BT Connect

Our list of achievements is long. We have delivered new capability, improved our customer satisfaction levels and exceeded our financial targets. We have continued to deliver the integration program of work and transformed our business.

We have strengthened our relationships with the business lines, launched the Agile Academy, and reviewed and refocused our strategy and levers.

And we have made a significant investment in our people – expanding our e-learning offerings, and dedicating time to Leadership days.

For more on what we’ve achieved in 08/09, check out the back page of this edition of BT Connect to read our Snapshot of Achievements. In 09/10, conditions will force the bar to

be raised. More than ever, our success will be a product of the effort that we put in.

We have proven our ability to step up though. Throughout this incredibly challenging and uncertain

year, so many of our BT people and teams have continued to innovate and provide exceptional

service – just when our customers most needed our support.

It was great to receive a lot of positive feedback and comments on the first edition of BT Connect – and even better to have so many of you submitting your stories for this edition. I can’t stress how important it is that we all contribute; we want to build a culture of sharing and learning, and this is a great way to do it.

Message from Jeff…

“2008/2009 was a good year for BT, despite the difficult environment in which we have been operating.”

In this editionOur Strategic LeversInspired People Operational Resilience Living Agile Productive Partnerships

Across Business Technology

BT Centres of ExcellenceBanking & Life Change Team CFO Commercial Insurance Corporate Systems Infrastructure Personal Insurance General Insurance Solutions Delivery VTech New Zealand

Issue 2, July 2009

by Jason Woods

As part of the journey to create a Resilient and Stable Production Environment we need to ensure that the environments, tools and processes before Production are resilient and stable. That’s where the newly formed Non-Production team in Infrastructure Hosting comes into play.

Utilising both the permanent members of the team and a virtual team, with members across Infrastructure, the Non-Production team led by Jason Woods works closely with Platform Owners and other BT Teams to ensure that the Pre-Production environments are resilient and stable. One way this is being achieved is by being a key player in the Infrastructure Technical Architects Group (TAG) and the Infrastructure Services Model.

Already, the team have worked on the AIM/Sun Central initiative where they identified a root cause of poor UAT System Performance.

The issue had been occurring for over seven months and thanks to a collaboration exercise, they were able to isolate and fix the root cause of the issue. This has vastly improved the UAT process, ensuring a better quality product is delivered into Production.

Similarly on the EasySuite initiative, the team were instrumental in implementing Tableaux Application Orchestration, a key tool that enables BT to have a more streamlined and robust Application Deployment process.

According to Jason Woods, ‘we’re finding that a key factor in achieving this kind of success is that we’re no longer just relying on email but rather using a more two-way approach to collaboration to understand the issues and reach consensus on outcomes’.Find out more:

Our Strategic Levers

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Our new grads

Visit PreProduction site

Operational Resilience

Creating a stable environment

Contact Jason

Inspired People

New KRAsNew KRAs are being developed for each role title in BT, ensuring alignment with BT’s strategy and Suncorp’s overall corporate framework. The formal review

process is almost complete with final changes being made to the KRAs based on feedback from across BT. The new KRAs will be rolled out by 31st August.

New grads in BT

My e-Learning experience

Thirteen new graduates started in BT in July and another two will commence in August bringing our mid-year intake to 15 across CI BT, PI BT, Corporate Systems and Infrastructure.

A big welcome to our latest crop of graduates!

By Karen Paul As a warm up for the June 09 BT Team

Leaders Day, we were encouraged to read a section of, what turned out to be (for me at least) a thought provoking book! - and it was available and easy to find via Skillsoft.

Normally I obtain such a book from a library and if good, would then purchase it. Skillsoft proves to be a good way to access books and means you can refer back to it

anytime. It’s worth taking a few moments to sign on to Skillsoft and take a look at the books, as well as the courses.

Oh, by the way, the book is called ‘The FIVE Dysfunctions of a TEAM’ by Patrick Lencioni and I encourage anyone to read it, or at least check out the final section ‘Understanding and Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions’ – we can all help make our team better.

Our Strategic Levers

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

By Hanne McBlain

Exciting news! We are introducing a new Balanced Scorecard measure for FY09/10. Starting this financial year, we are

introducing the Partnering Maturity Indicator as an indication of how well we work with our key partners in BT.

