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Myles Ward
Chief Executive Officer, healthAlliance, Auckland, NZ
Myles Ward is the Chief Executive Officer of Health Alliance and has over 15 years of public / private sector senior ICT related leadership experience.  He has a background in operating large scale and complex ICT environments with a record of successfully delivering large scale technology related change / transformations. 

Myles was the former Chief Technology Officer at IRD and was primarily focused on the strategic direction of IRD and the technology aspects of IRD’s large scale Business Transformation. Prior to this, Myles was working in the financial sector with Westpac Banking Corporation.

Tertiary qualified with a Business Degree from Massey and with a Masters of Public Administration through Monash and Victoria University, Myles also has previous experience as the international Co-Chair of the ISO working group for the investigation and development of Global standards for IT governance.



Managing IT Projects for Success- Dolphins not Whales

One of the most important issues for organisations is the success of projects. The percentage of failure of Information Technology (IT) projects seems to be increasing and there are examples of high profile IT projects failing in both the private and public sector. Unsuccessful IT projects impact businesses, customers, and society in sizable ways and their failures are well published.

There is considerable literature on how to deliver projects successfully. This presentation looks at the concept of Dolphins verse Whales. Dolphins come to the surface frequently to take short breaths, communicate and ensure contact with the rest of the pod. The level of effort required for each breath is small. Whales, on the other hand, tend to take long breaths, dive deep and stay submerged for long periods of time. The level of effort to surface for another breath is significant.

When applied to Change related initiatives, the “whales vs. dolphins” questions the big project approach (Whales are just big, and often big is not beautiful) and the need to deliver quantifiable benefits in sizeable bursts. This presentation questions if there such a thing as an IT project. It emphasises the need for business’ to realise value through using technology as an enabler and examines what contributes to successful deployment, the importance of Business Strategy, and the need to understand the risk profile prior to the project initiating.