking a top-down approach from the business objectives through the services and outcomes that drive the business, to prepare an "information services strategy" rather than an information systems strategic plan (ISSP). This also involves developing procurement strategies, where these have not been defined already on a company-wide basis, and outsourcing strategies, where outsourcing and contracting out are the preferred methods for providing information services. David also guides the construction of service level agreements, again working in a top-down method. He ensures that SLAs are developed by all the parties concerned.
  
• Acquisitions
  In addition to this, David advises clients on systems and services acquisitions, bringing his experience working for both customers and vendors to the development of requirements and the selection of the most appropriate method to use to acquire systems or services to meet the requirements. David attempts to avoid lengthy and expensive RFP processes where short objective tendering processes or simple subjective selection processes may be more effective. As David said at a recent conference: "If the RFP involves six months of work by the customer and six short-listed providers, but the selection will be made largely because of how the customer feels after a one-hour demonstration by each provider, don't we get the impression that maybe we're doing something wrong?"
  
• Bid management
  David also provides bid management services to providers. This involves building a plan for each bid that includes the appropriate use of people and resources and the setting of priorities based on what the customer actually regards as important.
  
• Project diagnostics
  David assists clients in introducing project diagnostics as a core skill for project managers. A project diagnosis is a short review of the current status of a project and its projected future status, with recommendations for action, where these are required. It is less comprehensive than a full-scale, ongoing project audit and more immediate than a post-implementation review. A project diagnosis can be run to confirm that a project is running well or to determine how serious a project's problems are. David is convinced that, for many organizations, project diagnoses can best be conducted by in-house people rather than by external consultants: the diagnoses are likely to be shorter and to take greater consideration of the organisation's project culture. He therefore offers workshops and a period of guidance and coaching to enable existing project managers to build project diagnostic skills.

Information technology

In information technology, David also has particular strengths in:

• Information systems strategic planning (ISSP)
• Due diligence of corporate IT systems
• Alignment of information systems with business processes
• Technology requirements definition and procurement
• Contract negotiation and administration
• Complex solutions delivery and multiple projects management
• Quality assurance and systems reviews
• Training planning, development and delivery.

Management

As a professional manager, David has skills and experience in:

• Business practice at board and executive levels
• Marketing, sales and negotiation
• Leadership, coaching and personal development.

Sectors

David has worked in a broad range of sectors, including:

• Banking & Finance
• Central Government
• Energy
• Information Technology
• Local Government
• Manufacturing & Distribution
• Military
• Professional Services
• Retail
• Telecommunications.