The survey will initially be sent to all BT

Team Leaders and Executive Managers to establish the baseline of our partnering maturity. The TLs and EMs will then be surveyed again, twice a year to measure progress. The result will be combined with the Customer Satisfaction Survey, which measures how well our partners work with us, to establish a more holistic view of our partnering capabilities.

by Rebecca Deering

In less than one month, Suncorp has gone from having one to almost 1,000 members on Yammer.com. This represents over half of the Business Technology (BT) population and the numbers continue to climb.

So what is it about Yammer that’s got everyone so interested?

Yammer.com is a microblogging social networking tool that asks

one simple question of ‘what are you working on?’. People can microblog updates of their

activities, follow other users’ updates, tag content and create memes (eg. a shared idea).

Yammer focuses on businesses and only users with the same email domain can join the network. Read more

Read more

Living Agile

BT Village - coming soon!As part of our efforts to make collaboration easier, we will soon be launching ‘The Village’.

Just like the BT Intranet is the home for news and communication, ‘The Village’ will be BT’s home for all online collaboration - for BT Divisions, for Our Community and Tribes and for stuff across BT. Stay tuned for more soon....

Suncorp’s Yammer network explodes

Read more

Productive Partnerships

By Keith Jaynes

As part of the Productive Partnership strategy, one of the levers is “Capability Development”. This is all about how we leverage off our Partner’s capabilities to build our own.

Introducing the Partnering Maturity Index

In recent months, Filenet has been attributed with more than its fair share of critical incidents across BT. Suncorp are currently running multiple instances of Filenet on different versions in Life, PI and CI.

In order to get to the root cause analysis of why the critical incidents kept happening, the relevant BT teams agreed to bring in IBM to work closely with the support team in Corporate Solutions.

CapabilityDevelopment

Read more Read more

IBM assist in Filenet remediation

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Murray makes a difference!By Jenovefe Shepherd

BT Banking and Life team member Murray Larwill is an example of a true humanitarian, using his hard earned leave to help victims of human trafficking in Cambodia.Murray and his wife Ruth are undertaking a project to open a Vocational Training Centre in Phnom Penh, which will provide hospitality training to girls who had been sold into brothels. Current statistics reveal that 90% of girls who have been rescued out of trafficking in Cambodia will be coerced back into the sex industry if

they do not have another form of employment or skill.

While Murray and Ruth’s centre will initially provide training to girls who are 15+ years old from an After Care shelter in Phnom Penh, they have also met with half a dozen other shelters that are keen to send girls as well. “We need to start small though, and ensure that training leads to employment,” Murray said.

Murray says that the centre is not a money making venture and will rely on the generosity of a number of organisations in Australia, mostly from churches and some individuals. They have a team overseeing the project in Australia which includes two third world business consultants, marketing and communications consultants, and mentors providing counsel and

financial accountability – all their time is provided on a pro bono basis. Eight tradesmen have also each donated two weeks of their time to fly to Cambodia and fit out the centre in September. Once the centre is up and running, they hope to employ around eight Cambodian nationals.

Murray admits that the project is a challenging undertaking. “But well worth our efforts,” he said.

The CPRM team delivers Phase 1! BT Banking’s Capital Planning and Risk Management (CPRM) Project has successfully delivered Phase 1 of the project on time and to budget.

CPRM will implement a timelier, more accurate and more efficient processing system for the Banking CFO group in terms of Asset Liability Management, Transfer Pricing and Capital Management.

Phase 1, which was implemented in July with data loaded up to 30th June, involved the installation of the Asset Liability Management and Transfer Pricing modules, introducing a new back end application Treasury Data Mart (TDM) which links seamlessly with the existing front end Quantitative Risk Management (QRM) application.

Project Manager Andrew Wallace attributes the success of the Agile led project to dedication from the Project Team and strong collaboration with the Business and the external QRM vendor.

“Co-location of BT and Business teams to work as one project team has enhanced the positive collaborative results,” Andrew said.With successful delivery of Phase 1, planning for Phase 2 has kicked off which will involve Capital Markets, specifically streamlining data sources for regulatory reporting, installing an upgraded version of the QRM application, a parallel run of Transfer Pricing (new against old sources) and the decommissioning of (old) ALM databases. Phase 2 is expected to be completed by 30th September 2009.

