UBC Award of Achievement in
Project Management with Microsoft Project

Six Fridays- Sep 19- Oct 31, 2008 

1. Scheduling Projects and tasks
Sept 19 2008
Sept 23 2008
2. Managing projects and resources
Sept 30, 2008
Oct 3, 2008
3. Initiating Projects Laying the Foundations for Success
Oct 10, 2008
4. Specifying and Estimating Deliverables
Oct 17, 2008
5. Building High-performance Teams to fast track projects
Oct 24, 2008
6. Communicating Progress to clients and management
Oct 31, 2008
Brian Mullen , your workshop leader UBC Robson Square

About Brian Mullen, M.Sc., your workshop leader

Brian Mullen , president of I.S.P. information systems planning corp. has extensive experience in Project Management and improving performance. He has been project leader or project manager for dozens of major software and consulting projects. 

He coaches project managers and establishes standards within organizations. Brian is an expert in Microsoft Project. He facilitates in-house strategic-planning and has provided Project Management training to many companies including several dozen software development firms.

Brian Mullen background
Project Management with Microsoft Project-six days at UBC
  1. Scheduling projects and tasks with Critical Path Scheduling
  2. Managing Projects and Resources
  3. Defining Project Scope
  4. Specifying deliverables clearly

  5. Building high performance project teams to fast track projects
  6. Communicating Progress to Clients and Management

Great Companies I have worked for

Other courses I presented

  1. Information engineering (UBC Software Engineering certificate)
  2. Business Reengineering
  3. Database Design
  4. Estimating Effort and Cost
  5. Managing Resources over multiple projects
  6. Systems Analysis
  7. Web Page Design
  8. XML extended markup language

Universities that I have taught at

  • University of BC
  • University of Calgary
  • University of Victoria
  • University of Northern BC

 

Skills and Related Projects

What value does Brian Mullen contribute to an organization.

  1. Brian contributes to the long-term viability of an organization by shortening project cycles, reducing project costs, improving the quality of the results delivered and reducing the wear and tear on project teams. He increases the chance of success on a project by detailed project planning, heavy involvement of users, building high-performance teams, clear definition of requirements, refinement through prototyping, generalized data structures, rigorous testing and adequate user training. He ensures a technology transfer and leaves behind project teams with new methods and tools to tackle future projects more successfully. Successful projects help an organization introduce new systems to meet the challenges of the future.

  2. Brian has experienced every phase of systems development: team building, project planning, feasibility studies, cost-benefit analysis, proposal writing, contract negotiation, requirements definition, software selection, systems design, problem solving, programming, testing, conversion, user training. He keeps users involved and committed. His knowledge of current methods and technology keeps him from being snowed. Not afraid to roll-up his sleeves and dive into documentation and code to find problems and overcome poor quality. He knows the right questions to ask, discovers problems early and develop solutions with the project team and follows through to see they are implemented.

  3. A master of strategy and design, Brian develops simple, elegant solutions to meet complex requirements with an extensive toolkit to manage complexity associated with information systems. Brian stimulates the same creativity in project teams. I believe in continuous improvement and love seeing satisfied customers when solutions exceed their expectations.

  4. Brian acts as a catalyst to build high-performance teams. His most important team-building tool is turbo brainstorming, which opens communication channels, explores problems, increases energy levels, stimulates creativity and collaboration between project team members. Turbo brainstorming captures and organizes hundreds of ideas captured in a session.  Turbo Brainstorming reduces unnecessary conflict and time wasted in meetings.

  5. Brian maintains continuous research and practical application of a wide variety of performance enhancing tools especially in the areas of project planning, business reengineering, information engineering, database design, systems analysis and design to manage complexity and share knowledge. Extensively benchmark 'best practices' of other organizations including Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and Intel, Toyota, Boeing and General Electric. An early adopter of key technologies: Online systems ('70), Data dictionaries ('72), A-Z workbooks ('76), PCs ('81), PC planning software ('82), Oracle ('84), Business Reengineering and TQM ('91), Object oriented analysis and design ('92), Client Server systems, web architecture, ASP.net, .NET framework.. Introduced innovative methods in team building, cost-benefit analysis, business-process modeling, systems documentation, and brainstorming.

