Stephen Degnan

Past

IT Programme Manager, Faster Payments Inbound at hbos
IT Programme Manager, Strategic Retail expansion, Ireland at HBOS
IT Programme Manager, Mainframe strategic consolidation at HBOS

UK Competency development manager at IBM Global Services
EMEA outsourcing delivery development - distributed environments at IBM Global Services
IT service delivery manager at IBM Global Services

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Education

The University of Glasgow

Recommended

7 people have recommended Stephen

Connections

105 connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

Stephen Degnan’s Summary

I am a highly effective and pragmatic Senior IT Professional with 17 years experience providing IT Programme Management, Service Delivery Management, Transition, Consultancy, Organisational Change, Outsourcing and Strategic Development. I have operated in a wide variety of sectors in the UK and internationally. Through my drive, natural leadership, insight, problem solving skills, commercial skills and forward thinking have consistently achieved positive results.

With excellent skills in full lifecycle complex IT Programmes, Portfolio and Service Delivery Management, I have led across enterprise architecture, application development, infrastructure, testing, programme office, transition and service delivery. I am an APM Certified Project Manager and have consulted and managed deployment of project management and service delivery process best practice. Through my work with many clients I am familiar with a wide variety of standards and methodologies (Prince 2, ITIL, 6 Sigma, etc) allowing me to provide a structured but flexible approach in management. In many instances I have provided considerable expertise, troubleshooting and recovery plans to get large programmes and service back on track.

Having a notable eye for detail and quality, “can do” attitude, an open and honest management style and strong communication skills, I have a solid record in providing genuine value and consistent delivery.

MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS
*Delivered £30m+ Full scope IT Programme for creation of Halifax Retail Bank, Ireland
*IT Programme Manager for launch stage of Faster Payments for HBOS
*Programme Manager, HBOS data centre consolidation and disaster recovery (£20m)
*Defined / delivered new business model for rationalisation of IBM UK Outsourcing helpdesks and on site support for 20+ customers, with improved processes / technology, saving £3m PA
*Portfolio managed solution and service transition to UK IBM of helpdesk / distributed customers

Stephen Degnan’s Specialties:

APM Certified Project Manager (~IPMA Level B Senior PM/ Prince II Practitioner)
Delivery of complex IT programmes through full lifecycle
Service delivery transition and management internationally (ITIL / bespoke)
Strategic thinking / leading IT organisational change
Defining and delivering enterprise disaster recovery
Strong financial management - business case to benefit realisation
Excellent communication, influencing, stakeholder and people management skills across many industries

Stephen Degnan’s Experience

IT Programme Manager, Faster Payments Inbound

hbos

(Public Company; Banking industry)

June 2007 — August 2008 (1 year 3 months)

The largest programme in HBOS for 2007/2008, with a budget of over £120m and an Office of Fair Trading deadline. I was appointed as IT Programme Manager to effectively ensure the disprrate IT systems were brought together, developed, tested and launched on time. An open but authoritative style was essential to ensure all stakeholders were brought on, whilst maintaining exceptionally demanding deadlines.

Achievements:
• Responsible for IT system integration, testing, application and infrastructure implementation and successful launch of the HBOS Faster payments capability to industry target date.
• Innovative industry early testing of the live system 48 hours in advance, which assured successful launch
• Established the overall IT implementation “template” for introduction of all HBOS payment services

Other Responsibilities:
• Matrix management of over 300 staff and multiple suppliers internationally
• Managed line team of 15 project managers and architects
• Management of 6 internal business IT divisions
• Major risk, issue and change management
• Ensure all functional and non-functional testing is sound (ST, IST, UAT, OAT)
• Validation and assurance of entire enterprise architecture design
• Development and assessment of implementation, change, readiness plans and contingencies
• Ensure all service management SLAs and processes were defined, manageable and ITIL driven
• Senior stakeholder management at bank executive level
• Chair IT Management Group (effective control of senior risk, issue and change control)
• Duty service manager for the new service in the first live month
IT Programme Manager, Strategic Retail expansion, Ireland

HBOS

(Public Company; Banking industry)

March 2006 — June 2007 (1 year 4 months)

The largest IT Programme in HBOS for 2006/2007, creating the first new Retail Bank in Ireland for over 100 years, I was recruited as overall IT Manager to define, manage and deliver the overall IT systems and service.