Banking & Life

Murray Larwill

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

By Daragh Farrell

We all know that niggling feeling...the ‘elephant in the room’ that you want to point out but you’re just not sure how to. Giving feedback is an important skill and helps us learn and grow but is not

always easy to do. When delivered poorly, feedback is more likely to be

ignored. Here are some tips to help you get this right:

1. Seek permission - I have some feedback for

you, about X? When would be a good time to share this with you?

2. Be objective – sometimes it can be hard to separate emotion from fact. When giving

feedback, an emotional response can come across as opinion and is easily ignored. Try and be objective and fact based at all times.

3. Be specific - use examples that you have observed and use facts to support what you have to say.

4. Speak for yourself – don’t use anecdotal feedback from others. Speak in the first person and use ‘I statements’ – ‘I was uncomfortable when you..., ‘I am unhappy with this situation’, ‘I feel like I was not considered when...’.

5. Be constructive - try to provide

feedback in a way that focuses on the problem at hand, not blaming the person.

6. Adjust your style - consider the impact to the person receiving the feedback. How will they react? Adjust your tone, delivery method and language to suit.

7. Gauge safety - how safe do you feel to provide the feedback? How safe will they feel receiving the feedback? Do you have a good relationship with the person or is it likely they will simply ignore what you have to say? Consider seeking advice or assistance from someone who knows the person well before providing feedback.

8. Communicate face-to-face - this is the best way in which to deliver feedback to an individual as it allows for two-way communication. This will help the person clarify the issues by asking questions. They may have additional facts to share with you which might provide you with a new perspective.

9. Timeliness - while you should reach an agreeable time when providing the feedback to the person, don’t put it off or avoid it so that you never do. If left unaddressed, issues can fester, so it’s best to nip it in the bud as early as possible.

10. Capture the learning and improvements - make sure you take time to reflect on how it went with the person. Did they take it well? Consider what you should do differently next time.

Bootcamp delivers By Cathy Tang

Recently, the Change Team helped onboard three new partners to the agileacademy.com.au - Renewtek, Solnet and Thoughtworks. Their involvement marks a milestone in the adoption and continuation of an agile way of working across the IT Industry.

Change TeamTop 10 tips on giving feedbackDoing IT Differently

This month, Jeff presented a number of video vignettes to the Board. One of these videos, featured how BT and the Business are doing IT Differently, thanks to our new way of working.

Read more

Watch the Video

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Smile for SmilesBy Alison Lawrence

BT CFO and BT Corporate Systems teams joined together in May to help the charity, Operation Smile, put on their Corporate Golf Challenge at Northlakes Golf Course. Operation Smile flies medical teams to poorer countries all over the world to correct cleft palates and other cranio-facial issues for children who would otherwise grow up untreated. They also fly children with complex issues to Australia for treatment here. The charity’s name comes from the big smiles that appear on the faces of the treated children when a mirror is held up for them and they see their new faces for the first time.

Our BT people were stationed around the beautiful course on the sort of magic day you only get in Queensland! ‘Jobs’ undertaken ranged from registering players to being ‘Mr. Paparazzi’ to selling raffle tickets. BT creative thinking came into play when the metre long ribbons sold to the players to get themselves out of bunkers were promptly dubbed ‘Cheater Metres’. Apparently many of the players commented to the organisers on the “helpful and pleasant personalities” around the course and Suncorp received a round of applause at the end of day function.

Golf buggies were used by BT people to get around the course, and things got a little less

collaborative and a little more competitive in the final journey back to the clubhouse!

Overall $5000 was raised - every $300 raised is a cleft palate repaired and a child’s future turned around!

Rate Review By Rina Abbott-Jard

The BT Partner Management Team recently completed a review on Partner Rates against industry benchmarks based on technical expertise and industry experience. More competitive rates were negotiated resulting in parity across our BT Partners for the coming financial year. Kerry Spork led the benchmarking process and negotiations.

One highlight of this round was achieving a significant reduction in our rates with BT Partner Mahindra Satyam.