  6. Brian Mullen is expert in the use of Microsoft Project for project planning and tracking. He created a 950 page course-manual using Microsoft Project to sequence course topics and a Visual Basic for applications routine to format the contents in Microsoft Word including automatic indexing. Brian has presented a Microsoft Project course since 1992. Use Microsoft Project for process mapping and creation of WEB pages with automatic indexing and Hypertext links. Expert at Visual Basic for Microsoft Project. Beta tester for Project 98.
Brian Mullen Business Skills and Related Projects
Business Skill Projects and specification methods Tools
Project and Systems Development Methodologies.  Familiar with all aspects of systems development especially front end phases
  • Feasibility studies
  • Business analysis and requirements definition
  • Architecture design 
  • Information engineering and database design
  • .Net framework 
  • Object oriented development Visual Basic

 

  • Boeing systems development methodology
  • RUP Rational's Unified Methodology
  • MSF Microsoft's Solution Framework
Project Planning and Project Management
  • Assisted teams in planning over 50 projects.
  • Strategic Planning sessions with entrepreneurial software companies.
  • Presentation on Project Planning to 65 technical support managers at BC Tel.
  • Consulted re ICBC Project Planning centre
  • Gained formal project management background at Boeing Computer Services, Canada Lid as a consultant then Consulting Manager in the BC regional office.
  • Planning course includes a thousand page course book with 2,100 steps.
  • Turbo brainstorming
  • Objective setting
  • Risk Analysis
  • Scope definition
  • Cost-benefit Analysis
  • Business cases
  • Team planning sessions
  • Microsoft Project
  • Resource workload analysis
  • Timeline
  • SuperProject
  • Project Vision
Microsoft Project
  • Taught Microsoft Project courses at the University of BC and the University of Calgary since 1992.
  • Taught in-house Microsoft Project courses for many clients including HRDC, Dept of Justice, Eurocan, HRDC, BC Tel, Telus, BC Hydro, 
  • Beta tester for Project 98.
  • Used Microsoft Project for planning projects and tracking project progress.
  • Used Microsoft Project for developing proposals with schedules resource estimates and budgets.
  • Used Microsoft Project for process mapping and 
  • Used Microsoft Project for planning course material.
  • Project templates 
  • Resource pools
  • Custom views, tables, filters and fields.
  • Visual basic for Microsoft Project, Excel and Word.
  • Interfaces to Outlook and Excel.
Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft Web Access.
  • Microsoft Project Server 2007 (2 installations)
  • Resource allocation and workload analysis
  •  Certified Microsoft Project Professional in "Planning, installing and Enterprise Project Management systems.
  • Installed Microsoft Project server for seven clients including Teligence communications and Bunting, Coady Architects.
  • Test and trouble shoot Project Server setup.
  • Setup users and security definitions including Resource breakdown structure.
  • Imported projects and resources.
  • Created user procedures, custom views and manuals.
  • Project templates
  • Project Center
  • Resource Center
  • Resource availability graphs
  • Project Analyzer
  • Web Access
  • Timesheets
Project Management information systems with Microsoft Project Developing custom applications for clients based on Microsoft Project.
  • Standardizing resource definitions in shared resource pool.
  • Custom user interfaces to speed updating project data and report generation with views, tables, filters and fields.
  • Forecasting resource requirements from projects in the pipeline.
  • Analyzing workload across multiple projects. 
  • Expert in Visual Basic for Applications for Microsoft Project, Word and Excel.
  • Custom user interfaces to speed data updates with views, tables, filters and fields. 
  • Custom reports built with views, tables, filters and fields.
  • Pivot tables for project analysis
  • Automated reporting with VBA - Visual Basic for applications routines.
Facilitation and team building
  • Strategic Planning Sessions
  • Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions
  • Information Engineering scenarios
  • Business Reengineering sessions· Clients include BC Tel, Computing Devices Canada, Husky Oil, Innovatech, ICBC, Safeway, North Shore Health, Telus and many others.
  • Turbo brainstorming. 
  • Objective setting. 
  • Joint problem solving. 
  • Skill assessment during recruitment. 
  • Knowledge transfer planning.
Building high-performance teams
  • Developed Turbo brainstorming to speed up team activities, open communication channels and develop shared vision.
  • Applied to large teams of up to 100 people. (Digital Equipment BC office 75 people in a half day session). Presentation at CIPS business show had 75 and 90 people respectively.
  • North Shore Health, team building, trained 65 people in Turbo brainstorming.
  • Five presentations to 65 BC Tel second level engineering managers on implementing effective planning into an organization.
  • Coached Project Leaders in BC Tel Computer Network Control group, setup Project planning methods.
  • Learned brainstorming methods on a Boeing Computer Services proposal team for the BC Hospital financial system.
  • 150 step Turbo Brainstorming process to build high performance teams.
  • Drafted a 350 page manual.
Systems development
  • Managed over 25 MIS projects. Largest was $20 million Project Manager at CUE Datawest to convert banking software with 50 credit unions with 150 branches.
  • Over ten information systems including feasibility, requirements analysis, design, programming, testing, conversion and cut-over . Applications included: Financial Accounting, Cargo Handling, Purchasing, Mill Scheduling, Payroll, GIS Mapping, Telemarketing,
  • Major clients included: Future shop, BC Tel, ICBC, Port of Vancouver, Empire Stevedoring, Datawest, MacMillan Bloedel, Island Paper Mills, Bentall Group and Finning Tractor.
  • Documented a 450 step methodology
  • JAD - Joint Application Design Sessions
  • UML unified modeling language
  • Prototyping
  • SADT structured analysis and design technique
  • Interaction diagrams
Information Engineering and Database Design
  • Data extraction and analysis using ODBC and Excel pivot tables.
  • Numerous Oracle projects including end to end development of the Performance evaluation project at BC Tel.
  • Create generalized, reusable data structures to increase database flexibility and reduce the number of tables in the database.
