Mustafa Al Awali

During my career journey with du, I had the opportunity to join PMO team for a large greenfield program, where I carried the following activities:

• Centralizing and integrating all project plans into a master plan
• Employing and customizing ms project server into the program to visualize and track timelines
• Onboarding and supporting project managers, delivery managers and PMOs into the integrated master plan
• Govern and support some of the program forums/ individual project meetings
• Regular contribution in executive reports

du is one of the two big players in the telecommunications industry within UAE, it was a big change for me joining a company with this size and this organizational structure, in addition, I was assigned to digital lifestyle & innovation department, where project started to be within a different nature for me, a new experience led by digital transformation

My role at the digital department was a mix of project management and PMO, where I was primarily carrying out following main activities:

• Helping stakeholder initiating projects including business case and road shows work
• Budgeting and cost forecasting for projects
• Enforcing governance, and defining it where it's missing or not applied
• Managing and planning project activities in coordination with planning managers and delivery managers
• Acting as the primary focal point for project communications
• Running and presenting Steercos with key stakeholders including senior management
• Reporting and tracking project plans and schedules
• Analyzing project performance, in terms for time and money showing planned vs actual calculations, while highlighting related risks and issues

After a major restructuring of TECOM Group IT, new roles and positions were made available, and I was offered a position of IT Business Partner, which is more of an IT Solutions Delivery role.

Introducing this new role to TECOM, we had to change the culture of how TECOM Group entities and departments interact with the Group IT, and my main duties were as follows:

• Acting as the main IT focal point for some TECOM Group Entities including Dubai Design District, Dubai Industrial Park, Dubai Wholesale City and Emirates Towers District.
• Acting as the main IT focal point for some TECOM Group departments including Marketing & Strategy, Development & Planning, and Zone Services.
• Managing clients IT demands, filtration and classification of demands into projects or quick enhancements.
• Helping clients qualifying ideas, building business cases and initiating projects.
• Qualifying system enhancements and direct management of implementations with the development team
• Coordination with vendors and providers for some implementations.
• Implementation of Visual Studio Team Service for managing software development work, and demand management
• Putting a framework for managing system enhancements, using agile methodology

TECOM Group is one of the most successful Semi-Government organizations in Dubai, providing leasing, licensing and government services to local and international companies, and due to TECOM's large market share in this sector, TECOM has a large portfolio of IT projects, which is composed of multiple initiatives, where I have been nominated to manage two of these initiatives, related to ICT projects which have direct and indirect impact on TECOM's interaction with its customers.

As an initiative manager, I had a boost in my career path and experience, special when working in a professional high-standard organization while carrying the following duties:

• Acting as the primary focal point for sponsors, stakeholders, corporate PMO and project teams
• Working with stakeholders on defining and presenting their business needs
• Working with stakeholders on scoring, prioritizing and realizing the value of the deliveries
• Controlling and managing business requests and requirements while building the roadmap of projects
• Working with corporate PMO on forecasting, monitoring and reporting the initiative progress to management committee
• Initiating and phasing projects
• Coordinating and following up on projects with project teams
• Micro managing critical project issues and risks
• Reporting to the initiative sponsor and steering committee

I was nominated for this position by my previous company Amlaki, which actually is a shareholder in AuraPortal Middle East, although it looks like a major change in my career path, I did not pause my involvement in the development life cycle, I was keen on managing projects and POCs directly by myself, on the other hand, I was delighted to be exposed to the business part of a software product and how the deals are done, which gave me a view of the higher picture.

In addition to my general management duties at AuraPortal Middle East, following i highlight some of my technical duties:

• Managing Proof of Concept Projects during the pre-sales phase
• Coordinating Tahkeem System BPM implementation project
• Collecting and analyzing client requirement
• Setting up tools and environment for managing AuraPortal projects
• Managing and handling AuraPortal Middle East IT including cloud services

I was given the IT Director position in Amlaki due to the many IT related aspects that I had become responsible for at that time, including the software development department, where i spent most of my time.

Some of my duties and achievements:

• Designed and implemented a service for integrating insurance claims between Neuron TPA company and health authorities(DHA & HAAD)
• Designed web services for Tawtheeq System, to allow integration between typing centers and the municipality of Abu Dhabi
• Leading technical meetings in key software projects
• Leading UAT sessions with client's business stakeholders
• Managing the software development teams and environment for Amlaki projects and products, including CornerStone and ARMS
• Transformed the project management methodology for all Amlaki projects into Scrum
• Restructured all Amlaki product backlogs
• Scrum coaching for the development teams
• Moved Amlaki IT infrastructure into cloud
• Built and structured Amlaki Document Management on office 365
• Migrated Amlaki mail exchange to office 365
• Managing all Amlaki online service accounts

I started my professional experience with Monsters IT Consultancy as an IT Engineer, then in a short period of time I was given additional duties as a software developer right after the company had opened software development division, in Monsters IT Consultancy my career path started to shape by the following duties and achievements:

• Designed and coded an online web application to manage schools
• Designed and coded an online web search engine for Real Estate
• Designed and coded an online web search engine for head hunting
• Designed and coded a helpdesk + inventory management system for IT
• Designed and led the development team for a workflow system for the general medical committee in the Health Authority of Dubai
• Designed and coded an online web application for bulk SMS
• Enhanced and restructure the software development process and environment for IT Absolute (one of the partners)