For more information, please contact your CoE Senior Partner Advisor:

Keith Jaynes: Banking & Life and Vero NZ;

Hanne McBlain: CI BT and Infrastructure;

Kerry Spork: PI BT and Corporate Systems.

Contact Keith ...

CFO

Josh Gow and Kate Deller

Paul Detheridge (chef ), golf player, Paul Eisenberg and Kate Deller. Notice that onions are perfectly cooked and sausages neatly aligned

as per our sausage cooking strategy.

Kerry Spork

Contact Hanne ...

Contact Kerry ...

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Project Viper videoThis month, Jeff Smith showcased a series of video vignettes about the projects BT are working on across General Insurance.

One of these videos focused on the Viper project – an expert web user interface for Vero Insurance brokers.

Commercial Insurance

CI BT give ‘back to thefuture’ graduates By Sarah Reeks

Ever wondered what it would be like to be the CEO or a top notch executive for a large company? Well, for the Extended Leadership Team (ELT) in Commercial Insurance BT, this is a reality – well, at least it is once a quarter when they take part in an innovative approach to leadership development at the CI BT ELT Forums.

This approach has been so successful in highlighting and cultivating leadership skills, that it’s now being used for future graduate recruitment.

Watch the video

By Alex Dimadis

In a competitive move, Commercial Insurance in partnership with Commercial Insurance BT will soon be introducing the Future Front End (FFE) for its AON brokers, enabling them to generate quotes and purchase policies for Vero products designed for the small to medium enterprise market entirely online.

The new technology enables Aon brokers to access quotes from a panel of Insurers, select a competitive quote and write the business without direct involvement of underwriters. The move is pegged to dramatically reduce the manual requirements on Vero underwriters to process quotes and new business,

where they will only handle limited referrals. In addition the business believes they will

increase market share and generate increased revenue this financial year.

Read more

Brokers get ready for a Future Front End

Read more

Collaboration makes CISSS come alive By John Lane

In late May the team in Commercial Insurance BT completed Phase Two of the Commercial Insurance Sales and Service Solution (CISSS) initiative.

CISSS provides Commercial Insurance with a sophisticated underwriting capability and sales tool for multiple brands and distribution channels in the Small to Medium Enterprise and Commercial Motor segments.

Read more

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Agile helps DTM deliver!By Daniel Pike

The recent implementation of the Document Task Management (DTM) system has once again proven the ability of Agile to deliver value to the business early and frequently.

The project team, which included David Marsden, Carlo Simbag, Rob Nielsen, Tiffany Ennis, Donna Smith and Daniel Pike, were faced with the difficult challenge of tight timeframes which meant that not all of the functionality could be developed in time for the initial deadline.

To allow the business to get up and running in time for their contractual commitments, the most critical functionality was developed and released to production in an initial release. The less critical but still highly valued functionality was then delivered in subsequent releases to production.

A number of other Agile techniques were also crucial in making the project successful including strong customer involvement, well defined storycards and test-driven development practices.

Identity Management Tribe leaps out from the JungleBy Richard Delisser

Tim Cook, Ian Thompson and I recently had the pleasure of sponsoring the first tribal gathering of the Identity Management group.

What impressed me was seeing a practitioner led group get together off their own steam and collectively design a charter which is already producing results. The tribe is blessed with having some of the smartest people in BT as members, which is certainly reflected in the level of thinking coming out of the team.This is their story!In May a proactive group of people from across BT came together to form the Identity Management Tribe. Identity Management is the people, processes and technology that supports the management of userIDs or accounts in computer systems. In Suncorp we are continuously working in this area to simplify the process of giving and removing access to systems and reducing the number of passwords our people, partners and customers must manage.

The tribe was formed by practitioners on the ground

who realised there were organisational gaps that meant that several people working with different (but functionally similar) technology products were not communicating. They all foresaw the inevitable mess they would create if they didn’t work together on their Identity Management Solutions.

The tribe immediately looked past the obvious (and boring) technology turf wars and focused on the areas of capability that we wanted to achieve, taking the best advantage of the people and technology we have available to us. To date the tribe has:

created an ACDB to understand what • we want to achieve overall;

held several brown bag lunch sessions • to get to understand the technologies available to us; and

created a team charter that describes • how we move forward.