  • Teach Information Engineering course as part of the UBC Software Engineering certificate.
  • Object Oriented Analysis and modeling
  • Auerbach Database Consulting Editor· presentation on Generalization in Design to CIPS conference attended by 186 people.
  • pioneered E-R modeling in Vancouver
  • used Entity Life-Cycle diagrams which
  • Generalized Name and Address File
  • Centralized code table facility
  • Western Regional DB Specialist at Canadian General Electric.
  • Entity Relationship Modeling
  • Super Type/Sub Type Analysis
  • Entity Life Cycles
  • Generalize Roles to Kernels
  • Universal Data Models
Data Warehouse
  • Dept of Indian Affairs, extracts from 100 plus databases.
  • BC Tel Human Resources
  • BC Rail Oracle with SQL and Impromptu
  • Oracle
  • Cognos Impromtu
Database Management Systems
  • Oracle (end-to-end development of a complete Performance Evaluation system for BC Tel)
  • Revelation, six systems PC based· Pick Database (Rail Cargo Forwarding system)
  • HP 3000 image database at Port of Vancouver piers billing system.
  • Extensive Database evaluation
  • Oracle,
  • Revelation
  • HP Image 3000
  • Pick
  • Adabas
  • dBASE
Business Process Re-engineering
  • Clients included Mohawk Oil, Computing Devices Canada, Canada Corrections Pacific Region, Alberta Natural Gas, Trans Canada Pipelines (Capital Budgeting) and North Shore Health.
  • Developed and present three day course on business reengineering at University of Calgary and in-house to clients.
  • Process Mapping with Microsoft Project allows capture of cycle times, resource use and development of cost/benefit models from comparison of old and new business processes. Cataloged a 1000 step methodology based on study of best practices.
  • Turbo Brainstorming to build high performance teams.
  • Process Mapping with Microsoft Project.
  • Zero Based Budgeting to establish priorities
Financial Systems
  • Datawest banking system
  • Calema Financial Accounting system, commercial software package
  • Finning Tractor, Used Equipment Lease system
  • Canadian Stevedoring integrated financial system
  • Canadian Transport financial system
  • General Ledger
  • Accounts Payable
  • Accounts receivable
  • Labour costing
  • Project costing
Human Resources systems
  • BC Tel Performance Evaluation system
  • BC Tel Pension system project coaching
  • BC Tel HR Data Warehouse using ORACLE
  • Dominion Construction Payroll Requirements
  • Factor Analysis
  • Statistical modeling
  • Oracle DBMS
Software Package Evaluation and Selection
  • Datawest Banking system, negotiation team for contract for Sanchez Banking software.
  • Burnaby replacement payroll system.
  • MacMillan Bloedel Integraph GIS - Mapping system.
  • City of Nanaimo Financial System.
  • MacMillan Bloedel, database evaluation IMS, Adabas and Total DBMS
  • Competitive Benchmarking
  • Site Visits
  • Futures Analysis
Rescuing Projects in Trouble
  • Municipal HR payroll system Audit and rescue
  • multiple projects at Tele-communications company.
  • Major Crown Corporation Audit
  • Turbo brainstorming
  • Team-planning sessions
  • Strategy realignment
  • Dedication of resources
Automated Productivity Tools Development with Visual Basic
  • Created detailed Business Process Maps using Project. Included Work and Cost information.
  • Generate project plans from Excel estimating spreadsheets.
  • Produced methods and procedure manual from Microsoft Project in a Word format including automatically generated indexing. Option allows production of HTML document with Hypertext links.
  • Microsoft Project
  • Visual Basic for Excel, Word and Project
  • HTML for Web Pages and online documentation.
PC shrink-wrap package development
  • Cowell Autosoft Package.
  • Calema Integrated Financial package (architect).
  • Project Vision documentation and testing (user guide).
  • dBase
  • Revelation
  • Word
Teaching Professional development courses
  • University of British Columbia continuing education (project management,
  • Langara College (Project Management, Microsoft Project, Web Design 1 and XML)
  • University of Calgary continuing education (business reengineering, database design, systems analysis,
  • Capilano College (systems analysis and design, 1975-80)
  • Many in-house courses to organizations including BCTel, ICBC, BC Transit, Safeway, Telus and TransCanada Pipelines. Knowledge contributes to planning client training to ensure smooth implementation of systems.
  • Business Reengineering
  • Project Planning
  • Planning with Microsoft Project
  • Effective Systems Analysis
  • Effective Database Design
  • Total Quality Management
  • Web Page Design
Object Oriented Analysis and Design
  • Small talk
  • Subtypes and Supertypes· Entity Life Cycle Diagrams
  • Object Life Cycles Diagrams
  • Class Hierarchies
  • UML
  • Visual Basic.Net
Programming
  • Visual Basic for Applications
  • experimented with Small talk, founding member of Vancouver Smalltalk Users Group.
  • Oracle SQL and SQL Forms· dBase Autosoft system developed into a commercial package.
  • Empire Stevedoring PICK basic
  • MB Central Purchasing system in RSTS Basic on a PDP 11
  • HTML
  • Visual Basic for Applications (Word, Project and Excel)
  • ORACLE SQL forms
  • Revelation Basic
  • Fortran
Presentations to professional organizationsOver 35 presentations to various professional organizations including
  • CIPS-Canadian Information Processing Society.
  • ASM-Association for Systems Management.
  • ICCA -Independent Computer Consultants association.
  • DPMA-Data Processing Management Association.
  • North American Hewlett Packard Users Group
  • Petroleum Joint Venture Association (Calgary).
Other affiliations
  • PMI, Canadian West Coast Chapter
    VP at large, Career Fair 2008 Project Manager
  • Vantug technical users group
  • Langara College Computer Systems Technologists Program Advisory Committee
  • PMI 94 - Project Management Institute Conference in Vancouver. Marketing Coordinator, Information Services Stream
  • Consulting Editor, Auerbach Data Base Management Series
  • Conference Program Co-Chairman, DPMA Update 83
  • Program Director, Data Processing Management Association.
Organizing Conferences and User Groups
  • PMI Career Fair 2008 PMI Vice President at large, Project Manager for career fair
  • PMI Career Fair 2007 Professional Development stream
  • Project Management Institute '94 North American conference in Vancouver.
  • Vancouver Smalltalk Users group founding member
  • CIPS Congress '86
  • BC Tel internal Oracle users group.
  • DPMA conference program chairman
  • James Martin dinner session (365 people)
  • Vancouver PC Users group founding member of executive
  • Data Management Update 81

