James Youngman

James is a software professional with strong interpersonal and advanced technical skills. He has held responsibility for projects at all stages of their lifecycles. James' strengths include communication skills, technical architecture and design, Enterprise application integration, middleware, Oracle database administration, TCP/IP networking, embedded systems and Unix programming. He is a member of the international body responsible for setting Unix industry standards.

Industry Experience

Skills & Competencies

Career Summary

Career History

LogicaCMG
Oct 1998 - May 2005

James has held a wide variety of roles within LogicaCMG, including solution and technical architecture roles, technical manager, and team leader at various times; most of these roles have been customer-facing roles within projects and bids. He has also acted as an individual consultant, providing clients with strategic skills and expertise. As of 2004, James has also taken management responsibility for a staff team whose size averages 9. This includes responsibility for performance management, staff development and training, downward cascade of company communications, disciplinary and grievance procedures, career guidance and a range of related responsibilities usual for line management roles (but not including day-to-day direction of those staff, since their roles shift between projects).

James's own roles have included the following:

Dec 2003 - Date : Technical Architect : NHS Care Records System

This is Europe's largest IT programme, in which £3.5bn contracts have already been awarded. The most crucial segment of the programme is the provision of the central "Spine" service, which stores the patient records and exchanges data with local systems. BT is prime contractor for the Spine, but responsibility for provision of the systems that actually store and manage the patient data is subcontracted to LogicaCMG (contract value over £100m). James is a member of the LogicaCMG Design Authority for this programme (the team has 5 other members), and his responsibilities and achievements in this role have been:

Responsibility for phase 1 release 2 interfacing and for liaison between the LogicaCMG and BT Design Authorities.
Responsible for ensuring that the deployed systems actually work (i.e. that the client achieves those technical milestones which relate to LogicaCMG deliverables). Achieved this; met the deadlines.
Technical authority within BT on LogicaCMG's deliverables into the programme. This covers all aspects of technical assurance including project planning, staff selection, service failure mode modelling and change planning.

Many of these roles and responsibilities have been carried out embedded within the client team, where James has developed a reputation as an authoritative source of information while still maintaining LogicaCMG's commercial position. James's involvement in the programme was highlighted by the client programme manager as a critical success factor in BT's meeting its go-live and later milestones.

June 2003 - Dec 2003 : Integration Lead : NHS LSP Bid

This was a very large (over £1 billion) and strategic bid in the Healthcare sector. Responsible for overseeing and directing the design and implementation of the integration architecture of a heterogeneous "best-of-breed" system that delivered systems to support healthcare across the full spectrum of clinical settings (primary, acute and community healthcare). Oversaw the design of the integration mechanisms and led the development effort. Played a key role in discussions with potential vendors of EAI products and wrote parts of the text of the proposal document. Achieved rapid and full integration with national systems. James was a key member of the team responsible for the successful outcome of the Proof-of-Solution exercise (which met 98.7% of the client's requirements).

May 2003 - Jun 2003 : Solution Architect : Philippine WESM Bid

Designed and estimated costs for the IT systems to support the deregulation of the Philippine wholesale electricity market. The design activities took account of the client's demanding availability requirements and balanced this with market intelligence about how much the client was really prepared to pay for the final system. James also wrote those parts of the proposal document dealing with the solution overview and with the design of the solution, as well as responses to technical and functional requirements.

Sep 2002 - Jan 2003 : Consultant : Centrica

James provided transition planning consultancy to senior client staff surrounding the end-of-life of an integrated retail gas & electricity sales system and cut-over to its replacement, including assessment and mitigation of impact on the client's business processes.

May 2000 - Jan 2002 : Team Leader : TXU NETA Systems

James led the scheduling team (which peaked at 7 members) in the TXU NETA Systems project. James took responsibility for delivering £1M of systems to the client, and led the effort to convert this development into a Logica product that is now in use at four clients, handling scheduling for generation capacity totalling 65% of average demand in England & Wales. James's responsibilities covered the full range of development phases, through to acceptance and support, including vendor management. James's role also included covering for the PM during periods of absence.

Jan 2000 - Jan 2002 : Technical Manager : Hub Support Project

James was the Technical Manager on this support project, which supports the operation of a number of hub systems for clients including Yorkshire Electricity, London Electricity and Powergen. This included the strategic technical direction of the project, responsibility for resolution of faults, and ensuring that SLAs were met. This role also included a Design Authority role on a related Hub development for Powergen.

VG Gas Analysis Systems
Aug 1994 - Oct 1998

James designed and implemented the software that operates VG Gas's world-leading Mass Spectrometer instruments. He acted as Design Authority for much of the software, and led two porting projects. James played a key role in software development process improvement within the company.

Skills

Business Skills
Software Development	12 years
Analysis & Design	9 years
Systems Architect	4 years
Team Leader	5 years

IT Skills
UNIX	13 years
C++, C	13 years
TCP/IP	12 years
Linux	11 years
Oracle DBA	5 years
EAI (SeeBeyond, MQSeries, Tibco)	4 years

Languages
English	Native Speaker
Spanish	Basic
French	Basic
James also has some knowledge of German and Mandarin, though his skills in these are not currently a suitable basis for conducting business in those languages.

Qualifications / Affiliations / Publications

Other Interests

Apart from his GNU Project volunteer work and his involvement with the UKUUG, James's other interests include reading, cinema, cooking, walking, rock climbing, ice climbing, collecting music and sailing.

1998 to Date	LogicaCMG
1994 to 1998	VG Gas Analysis Systems
1993 to 1994	Manchester University