Metrodata

At Metrodata I was the Manager of the Development Department, my team was about ten real-time software and hardware engineers developing new products. Metrodata makes a variety of equipment to attach customer equipment to the WAN e.g. leased-lines, ATM networks, satellite base stations and line-of-sight wireless installations.

Teamwork

I was employed to rescue the development department. Before I arrived

• design-staff were fleeing the company
• software development was endless, a deliverable product was not in sight
• no believable estimation was possible
• hardware components were being made obsolete before the product could be shipped

I have good personnel skills, so I could

• quickly introduce effective teamwork
• introduce a high quality development process
• restore the staff turnover to acceptable levels

Planning

To continuously improve performance, I introduced

• project planning and project evaluation procedures
• careful requirements negotiation
• a better change control system
• better source control
• better, Intranet based, bug-tracking with html front-end
• peer reviews
• collection & analysis of metrics

ISO9000

The team gladly took up all of the improvements/changes and it led to ISO9000 approval at the first attempt.

Technical approach

I organised the complete re-design of the company's top-end product, using a software module concept. The previous monolithic approach has proved almost unmanageable. The modular software concept with extremely well-defined interfaces provides a much more flexible base for product variants and copes well with changes in available hardware. This is vital in an industry where chips are superseded at a frenetic pace.

Product Management

I managed the re-design of an ISDN D-channel product widely deployed by BT. This included

• negotiating the specification with BT's team at Martlesham Heath
• planning and supervising the implementation
• managing regression testing of old features
• managing acceptance testing of new features and the update process

Intranet

I introduced the active use of a web-based Intranet, to form a searchable knowledge base of the company's intellectual property. This is invaluable for teamwork. Information is no longer a privilege. Everyone inside the company firewall has access to the information necessary for success.

Training

I was trained on the "Analysis and Interpretation of Financial Information".

I was trained on "Dealing successfully with Difficult People".

Reference - 1

17th September 2003

To whom it may concern

re: Reference for Kim Booth

Kim worked at Metrodata from January 1998 until September 2003 in the role of Engineering Manager. During this time he managed Metrodata's R&D department, and was responsible for a team of between 6 and 10 people, all of whom reported directly to him. He was brought into this role to organize and stabilize the R&D team, which previously had a reasonably high staff turnover. Kim managed to stabilize the team, grow it through the recruitment of a number of staff, and oversaw their development and integration into the team.

Kim liaised on R&D's behalf with external parties (whether customers or suppliers) and with other departments, especially Marketing (product development), QA (regression test, ISO9001) and Finance (R&D budgets). He also played a substantial role in the management of a development project supported by a SMART grant. Kim took a high profile role in the active use of the Company Intranet, where all R&D activities were documented, and which formed a key information archive for the Company. This Intranet played a significant role in the Company achieving ISO9001 certification.

Under Kim's management the R&D team worked on various high tech development projects (often several simultaneously), which covered a wide variety of complex broadband Telecom technologies including ATM, IP, and ISDN.

Over the years, Kim proved himself to be trustworthy and conscientious. He was also a good presenter, and was able to express complex ideas clearly and concisely.

Kim was made redundant along with the majority of his team, as part of a widespread re-organisation of the Company. This became necessary due to the severe economic downturn in the Telecoms sector, which forced the Company to refocus onto much less R&D intensive products.

Paul Ingram

Managing Director