Brian Mullen Professional Employment Summary
I.S.P. information systems planning corp. President, (1979- now)
ISP  provides professional consulting and training services to clients including in-house courses to a wide range of clients.
  • Project Management training and coaching.
  • Microsoft Project implementation including training
  • standards.
University of British Columbia, Continuing Education Instructor (1981 to now). Other courses included:
  • Business Reengineering (3 days)
  • Database Design (3 days)
  • Microsoft Project (2 days)
  • Systems Analysis (3 days)
  • System Design(3 days)
University of Victoria (2003 to now) ADMN 411 Project Management (Fall 2003)
Langara College (2000 to 2003)
  • Microsoft Project (2 days)
  • Project Management (6 evenings)
  • Web Design (6 evenings)
  • XML - extensible markup language
University of Calgary, Continuing Education Instructor (1983 to 2001). Courses included Project Management, Business Reengineering, Database Design, Microsoft Project and Systems Analysis.
Over 1,500 hours of classroom teaching.
Port of Vancouver Project Project Manager, Piers Billing System, (1978 to 1980). A two-year project to automate for a department of 45 people using a HP 3000 with Image database.
Boeing Computer Services, Canada Limited, (1975-78)
  • Consultant
  • Manager - Consulting Division (B.C.)
MacMillan Bloedel Limited (1972-75)
  • Systems Analyst, Corporate Projects
  • Systems Supervisor, Building Materials Group
Canadian General Electric (1970-72)
  • Timesharing Support Specialist
  • Account Representative
  • Western Regional Database Specialist