This programme proved especially challenging due to the considerable differences in programme methodologies and cultural styles across the UK, Ireland and Australia. It required a very effective and adaptable management style in order to meet it’s goals.

Achievements:
• Successfully delivered all IT elements for a new full scope Halifax Retail Bank in Ireland.
• Seamless introduction of new well structured, full scope IT services to support the bank.
• Overhaul of Programme Office to apply an effective methodology to control the programme
• Audited internally and externally as “best practice” run programme

Other Responsibilities:
• £30m budget and over 400 staff (10 direct senior PM reports)
• Define and transition new IT support services (helpdesk, third party contracts, remote support)
• Delivery of all infrastructure, development, applications, integration, testing, ATMs, internet banking, data migration, wintel servers, branch clients, disaster recovery and business continuity.
• Systems deployed across data centres and 40 new branches
• Management of several suppliers across multiple geographies (Unisys, HBOS Australia, BT)
• Chairing IT Steering Group – with major finance, risk, issue and change management control
• Weekly Reporting to bank executive level
IT Programme Manager, Mainframe strategic consolidation

HBOS

(Public Company; Banking industry)

June 2004 — March 2006 (1 year 10 months)

Overall Programme manager (business and IT) to upgrade and consolidate all HBOS Mainframes, associated infrastructure and provide improved service stability, fault tolerance and industry leading 2 hour automated disaster recovery.

Strong vision and team building skills were required to convince all business divisions that their input and support was required to make this technically led programme a success.

Achievements:
• Successful migration and consolidation of all HBOS mainframes to new systems (over 40 logical systems and thousands of applications)
• Establishment and full live disaster recovery testing of mainframes, enterprise storage (SAN) and ATMs across geographically dispersed sites
• Consolidation and refresh of legacy windows/midrange and 3rd party networks
• Benefits realisation of £8m per annum
• Implementation of 5000 technical changes with no unplanned impact to service
• Audited internally as “best practice” run programme

Other Responsibilities:
• Budget responsibility for £20m and matrix management of over 100 staff
• Definition and introduction of new SLAs / KPIs
• Rationalisation of mainframe software
• Stakeholder management of multiple business divisions with differing priorities
• Chair of steering group with senior responsibility for risk, issue, change and financial management
• Senior escalation point for business and IT divisions
UK Competency development manager

IBM Global Services

(Public Company; IBM; Information Technology and Services industry)

November 2002 — June 2004 (1 year 8 months)

Achievements:
• Applying best practice Service Delivery and Programme Management processes across all UK Outsourced accounts with helpdesk and on site wintel servers/desktops
• Effectively implementing new KPIs across all accounts to effectively measure service standards, quality and cost
• Portfolio Management of all new business transition for outsourced customers
• Analysis and rationalisation of UK on-site support and helpdesk structure with multi-million pound annual savings.

Other Responsibilities:
• Led technology practice for desktop/windows for the UK with senior architects
• Line management responsibility for 120 staff, with a budget of £5m covering: technology strategy, new business solutions, contract reviews, new business service transition, project and programme delivery.
EMEA outsourcing delivery development - distributed environments

IBM Global Services

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; IBM; Information Technology and Services industry)

August 2001 — November 2002 (1 year 4 months)

Responsible for development of desktop/on site support model across EMEA for IBM outsourcing.
Achievements include:
* Development of European integrated helpdesk and on-site delivery model to reduce overall cost of support
* Programme management of service level improvement and quality initiatives across UK and Europe
* Rapid identification of opportunities, issues and risks for business integration of desktop delivery across two IBM divisions covering 6,000 people.
* Identification, definition and UK delivery of Distributed Delivery Best Practice encompassing: measurements, delivery processes, resource costing, standardised job descriptions and education.
IT service delivery manager

IBM Global Services

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; IBM; Information Technology and Services industry)

August 2000 — August 2001 (1 year 1 month)

Responsible for delivery of service, budget and IT customer service for a large electronic integration company's UK and Ireland operation.

Achievements include:
* Creation and management of five desktop, server and network and project support teams covering 30 staff throughout UK and Ireland delivering service to customer base of 3,500 users across 10 locations plus mobile users.
* Delivery of full technology infrastructure new 250 seat brown field customer site within three months of request.
* Coordination of site support transition to central European helpdesk.

Other responsibilities included: Working with customer to negotiate and clarify contract, liasing with senior customer management on service improvements strategies and delivery issues, staff and team development, managing escalation of service issues, financial control of delivered service.