The transition process ran over an eight month period, at the end of which saw a team of 11 staff, in a fully refurbished premises performing 24 x 7 technical support for core systems including Financials, Student Administration, Human Resources and Payroll and the University’s Internet/ Intranet Portal supporting a user base of 35,000 students and 6,000 staff.

After the transition project was successfully completed, Lyndal then settled into her role as head of the department and a key member of the Senior IT Management team. Responsible for a 2 million dollar operating budget, Lyndal’s role included staff and contactor management, financial and budget management, customer management, operational team management and leadership, project management and technical guidance and mentoring of staff.

The department’s activities were spilt into operational support and capital projects. The capital projects the department undertook primarily included ensuring the technical implementation and upgrades of ERP software were managed and effectively supported. The first project the team undertook was a 2 million dollar PeopleSoft Financials upgrade, the role was to ensure the software was installed, supported and functioned as the business expected. All of the core technical support to this project was provided including Oracle database support, analyst support, systems administration, and monitoring and implementation management. The project lasted 12 months and the technical services component of the project came in on-time and on-budget. This project was the first and among many projects to be completed since the department’s inception. Each of the ERP systems supported has all undergone successful upgrades and major technical re-architecting.

Lyndal’s success with the Technical Services Group saw her being asked to take over another similar sized department and combine the two departments together. The Systems and Production team was also a team of 11 staff, with their primary function to provide support for the servers, operating systems, web servers and e-mail.

The combined group remains as the Technical Services Group (now 23 staff) and provides 24 hour, 7 day a week support for over 100 servers and 50 systems ranging from e-mail, Unix support (Solaris and AIX), Linux support, Oracle and SQL Server database support, Microsoft operating system support, SAN and storage support, hardware support, technical application support including PeopleSoft Financials, PeopleSoft Human Resources and Payroll, PeopleSoft Student Administration, PeopleSoft Portal, University Web-Site (external and internal), HR Connect (staff pay and leave details), CECIL- the student learning system, Monitoring and Alerting systems such as IBM Director, Big Brother, Nagios, InfraActive (Help desk system) and the CMS (Content and Document Management system), Shado.

In her time as Senior Consultant with PeopleSoft, Lyndal spent time with a variety of clients undertaking consulting of a technical nature with her focus later shifting to project management and client strategies. She undertook project management of PeopleSoft projects, designed and reviewed multiple client architectures and strategies. She implemented and supported Human Resources and Payroll, Financials, Distribution and Manufacturing, Student Administration and Portal solutions. Lyndal’s position saw her working closely with major hardware and software vendors and facilities management companies. Lyndal has become highly regarded across Australasia for her expertise in PeopleSoft performance tuning and architectural solutions.

Project and Team Management
Lyndal project managed a complex human resources and payroll upgrade worth close to a million dollars. She was responsible for the entire upgrade from a project management aspect. Some of her responsibilities on the project included reporting to the steering committee, managing and scheduling of resource, day to day project issues and managing the technical aspects of the upgrade. The project team consisted of 12-15 members from the client, PeopleSoft and external organisations. This fixed price project was six months in duration and was completed both on time and on budget.

Lyndal was PeopleSoft Infrastructure Manager for a large Australian client, on a multi-million dollar implementation project with a team of more than forty. This role saw Lyndal leading a team of four and directly providing advice and mentoring to the entire project team including project management and the project directors. Lyndal was directly responsible for the design and implementation of an Internet based infrastructure including storage, servers, network, databases and Internet technologies. During Lyndal’s time at this site she managed to successfully implement a three-tiered support and help desk structure to support the project team and eventually the 55,000 PeopleSoft user base.

Lyndal was the project advisor and technical lead for the first PeopleSoft Internet Architecture implementation in New Zealand. This position saw Lyndal in a multi-faceted role mentoring and assisting the entire project team including the project manager. Lyndal oversaw the technical architecture and environment component of the project including designing and implementing the entire PeopleSoft architecture, the resourcing and training of the clients’ technical staff. The project also included migrating across three different operating systems, which then lead to four weeks of stress testing during which Lyndal was the technical lead. This role also involved being a member of the steering group, liaising and reporting to senior management and managing the outsourcing arrangement for the project.

As technical team leader for the upgrade of a human resources and payroll system, Lyndal was responsible for designing an architecture to support the client’s 12,000 employees and to incorporate for growth of more than a third over the next five years. This also included the introduction of HTML access web client architecture for employee self-service. One of her objectives was to increase the team knowledge and provide strategic direction to the team, outsourced resources and management to ensure the success of the project.

Lyndal was technical manager for a project involving the full review of the hardware and software requirements to ensure PeopleSoft and related architecture was Y2K ready. She performed the project management role in addition to technical duties including upgrading servers, operating systems, databases and applications.