General Electric Information Services division

At GE, Brian joined GE as a Timeshare Support Analyst supported sales and account representatives with training and support.  Later as an Account Representative he was responsible for supporting and growing key customer accounts. Here he started developing on-line systems for clients including chip quality control systems and natural gas distribution network analysis programs. His last position at GE was Western Regional Database Specialist. GE Information Services had a world wide network accessible through dial-up terminals. 

MacMillan Bloedel

Mr Mullen joined MacMillan Bloedel as a systems analyst. He developed the Central Purchasing system and Canadian Transport Accounting system on one of the first Digital PDP11 RSTS timesharing systems installed in Vancouver. He was later promoted to a systems supervisor in the Building Materials group where he worked as a user coordinator for a large Rail and Cargo Sales Information System. This project illustrated the necessity of applying a methodology to systems development.

Boeing Computer Services, Canada Ltd

Mr Mullen joined the Consulting Practice of Boeing Computer Services, Canada Ltd (a subsidiary of the Boeing Corporation) as a consultant. His first assignment evaluated software package opportunities for the IBM system 32. He was promoted to manager of the Consulting Division for the BC region in Vancouver, BC. At Boeing he learned the discipline of project management and the principles of brainstorming while developing a large systems proposal with a team of experts drawn from across the Boeing corporation.

