Project Description

Ali Pahlavan

PMO Manager

Areas Of Expertise:

  • Software Development
  • IT
  • Business Process and Controls Transformation
  • HR Transformation
  • SAP Implementation
  • Change Management
  • Oil and Gas Projects

Education:

  • Bachelor of Science (Industrial Engineering)
  • PRINCE2
  • SAFe 4 Certified Agilist
  • P3O Certified
  • PMBOK Fundamentals Certified

About Ali Pahlavan

Ali is a seasoned PMO Manager, joining Seven Consulting’s Sydney practice in December 2014. He has robust expertise in the establishment and management of both delivery PMO and EPMOs. His in-depth knowledge covers portfolio, program, and project management controls and governance, including projects financials, risks & issues management, deliverables management, resourcing, scheduling, and managing master schedules for multi-stream projects. Proficient in the creation of dashboards and effective reporting, Ali applies technology to enhance effectiveness and efficiency. Throughout his successful career, Ali has spearheaded large-scale SAP implementation, HR transformation, business process and controls transformation, and Electronic Ticketing System Programs. His extensive leadership record spans key Project Management, PMO, and scheduling roles across a diverse mix of clients.

What Ali brings:

  • Proven expertise in PMO management and project delivery.
  • Comprehensive knowledge of project financials, RAID management, deliverables management, and resourcing.
  • Technically adept with MS-Project, Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Visio & Google Apps.
  • Skilled in data analysis, trend identification, and proposing strategic intervention solutions for planning and scheduling.

Client feedback:

Commercial Lead, Technology, Technology company – 2023

“Ali is responsive and always helpful. He acts with integrity and is excellent at maintaining the program financial workbook and keeping the Finance team up to date with modelling or data feed issues.”

 
Rebekah Griffin, Projects & Change Leader – 2023

“Ali was easy to work with, reliable and quick in his turnaround, and the quality of the work produced was ideal for our needs. Thank you Ali. Well done and all the best in your ongoing work.”
  Delivery Manager, Australian Public Company – 2022

“Attention to detail and satisfying stakeholders by meeting expectations.”

 
Chris Crossland, PMO Manager – 2021

“Strong communication skills High level of output”

Key Clients:

  • Iress
  • CEnet
  • ASX
  • Wannon Water
  • InvoCare
  • a2 Milk
  • QBE Insurance
  • Alinta Energy
  • ABC
  • BNP Paribas
  • Macquarie Bank
  • NAB Wealth
  • Transport for NSW
  • Woolworths Limited
  • Investec Bank
  • Wannon Water
  • Antares Solutions
  • Energy Industries Engineering and Design (Iran)

Key Achievements

At Iress, Ali established a PMO for the Gilligan program as part of a program uplift initiative. This involved engaging with key stakeholders to design and implement robust project management and governance structures. Furthermore, Ali developed a detailed business case for the establishment of a centralised PMO function aimed at enhancing the organisation’s overall project management capabilities.

At Catholic Education Network (CEnet), Ali reviewed current EPMO processes by conducting interviews with key stakeholders and reviewing existing governance templates and tools covering project lifecycle management. He then compiled a gap analysis and recommendation report highlighting areas for improvement and proposed solutions.

As PMO Lead for the CHESS Replacement project at ASX, Ali was responsible for project governance and reporting. He uplifted the material preparation process for high-level governance meetings (e.g., board, steering committee, portfolio working group, etc.) and assisted senior management in the material preparation.

At Wannon Water, Ali and his team developed IT Projects Minimum Standards, Project Management Plan, project management tools and templates. They uplifted the existing Project Management Framework to be applicable for IT as well as capital projects.

As Senior PM/PMO Lead for an ERP uplift project at InvoCare, Ali planned and delivered the project through multiple roll-outs for 281 locations across Australia. He also conducted the project closure activities and completed the handover to the business.

As Senior Project Manager at a2 Milk, Ali worked closely with IT, Finance, Legal, Marketing and Regulatory teams to plan and deliver several medium-sized projects, including Artworks and Packaging Approval Workflow Project, New Contract Management System, SharePoint Intranet and Cloud Migration

As EPMO Lead for the EPMO transformation project at QBE, Ali developed the future state of the EPMO, conducted a gap analysis and provided a road map for transitioning to the target state. He also developed a Benefit Framework and assisted the new EPMO team in the preparation of the project management minimum standards and assurance framework.

