My Background

I have 25 years of operations experience, including: change and release management, tiers 1 and 2 support and problem management, service level management and availability reporting, workload and batch scheduling.

My career began in data entry and I moved up through mid-range and mainframe computing operations, to client/server and distributed systems. In the Spring of 2000 I made a career change from internal IS professional to consultant. This change was the best move I could have possibly made because it opened new opportunities and gave me a sense of purpose and strong desire to achieve. It has also allowed me to leverage my experience and knowledge gained in the highly disciplined mainframe world by adding to the body of knowledge and methods of the distributed computing environment.

Today I work for a consulting company and specialize in operational process design and implementation for service support and delivery, with a lot of recent experience in problem and issue management process implementation.

Recent Assignments

The following is a list of assignements in which I have been engaged since the Spring of 2000:

• Development and implementation of problem and change management processes and tools for a Global 50 manufacturer's North American headquarters
• Lead consultant assigned to develop processes, procedures and implementation plans for a major wireless communications company. Processes included recovery management, and workload and batch job management. I also assisted in the development of infrastructure management processes, procedures and implementation plans.
• Developed operations guides for a major health care provider's Customer Relationship Management implementation. Guides encompassed all systems and subsystems comprising the computer-telephony integration architecture. The project scope included an Aspect ACD, Periphonics/Genesys integration into Solaris platforms for IVRs, interfaces to Clarify CRM and customer databases distributed both geographically and heterogeneously (Oracle, rdb, Informix, Sybase), and telecommunications interfaces into services provided by MCI.
• Lead consultant assigned to a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC). Developed policies, processes and procedures for problem and facilities management and user administration.
• Assigned as quality analyst on an engagement for an international engineering firm to review deliverables produced in connection with a service level management project.

Extra Curricula and Consulting

After-hours consulting (non-compete basis with employer):

• Assisted in the development of a service delivery strategy for Kuwait National Petroleum Company, including co-authoring problem management, opportunity management and change control processes and procedures
• Co-developed service delivery project plan for Kuwait National Petroleum Company
• Peer reviewer for organizational restructuring strategy and systems and applications strategic direction document for Kuwait National Petroleum Company

Published Works

Some of my work includes:

• Co-Editor, Information Technology Management Newsletter
• Co-author of facilities management policies, processes and procedures for a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC). See my facilities management research performed in conjunction with this effort.
• Co-author of Survival Level Objectives concept for business continuity planning (see diagram for more information)
• Co-Developer of the Tarrani-Zarate Information Technology Management Model for service and application delivery. See Newsletters, Book Reviews and Downloads Page. Additional information available upon request)
• Technical Book Reviewer for Amazon - read my reviews if you're interested
• Wrote a white paper on recovery management (see storyboard used to develop this white paper). Download the whitepaper (MS Word file in Zip archive).
• Assisted in the development of an operational maturity model for IT operations management. This model paralleled SEI's Capability Maturity Model in many respects, and was focused on service and applications delivery
• Had the opportunity to review a book proposal for Cisco Press - this came about because of the attention that my Amazon reviews drew when the publisher was surveying similar books on the market and noticed the large number of book reviews I had written on the subject

Avocational

My personal mission in life is to help others as a means of repaying those who have opened doors for me, helped me to achieve and inspired me to be the best in my personal and professional life.

Research interests include:

• Service delivery, especially the work being incorporated in the IT Infrastructure Library and institutionalized by the IT Service Management Forum (see blueprint). I also closely follow the work of Vrije Universiteit in support of the IT Service Capability Maturity Model.
• Service Level Management, including service level agreement development, metrics and managing reliability, availability and service to bridge the gap between IS/IT and business operations.
• Quality Management Techniques, such as Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis, process improvement and software quality assurance.

1. BASIS, which stands for Building Assurance Systems Into Services. The BASIS page is still under construction.
2. PEGASIS, which stands for Process Engineering Guidelines for Into Administrative Services and User Support. The PEGASUS page is still under construction.

I work closely with Mike Tarrani, who is my closest friend, mentor and colleague. Mike maintains a web page that makes available an incredible array of technical information, documents and tools on a variety of subjects including software development, project management and software quality assurance. He also reviews books on Amazon, and is my co-editor for theInformation Technology Management Newsletter that we publish.

If you have mutual interests or want additional information please do not hesitate to e-mail me, Mike or both of us. Sharing information is important, as are helping others and exchanging ideas.