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17 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Tell me a bit about yourself |
BEFORE CONSULTING - University I specialised in IB, finance and Chinese - I did relevant analytical work throughout my studies as an Accounts Assistant, and I pursued multiple entrepreneurial pursuits including founding my own business SOS - ONLY Australian firm to offer cv and cl writing services exclusively to students, recent graduates and early career professionals
CONSULTING - started at SMS in April 2016 and since then I've consulted to 5 different clients across 5 industries in 5 different roles in 4 countries. - while consulting at SMs, Which was acquired by ASG group, I consistently received great feedback and performance reviews and was given the opportunity to relocate to the HK office, which I did in June 2017. - Shann
OUTSIDE OF WORK I have a lot of hobbies and passions, including travel, running, freediving, hiking and brushing up on language studies. |
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Why consulting? |
VARIETY - exposure to different industries, different parts of organisations stakeholder - fresh, exciting, new
SATISFYING WORK - the challenge - the satisfaction you get when you wrap up a tough project and you know you've done a great job
LEARNING EXPERIENCE - the feeling that your rate of learning is on overdrive
ALIGNMENT TO SKILLSET - consider myself a generalist with a lot of energy, so getting exposure to lots of different areas suits my skills and strengths. - while I'm not a techhead and didn't study computer science, working in the IT project space has given me a base of technology knowledge that will only become more relevant on strategic consulting projects. |
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Why should we hire you? |
- demonstrated history of outstanding achievement in both studies and professional life - I bring international experience, multiple languages and strong technology consulting experience that is only going to be increasingly relevant to strategic projects. - most of all I feel that I am closely aligned to nous's personality and values, and I would be proud to be a Nousers. |
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Difficult stakeholder, conflict resolution |
SITUATION: - full agile and digital transformation at a government safety regulator. Are you familiar with Agile as a concept? - 2nd engagement, working on part of the project doing a Pega implementation with a team that included a junior scrum master, and very experienced Process Specialist. - process specialist had been consulting to the client for 3 years and was very much a trusted advisor. It was, however, his first agile project, and it was clear that he wasn't a fan. - timeboxed sessions would get caught in circular discussions around the use of Agile, when the client had already made an informed decision on the use of Agile.
TASK: - support the scrum master, maintain team unity and uphold agile principles to best support the client.
ACTION: - scrum master = client, preempt needs - energy and a positive attitude - team principles included a commitment to agile
RESULT - My manager received great feedback from scrum master, process specialist and Martin Kearns. All noted my energy, positivity and influence on team cohesion. |
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Innovation, Lateral Thinking, Creativity, Problem Solving, changed the status quo |
SITUATION: new to HK, no contacts. Tough time in the market and our bench was growing
TASK: When I don't have any network, how can I help the business with sales?
ACTION: are you familiar with Trello? A little bit like an electronic whiteboard that you can use for a variety of reasons like tracking tasks.
. All jobs were labelled for easy sorting and browsing, including with the relevant account director if they were a current client and if it was contract work.
RESULT: I trawled through LinkedIn jobs and other job sites, and made a Trello board that captured all advertised jobs that matched S's capabilities. All jobs were labelled for easy sorting and browsing, including with the relevant account director if they were a current client and if it was contract work.RESULT:- Widely praised by the sales team, and the Asia Regional Director who made a Yammer post specifically calling out my creativity. - The Trello board became a key focus in their weekly sales meeting, and was a source of leads, a conversation starter and eventually a source of sales.- The board was shared with other states, with head office in Melbourne also making their own replica. - Widely praised by the sales team, and the Asia Regional Director who made a Yammer post specifically calling out my creativity. - The Trello board became a key focus in their weekly sales meeting, and was a source of leads, a conversation starter and eventually a source of sales. - The board was shared with other states, with head office in Melbourne also making their own replica. was shared with other states, with head office in Melbourne also making their own replica. |
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Innovation at client, problem solving, lateral thinking, continuous improvement in others, changed the status quo |
SITUATION: - while PMO at a telecommunications client, there was a common theme among the pipeline leads of blaming either the test team or vendor team for issues.
TASK: No doubt the test and vendor teams did have quality issues, but there were still areas for improvement within all the pipelines, and perhaps reflecting on these could be more productive.
ACTION: - I tailored one of the client's retrospective templates for our needs, and requested that each of the pipeline leads take some time for self reflection and rank their pipeline across 7 sliders (communication, stakeholder engagement, timeliness, etc.).
RESULT - for the sliders with the most room for improvements they were encouraged to create some SMART actions to improve. - self reflection seemed to increase team cohesion - great feedback from the program manager |
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Innovation, creative thinking, problem solving, ideas into action, business acumen, strategic thinking, opportunity spotting, changed the status quo |
SITUATION: while studying, I worked part-time in the accounts department of a boutique tile gallery. I was about to go overseas for an extended trip, so I was hiring a my own replacement and I received almost 300 applications for the role. many of the applications were from non-native English speakers, and while their experience was often great their CVs often contained mistakes. Others were poorly formatted and almost all contained minor errors of some description.
TASK: Is there a business opportunity here?
