Comic Relief has a demanding technical environment; for one night of the year, for a peak of about 7 hours, it has the public’s attention and receives donations, and the vast majority of those donations go through a solution developed by Comic Relief’s technologists. That system absolutely has to work for those few hours: there is no second chance.

Technology teams were being run in several places within the business, piecemeal, no coordination, no strategy, exposing the company & charity to significant risk.

As strategy consultant: design an organisational and operating model to bring technology together and have a strategic focus going forwards.

Then, as interim CTO/CIO: consolidate multiple technical organisations into one with operational budget of ~£2.5M, direct and indirect reports (excluding volunteers, short-term contractors, and supplier-managed staff) numbering ~40 to 60. Retain key staff. Absolutely not endanger any part of the key payment systems for Red Nose Day and Sport Relief.

First: listening. Spent considerable time going around the most disgruntled, anti-IT customers within the business, ensuring that they felt their concerns were heard and understood. Documented those concerns.

Designed target organisational structure and operating model for technology; presented to C* level and influenced to agreement.

Presented changes in organisation to disparate technology teams and sold principles to them.

Revised (created…) job descriptions for all roles within technology, with greater emphasis on plain English, clarity, uniformity, and industry standards (SFIA based).

Change managed revisions to reporting lines, bringing all technologists ultimately under CIO line.

Changed emphasis in permanent roles from junior developers to include more leadership roles, and fewer junior roles proportionately.

Made necessary staffing changes.

Delivered single, coherent, delivery-focused technology department and technology strategy to permanent successor.

Identified permanent successor.

Saved £400K consultancy costs by switching key roles to permanent from contractor.

Payment system worked, flawlessly, both for RND 2009 and SR 2010.

If I had failed, you would have heard of me in the news…