Volmac (1979 - 1991)

What have I done:

January 1979 - June 1981:

• as the result of a merger between Volker and Stevin (Construction and Engineering companies), I managed the conversion of the application software on Phillips P1000 to Siemens 7780 (BS2000) as a project-leader with a team of ± 15 software engineers.
• after finalizing this conversion I managed the data-center integration of both companies.

June 1981 - November 1986:

• starting as a full time interim manager, and later being a part time management consultant, I organised the staff department on 'Methodology, Techniques and Data-management' of the Royal Dutch Army (±10 employees). This included the implementation of data orientation and the SDM (System Development Methodology) for data-management and database-management. (IDMS rel 5.7 and 10.0, IMS and UDS)

October 1982 - November 1986:

• as a part time 'professional development manager' I had a management responsibility for ± 40 to 70 employees. In this role I was responsible for career development, craftsmanship development and the salary and promotion planning for these employees.

November 1986 - April 1989:

• as a full time 'quality manager' I was responsible for the quality of the service delivery to a large bank (Postbank). In this time-frame we had a team of ±160 employees engaged with the Customer. The roles within this team varied from the usual software development roles, program- and project management of major implementation programs, data-center operation and data-center management, to management consultancy to senior business management.

April 1989 - November 1991:

• as a full time manager I had full responsibility for the "Databases" team. In this team all in-depth knowledge and expertise regarding data, data-management and database-management was assembled. My team grew from 7 to 47 in-depth top specialist, with a utilization rate of 95%. It was my role to:
  • acquire sufficient engagements for my team,
  • career development, salary and promotion planning, education and craftsmanship development of my employees,
  • development and implementation of services offerings,
• as a senior consultant on "Data-management" I was part time involved in an number of DBMS-selection and implementation projects, including structuring and organizing the management of data, with a number of large companies.

What have I learned:

 I learned very, very much in my 12,5 years in the VOLMAC organization.

• regarding low-cost, low maintenance and sustainable software development I learned to fully appreciate and understand the 'data orientated approach'. I continued using this in all the rest of my career.
• regarding management I broadened my skills from simple project management to line management, account management for large Customer accounts and running my own business.
• regarding 'doing business' I learned to communicate with prospects and customers and more specifically resolving conflicts.