Courses at UBC and University of Calgary

Brian also presented the following courses at UBC and the University of Calgary.

  1. Project Management
  2. Business Process Reengineering
  3. Database Design
  4. Information Engineering
  5. Microsoft Project
  6. Systems Analysis

Brian has also presented courses at Langara College in

  1. Web Design
  2. XML - eXtensible Markup Language

Consulting Assignments

His assignments at a major telephone company included establishing planning practices, presentations to senior management and rescuing projects in trouble. He has established clear criteria for successful implementation of planning within organizations.

At ICBC, Brian worked as a consultant in the Project Control Office for a year reporting to the VP of Information systems. ICBC had centralized capturing of time sheets, standardized reporting to management and clients. He also provided training on a package called InstaPlan.

Recent consulting assignments include: managing transition between senior managers at a major retail company, developing project templates for a pipeline company, coaching project leaders and project teams in preparation of departmental plans and trouble shooting projects.

He was interim project manager for the replacement of the banking system for a consortium of sixty credit unions with 1,500 on-line terminals. In another assignment, he managed the transition after the VP resigned and the hiring of a new CIO. The organization was implementing six major packages included the Peoplesoft payroll system.

Prior to forming ISP information systems planning corp in 1979, Brian worked for three world class companies: General Electric, MacMillan Bloedel and Boeing Computer Services, Canada.

Presentations to professional organizations and conferences

Mr. Mullen has spoken over two dozen times to professional organizations including CIPS, DPMA, the EDP Auditor's Assoc. and various user groups including Data Administration Special Interest Group (DA SIG) and microcomputer users groups. His topics have included: Rescuing Projects in Trouble, Effective Project Management, Guidelines for Selecting and buying Micro computer software, Tools to improve Analyst Productivity, Matrix Structured Documentation, Prototyping with Data Dictionary 4GL's, Strategies for meeting the Data Resource challenge, Implementing a corporate information base, Using dBase II and Hiding Data Structures in Program Modules. When he spoke to the North American HP computer users group in San Jose California, his talk was written up in Computer World.

Mr. Mullen also helped organize numerous conferences in Vancouver including a presentation by James Martin to a joint DPMA / CIPS meeting in Vancouver that was attended by 365 people. As well he participated in the organization of PMI 

Microsoft Project consulting and programming

He has ten years experience with Microsoft Project and six years with Microsoft Project Server. He has developed and taught a course for the since 1992. He was a member of the beta testing team for Project 98.  He has focused on reducing the learning curve with Microsoft Project for new users.

Brian has worked extensively with Visual Basic for Project. This provides an inside-out view of Project functionality and data structures. He captures methodologies in Microsoft Project and publishes the results in Microsoft Word. His Project Management manual contains over 650 pages with a 60 page index. This book can be produced in an HTML format with systematic drill down and roll back capabilities.

Brian was a founding member of the Vancouver PC Users group in 1982 and served as the program chairman for the first 18 months. His micro planning software experience includes: Microsoft Project, Project Vision, Timeline, Insta-plan, Super-project, Visi-schedule and Milestone.

Process and Performance Improvement

Brian Mullen has extensive experience in process improvement. He presents a course on Business Process Re-engineering. Process Mapping. He also has extensive experience in project methodologies and systems documentation standards. He invented Turbo Brainstorming and using Microsoft Project to map processes.

Masters Degree in theoretical physics

Mr. Mullen graduated from the University of BC with a Masters degree in theoretical physics. His masters thesis was the calculation of the lifetime of the hydrogen-minus ions in the beam of the Triumph accelerator at UBC which was still in the design phase at the time.

Personal pursuits

In his spare time, Brian enjoys aerobics, swimming, snorkeling in Maui, hiking, skiing (down-hill and back country) and mountain-biking. He has a son and a daughter and lives in North Vancouver.

Updated: July 25, 2007.
email Brian Mullen with your questions