Even in these early days of the tribe, we are already starting to reap the rewards of working collaboratively with teams across BT. There have now been two initiatives that have sought to build a bespoke piece of Identity Management technology that members of the tribe were able to influence to reuse existing solutions which resulted in savings in effort, money and provided a better solution for their users.

If you want to see what we are up to or wish to contribute we’d love to hear from you:

Corporate Systems

Visit our Tribe’s SharePoint site...

Part of the project team - Donna Smith, Daniel Pike and Tiffany Ennis

Read more

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Infra road testing a new operating modelBy Jenovefe Shepherd

As part of the process of discovering what is the simplest and most efficient way of getting their work done, BT is road testing a Service Based Operating Model for its infrastructure business.

A cross-BT Design Team, consisting of representatives from Infrastructure and each BT division is guiding the development of the model and will meet at the end of this month to evaluate the success of the road test and agree on next steps.

The Service Based Operating Model encompasses groups of services, with a LOB aligned shop front. The overriding principles around the design are repeatability, simplicity, consistence, automation, continuous improvement, end-to-end ownership and capacity to involve as our customer needs do.

The design process so far has involved consultation with other businesses such as ANZ, NAB, Oracle, Telstra, CenITex to provide views on how other Infrastructure businesses are run, as well collaboration with both the consumers and suppliers of Infrastructure services.

For more information:

BT Service Desk’s new Service Request ModelBy Nicki Doble

With an average of 1200 calls and 200 e-mails received every day, the BT Service Desk is always looking for ways we can improve our customer service and get our customers back up and working as quickly as possible.

The launch of the new Service Request Module (SRM) within Remedy improves the options for requesting assistance, streamlines our backend process for quicker resolution and reduces the overall cost of delivery.

SRM is an application that can manage requests for Business Technology products and services – hardware requests, software installs, security access etc. It replaces three existing systems – the BT Service Desk Online Request System, the Security Access Request (SAR) System and the Security Request System (SRS). The new CARS (user security access) system is a component of SRM.

Further enhancements to SRM will allow us to automate many of our processes including desktop software installations, ordering of computer hardware items and security access requests.

Visit the Service Based Operating Model site

Infrastructure

CARS makes system access requests easier!!By Tim Cook

The group now has a single way of engaging the System Access Administration (SAA) team to request computer system access provisioning and termination services. The Computer Access Request System (CARS) went live in mid July and replaces the SRS and SAR forms used by the heritage organisations.

CARS, a project jointly undertaken by the BT Service Desk and BT Security, uses the functionality provided by Service Request Manager, a REMEDY ‘application’.

This is part of the broader BT request system that integrates BT computer access requests and Service Desk requests such as hardware, software and telephony requests.

From a customer perspective, the most obvious change provided by CARS is the more customer-friendly form. Business and BT customers assisted in the design and testing of the form. The ‘smarter’ design will assist customers in completing their form more accurately, ensuring they get the access they need the first time, and reducing the need for rework on the part of SAA team. Read more

Read more

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

By Phillip Abernathy

Agile coaching in Personal Insurance BT has taken off. There are now five Agile coaches working across various projects based on the pipeline of work. These include Phillip Abernathy, Rebecca Hopkins and Michael Stange in Melbourne, Daragh Farrell in Sydney and our newest edition, James Brett in Brisbane.

According to Terry Gaze, EGM PI BT, ‘coaching is playing an important role in PI BT in our understanding and adoption of this way of working. It’s a critical part of our projects and ensuring we deliver’, he said.

The PI BT Agile Coaches provide three levels of service – assess, assist and advise – and work closely with the PIBT

Leadership Team to focus on where coaching is needed most.

Already they are making their mark, by establishing a coaching wall in Melbourne and you’ll find them

there every day at 5.00 pm conducting their daily Stand Up.

If you’re in PI BT, and you think you could benefit from a spot of coaching, then come

and say hi – simply drop by our desks (Level 3, 601 St Kilda Road) or contact Phil.

Personal Insurance

Agile in Space By Lydia Jurisic

We know that we’ve seen Agile in the way we work, in our practices and in our people – but how do you put Agile in space?