Management Consulting
Lyndal was engaged by one of New Zealand’s largest Universities to assist them with planning the strategy for the management and progression of their four PeopleSoft suites. This role saw Lyndal assisting the senior management team with restructuring of their information technology department. In addition she reviewed their current outsourcing arrangement for PeopleSoft support. She was pivotal in the planning, designing and acquisition of a multi-million dollar architecture to support the client’s disaster recovery and future PeopleSoft architecture requirements.

Lyndal provided strategies to the senior IT management of several clients incorporating resourcing and support planning. She defined roles, responsibilities and skills sets required to successfully support large and complex ERP solutions. This involved creating an organisational structure from management down for teams of functional and technical staff ensuring the IT function supports the business strategies.

In addition Lyndal was engaged by a client to review their current service level agreement (SLA) with their facilities manager for the support of their PeopleSoft solutions. The agreement required significant enhancements and amendments to incorporate the requirements of their new Internet based solution.

Performance Tuning and Trouble-shooting
Performance tuning and troubleshooting requires a broad understanding and knowledge of all aspects of business processes and technology architecture as well as specific application knowledge. Lyndal is uniquely skilled in this area. Lyndal was highly regarded amongst PeopleSoft and their clients as one of the best in this field. Of the numerous engagements of this nature that Lyndal has performed throughout Australia and New Zealand, many have required an immediate solution and Lyndal has often been placed in a position where all other avenues of problem resolution have been exhausted and without fail, she has managed to identify and resolve the issues.

In identifying where the issues lie, Lyndal has had to investigate and monitor LANs, WANs, RDBMS including Oracle, Informix, SQL Server and Sybase; Operating Systems including Solaris, HP-UX, Dynix, Tru64, Windows NT and Windows 2000; hardware and web platforms including IIS, Weblogic and Apache. In addition tuning the above, some engagements have required specific application and SQL statement tuning in which Lyndal is highly skilled.

Lyndal was invited to present at an Asia Pacific conference on PeopleSoft performance tuning with Mark Gurry, an internationally renowned Oracle performance tuning expert.

Technical Architecture
Designing an appropriate architecture to run complex ERP and Internet solutions requires firstly an in-depth understanding of the business objectives, requirements and processes. Secondly, knowledge of the available technologies and their strengths and weaknesses is integral in establishing the most appropriate solution. Lyndal has the ability to span the contrasting attributes required to successfully develop architecture strategies to meet each client’s individual requirements.

During her numerous technology architecture engagements Lyndal has been involved in many multi-million dollar designs from proven technologies to the latest state-of-the-art innovative architectures that are the first of their kind in the country.

During these engagements, Lyndal has worked on solutions that have included everything from disaster recovery and high-availability to multi-domained high-end Unix solutions. These engagements have required Lyndal to architect systems ranging from only a few hundred users to more than 50,000 users within the constraints of the various budgets.

Technical Consulting
From time to time, Lyndal was required to provide clients with specific technical advice and expertise. This often involved discussing alternative methods of system administration to routine database maintenance and application archiving.

As a certified PeopleSoft installer, Lyndal has performed numerous installations and upgrades as well as certifying installations performed by clients and partners. Lyndal’s technical background has enabled her to perform installations on a myriad of platforms and architectures from Unix to Windows and SQL Server to Oracle.

Pre-Sales Consulting
As a Senior Consultant, Lyndal was required to be actively involved in the sales process. This work has seen her working on highly complex solutions in response to RFP’s. She has also been involved in detailed scoping exercises, leading technical workshops with prospects and presenting on technical subjects to both business and technical audiences.

Lyndal’s role as Assistant Manager, Corporate Systems within the Auckland office of an international professional services corporation encompassed a broad range of skills and expertise including project management, financial applications and technical systems support, database administration and programming. She has a rare combination of broad technical and financial application experience combined with database, Unix, NT, internet, applications and related skills.

Achievements

• Project managed and implemented server and platform migration of the core financial system
• Performed multiple upgrades of Sybase, SQL Server and Platinum SQL Financials
• Performed development and programmatic changes to user interface, screens and reports for Platinum SQL Financials
• Project managed, selected and implemented an asset management and tracking system
• Designed an electronic based invoice approval system
• Managed the roll out of over three hundred replacement computers
• Designed and produced a pro-type of an intranet based corporate reporting suite
• Trained and assisted finance staff in how accounting principals are implemented in the finance systems
• Database and systems administration of the financial applications including performance monitoring and tuning
• Responsible for the design of an internal project management framework for all corporate systems projects
• Designed and documented the national information technology disaster recovery plan for corporate systems
• Founder and facilitator of the Platinum SQL technical user group
• Management and professional development of the systems administrator
• Management of external contractors and consultants
• Key member of business continuance team during Auckland power crisis
• Responsible for assuring Y2K compliance for Corporate Systems

As Accounts Systems Administrator for an insurance provider, Lyndal was responsible for maintaining and administering system related tasks and processes for the Investment Information System and General Ledger. This role also included reconciliation of the general ledger to the underwriting systems and multi-company, multi-currency consolidations for board level reporting. In addition to this, Lyndal also provided support for the LAN, computers and servers within the Head office.