As Project Manager at Alinta Energy, Ali worked closely with the program director to plan and deliver an HR transformation project. He also helped EPMO in developing the project control tools and the Portfolio Financial Tracker.

As PMO Lead at ABC, Ali prepared process documents for the implementation of Jetstream Portfolio, designed and created the required forms, databases, guides, dashboards and reporting tools for pipeline, delivery and benefit realisation phases. He also conducted a gap analysis for using Daptiv as a portfolio management tool.

In a short engagement with BNP Paribas, he developed a project schedule for project Avatar.

As PMO Lead at Macquarie Bank, Ali liaised with all stream leads and release managers to set up the PMO and prepared the Project Governance Plan for HR transformation and Workday implementation projects. He was also responsible for creating and maintaining the project master schedule and related reports, managing risks & issues, deliverables, change requests log and resourcing.

As PMO Lead for Phase 2 of Controls Transformation Program at NAB Wealth; Ali managed the PMO for three uplift projects, including program-level financials, resources, risks & issues and deliverables; preparing board meeting packs and minutes and also introducing a simplified project status tracker tool based on the experience of the previous phase with a one-click dashboard report.

As Master Scheduler for Phase 1 of Controls Transformation Program at NAB Wealth, Ali was responsible for creating, updating and maintaining two separate schedules for the projects under the program and preparation of program and project reports. He also worked as PMO Analyst for one of the projects, preparing status reports, board meeting packs and minutes and also managing risks & issues and resources.

At QBE Insurance, Ali worked with global Workstream Leads across Australia, New Zealand, USA and the UK to develop and update a master schedule for a HR transformation and Workday implementation project. Moreover, Ali was responsible for Project Management Dashboard Reports and Critical Path Analysis. During the implementation phase, he assisted the Technology Workstream Lead in preparation of the Cut-over Plan, monitored cut-over activities via Jama Software and prepared daily reports.

As Master Scheduler at Transport for NSW, Ali Pahlavan worked closely with the Business and Stakeholder Readiness team in the Electronic Ticketing System Program (Opal Card) to develop and update a master schedule containing six sub-projects and a global resource pool.

As Reporting Coordinator, at TfNSW, Ali was responsible for providing regular status reports for PMO, resource allocation status reports for team leads, risk and issue reviews and also communication with all other streams in order to manage the dependencies.

As Project Scheduler, at Woolworth’s Galaxy SAP Implementation Program, Ali was responsible for development, updating, maintenance and analysis of a large resource-loaded master schedule in MS Project 2010 (over 15000 lines), status reporting and resource levelling. This involved coordinating more than ten project managers and team leads and also using Google Apps as the collaboration tool. Ali also created a comprehensive dashboard report for the program managers of Woolworth’s Galaxy, with twice a week updates in order to provide them with a better overview of the program status. This report was the main reference for weekly team meetings.

As Project Scheduler at Antares Solutions, managed, scheduled and monitored more than 20 software development projects simultaneously, including website, Intranet and Business Intelligence capabilities for clients such as Mission Australia, Hitachi Australia, Dexus properties, NSW Aboriginal Land Council and SITA. Ali was also responsible for resource planning and preparation of resource utilisation and project financial status reports. Researched and provided the company with a solution for managing the billable hours of the developers accurately.

As Project Manager at Antares Solutions, Ali successfully implemented an intranet development project for Investec Bank consisting of a time and material solution architecture and a lump-sum development, testing and go-live phase. Liaised with client, offshore development team and team leader and managed the schedule and budget to ensure the project meets the planned dates and gross profit.

As Master Scheduler at Energy Industries Engineering and Design (EIED), Ali led the scheduling team for development, updating, maintenance and analysis of master schedules for engineering and procurement services of large scale (over 4 billion dollars) gas field programs including South Pars Gas Field Development Phases 1, 9 &10, 17 & 18, 20 and 21 in conjunction with Worley Parsons, Foster Wheeler, LG E&C and Kvaerner-John Brown. Whilst at EIED Ali also, designed an online progress measurement system for oil and gas engineering projects at EIED by linking Primavera P6 with an in-house document management system and assisted the IT team with developing a web-based dashboard to publish the online reports.

Other Team Members