Across Personal Insurance BT, we are taking the time to look at our work environment and discover new ways to use space to benefit our Agile way of working.

According to Terry Gaze, EGM Personal Insurance BT, ‘Agile is coming alive in the office. We’re running out of whiteboards, there’s hardly any room left on the walls to start a new storyboard and hot desks and shared meeting spaces are in high demand, he said. It’s true. In Melbourne alone, a group of volunteers have formed to look at opportunities to make the environment even more agile.

Lydia Jurisic is one of these volunteers. According to Lydia, ‘as an occupant of the Melbourne office, I want to work in an environment that encompasses the Agile principles’, she said.

Initiatives like lowering the partitions, creating open spaces for team interaction and bringing project teams together are just some of the things the team are working on. If you’ve got an idea on how to get Agile in space, contact Lydia.

Contact Lydia

GIO Web Redesign Video This month, Jeff Smith showcased a series of video vignettes about the projects BT are working on across General Insurance.

One of these videos focused on the GIO Web Redesign with interviews with Alan Diversi, Project Manager and John Rogers, EGM GIO/Vero Personal Insurance.

Watch the video

PI BT welcomes an Agile Coaching contingent

Contact Phil

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Introducing Drupal - new website capability By Amy HIll

If you’ve ever bumped into Colin McCririck, EM GI SD Front Ends or one of his team members, it’s likely that they’ve mentioned something about Drupal. But what is Drupal and why all the fuss?

Drupal is a free and open source Content Management System (CMS). Although it offers a sophisticated programming interface for developers, no programming skills are required for basic website installation and administration.

So that means that non-technical people, like those found in the business can add and update pages on websites themselves and get instant results.

Combine this with the security and high availability hosting provided by our infrastructure and this makes for great business value and rapid delivery to meet constant business change.

According to Colin, ‘We’re having a great deal of success with Drupal and already are using it on the Secure Sentinel and Deposit Power websites,’ he said.Furthermore, subject to business prioritisation the plan is to extend the use of Drupal across all of Suncorp’s brand websites detaching them from their current legacy platforms and making it easier for the business to manage

their online presence.

GI Solutions Delivery

By Amy Hill

With the end of another financial year, the GI SD Protect Team was faced with the task of conducting End of Year (EOY) processing

for the AAMI Protect system. In the past, the team have encountered some incredible challenges, but are learning from these

experiences to exceed business expectations.

Traditionally this task has been run on a public holiday to ensure that there was limited online

use of the system by employees. For the first time last year the process was run on a normal business day which caused the process to grind to halt.

One of the major contributing factors to this was that most users didn’t know the process was happening and as a result, it took 75 hours to bring the system back in sync and days more for verification of data.

This year the process was scheduled to occur on a business day again however the team in PI BT Customer Development, BT Infrastructure and GI SD Protect were ready.

They ensured all stakeholders knew about what was required, they had additional people on board and they put a hold on any system development. The

developers were encouraged to spend the day on Skillsoft developing their individual skills and learning instead.

According to Mark Bennett, EM Protect GISD, ‘we’ve proven that by learning from what has happened in the past, we can ensure the right outcome for the future, and we’ll just continue to get better and better,’ he said.

Thanks to the actions of this team, AAMI Finance had their required data by start of business 2 July and the system was in sync by 7.30 pm that evening – a vast improvement from last year.

In the spirit of continuous improvement the team intend to put some further changes in place for next time to enhance the process even more in 2010.

GISD Protect - all about continuous improvement

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Taking the lead By Lucinda Haworth

VTech has a reputation within Vero NZ for being enthusiastic early adopters and is often called upon to trial all kinds of initiatives, and with a renewed focus it meant the time was right for VTech to take a fresh approach to building its leaders of tomorrow.Over recent months, VTech has undergone quite a transformation.

In May, the team merged with Suncorp BTI NZ becoming one of the largest and most diverse teams in Vero NZ. Its employees cover areas such as Infrastructure, Application Development and Support, and Project Management – supporting every NZ business unit. It’s a unique and technically complex team of people that operates in a constantly changing environment. The unique needs and reporting structures mean it makes good sense to have a base of good decision makers, confident communicators and people with initiative and a passion to perform.