Action: - registered an ABN - learnt how to make a website - read as much as I could about resume writing - wrote CVs of my friends for practice and feedback
Result: Launched SOS Learning experience Unintended consequence is that perhaps my CV gets some extra critical attention |
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Stepped up to Lead, additional responsibilities, met a client's need |
SITUATION: Insurance client, our team had some capability gaps along with being a bit under resourced. TASK: This is an opportunity to gain more experience and really deliver for the client, how can I plug these gaps? ACTION: I took up a huge amount of additional responsibility on the program and transformed my role into almost being the right hand man of the Program Manager. 1. Independently facilitated workshops on some quite complicated and specialist areas, including chart of account mapping, data conversion and user defined applications. 2. Took on people management responsibilities, directly managing another Business Analyst with 5+ years more experience than me. 3. interim data conversion lead RESULT: - our releases were on time, within budget and of significantly higher quality than the equivalent releases in other geographies. - client regularly provided outstanding feedback and would ask ASG for ' have you got me another Josh'. |
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Responded to constructive feedback |
* prioritisation from Anu * Expenses from Noel |
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Failed at something, learnt from mistakes |
I certainly don't consider it a failure, but from the outside looking in a business that doesn't become completely financially viable probably looks like a failure. 1. Learned how to make a website 2. Marketing, budgeting, forecasting 3. Things i'd do differently next time: pick something I have more passion for, find an appropriate partner, reflect the value of my time in my pricing. |
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Tight timelines, high pressure |
SITUATION: Insurance client in HK was a pressure cooker, we were underresourced, had capability gaps and extremely tight timelines that couldn't be missed. TASK: I needed to avoid fatigue, remain positive and keep delivering within the constraints we had. ACTION: Manage expectations, prioritise, deliver. Simultaneously, ensure that ASG is aware of the resource shortage and work with them to supplement the program. RESULT: on time/budget, feedback New BA was hired that I directly managed (5+ years more experienced). |
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Predicted client needs, someone dropped the ball and you made up for it (QBE) |
Adapt: - stepping up responsibility at insurance client after Singapore Financial controller and our Process Lead went MIA - slider retrospective |
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Influencing decisions, managing meetings towards an outcome |
SITUATION: FTP of insurance client was a global program with a principle of standardisation. Local countries would often present requests for exceptional processes that don't align to the global design, and these would often create a web of further complexity and exceptional processes. TASK: I needed to identify whether their request for exceptional process was justified, such as for regulatory reasons. If not, I would need to justify and explain the benefits of standardisation and work them towards agreement RESULT: In part because i had built trust with the users and they understood that I am willing to put in the hard yards and am not simply avoiding work, I had very good success driving standardisation. |
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Principles challenged, integrity, acted ethically, disappointed a boss for morals |
SITUATION: Previous experience resume writing I became the go-to guy for re-writing ASG's CVs on the bench. Occasionally, I found myself under pressure from a Senior Manager to materially misrepresent a consultant's work experience to align it to an opportunity. TASK: How can I avoid acting unethically without annoying this Senior Manager. ACTION: I had a private discussion with the manager in question, expressed my concerns and stated that I would like to continue to produce the CVs and align them to opportunities, though I am uncomfortable misrepresenting experience and capabilities of the consultants. RESULT: The conversation was well received and I avoided acting unethically by potentially putting clients and colleagues in an undesirable position. |
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Change your mind/approach, tough stakeholder |
(Carrie) SITUATION: The financial controller of one of the countries we were implementing the system into often committed to doing things that she wouldn't. As the Financial Controller, the information, actions and sign off we needed from her were critical and her inaction was impacting our timeline. TASK: How could I maintain or improve our working relationship while ensuring we as a project get what we need? ACTION: - minimise the burden of my requests by taken everything as far as I could. Make it purely a review and sign or pick between options. - adapt to how she works. Book in time and close things out in the session. Visit her at her desk rather than email RESULT: - reduced delays and dependencies on FC - strong working relationship relative to colleagues. I could get her time where others couldnt and it became a friendly joke between us 'let's smash this out' |
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Leadership / Project Management |
Situation: - QBE - overcapacity and understaffed - process lead, data conversion lead both resigned Task: Chance for experience - how can I step up to deliver for the client? Action: Responsibilities 1. Facilitating 2. Interim data conversion lead for APAC 3. Client Manager hired me support, so I was managing a BA 5+ years experience Result: Outstanding feedback, client's right hand man |
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Leadership / PM |
Situation: - large and complicated IT program at a larg Australian telecommunications. - 60 onshore consultants - was not manager of the others in the team, but first point of contact for anything PMO
Task I was the first point of contact for anything PMO, and was tasked with leading a team of three more experienced people in an area I hadn't worked before.
Action Improvements I drove was to work extremely hard to raise reporting standards on our program. Regular meetings - reduce reporting - succinct- timely - timely
Result Received delivery excellence award Became site lead for SMS, with around 15 consultants on site Outstanding feedback. Account director told manager 'i singlehandedly rescued a SMS's relationship with a difficult client' & exceptional PR
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