Building bench strength for a base of leaders is absolutely crucial when the time comes when we need to step up. Andrew Diver, VTech CIO, says, “In this ever increasing world of change, VTech’s business and technology has become a vital source of growth for the business units we support, but in doing so we have become very complex. I need people who I can turn to, who are ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow because what we do is not easy and people are relying on our solutions to make their ideas happen. Being a cross functional team that underpins very specific business goals, I need leaders to support these goals. These are people who are agile and not afraid to challenge the status quo”.

To address this, Andrew took his cue from the Inspired People Lever and with the assistance of Vero NZ’s People and Development, created a tailored Leadership Tool Kit to trial within VTech. Earlier this month it was rolled out to 18 selected people and called the VTech Leadership Group or VLG for short.

The Tool Kit is made up of 7 modules; three core foundation modules (Leadership, Effective Communication and Performance and Development), and four additional modules (Change, Total Rewards, Recruitment and Selection, and Health, Safety and Well-being). After completing the modules the VLG will become involved from time-to-time in other activities that are not directly related to their role.

Andrew says “This mirrors what happens with me as I get involved in many Vero-wide issues that don’t necessarily have anything to do with VTech. Exposure to different situations will help broaden strategic understanding and help those on the VLG build on their core leadership strengths.”

One of the VLG members, Nigel Lee, said “I’m really pleased to be included in the Program because it will be a great learning experience and it will expand my knowledge base to deal with different situations I don’t normally encounter everyday.”

Andrew believes it is an honour for VTech to be the first unit within Vero NZ to use the Program.

“I think this is an incredibly exciting development that we are the first to trial this approach. It will be fantastic for the group and for VTech and I look forward to working with them on the Program and shaping our successful future”, Andrew said.

The VLG team consists of: Elaine Yuan, Kate Ellery, Brad Morrow, Simoli Aati, Cara Talbot, Lissa Maxwell, Braydon Hasler, Honey Lim, Robin Mossman, Jane Brewer, Kathy Sangster, John Duckett, Dave Debney, Ron Bruce, Nigel Lee, Stuart Taylor, Shianne Govind and Jennifer Clamp.

VTech NZ

Jeff’s message Bank & Life Change CFO CIBT Corp Systems Infra PIBT GISD VTech Across BT

Across BT

Meet the new CEONew CEO, Patrick Snowball, found time in his half-day in Brisbane at the start of the month to meet with employees from across the Group.

Richard Delisser (Corporate Systems), Paul Fitzgerald (Banking & Life), Peter Howe (CIBT) and Colin McCririck (GISD) represented BT at the morning tea, and took the opportunity to ask Patrick about himself, his thoughts on technology, and how his military background will help him at Suncorp.

Although “personally a techno-phobe”, Patrick spoke about his appreciation, understanding and belief in the value technology adds to business. His experience with traditional projects (they overspend and are usually late) should make him a fan of Open Source and Agile!

Paul, Peter, Richard and Colin found the new CEO pragmatic and down-to-earth. His focus on establishing Group clarity and value were definitely seen as positives, and his military analogies reinforced the importance he places in courage, commitment and control.

Patrick will join Suncorp on 1 September.

BT Snapshot of Achievements 08/09

Just a taste of what we delivered...Online portal for ANZN 9

SunCentral hub for brokers 9

AAMI My Policy Manager 9

WealthSmart e-Super platform 9

Launch of the Suncorp iPhone site 9

Completed Infra integration program 9

Online Lifeguard quote and application tools 9

Know Your Customer 9

Polaris Data Centre 9

Farm Management Deposit Account online form 9

NZ SmartApps 9

Customer Franchise Data Mart 9

CTP Claims Imaging for AAMI 9

Access and Identity Management platform 9

Customer Data Integration hub 9

Agile Academy 9

Production Enablement Process, and many many more... 9

Coming upAugustAnnual Results 25 Aug

Channel BT broadcast 26 Aug

ContributeHave you got feedback on BT Connect? What would you like to see more (or less!) of? Have you got a story for the next edition?

BT Connect is your opportunity to share your successes, challenges, priorities and activities across the BT team.

Contribute here