PROUDLY PRESENTS

Serge Paris
Resident of The United States and 3-DNET® VIP member
Email contact : serge@exec.org

      

VIDEO INTRODUCTION®

  

 

INTERVIEW WITH 3-DNET®

Listen to sample sound "bites" from the interview:  

Question 1 : Tell me about yourself

There is not lot to say simply because my life is happy. My son is an engineer and my daughter works in the tourism industry. Six years ago I found my loving wife and we are both ready for new challenges. Even if it’s not our first choice, we can relocate or travel. We are both permanent residents in the US.

Question:  "Tell me about yourself....?"  

Question 2 : What can you offer to your next employer ?

My experience is in many industries: banking and insurance, telecommunications, heavy industry, government agencies and aeronautics. This leads me to a sound understanding of the methodologies, tools, and technologies used in IT. My participation as Systems or Data architect in many full-life cycle developments or Global architecture and technical projects has shown me how to manage and coordinate people with specialized skills. I can bridge the needs between business and the IT specialists. This experience covers also Entreprise Data architecture and Data Administration.

Question:  "What can you offer....?"  

Question 3 : What are your strengths ?

As I mentioned above, I have a strong work ethic and outstanding leadership skills. What sets a good leader apart from a manager is setting the example and being out front and not sitting back in an office issuing directives. I also have a strong desire to make the people that works for me perform to the best of their abilities. This means spending time listening and coaching.

Question:  "What are your strengths?"  

Question 4 : What are your accomplishments ?

As a consultant I fulfill the expectations of the client and the expectations of the consulting group. As an employee of a large consulting group my primary accomplishment was my success in finding new contract opportunities. I started on a three-month basis contract at Boeing and stayed there for more than four years. Also, I won the prize for the most “valuable” consultant. From the client point-of-view there are two projects I can discuss with pride. My last project at Boeing was to re-engineer the oracle physical database of the system controlling the airplane production up to the logical object model (UML). This model was considered as an essential input for the DBA group (100 people) and for a large data warehouse project. This project was not successful until I was able to re-engineer it. Working with a small group of people, I developed the strategy, implemented the tools (Rational Rose), defined deliverables and performed the Data Modeling tasks. According to my boss, the result was over his expectation and a complete success. The second project was a full life-cycle development for a telecom company. This complex system performed the management of all the components of the physical network including cables and switches. My role was to act as the project leader and manager from the opportunity phase to the implementation. The real challenge in this project was the complexity of the data and function models. This system is now in production.

Question:  "What are your accomplishments?"  

Question 5 : What are your limitations ?

I have a global view of a project and sometimes I consider that is the case for all people. But now I can identify the need for knowledge transfer and fulfill it. Sharing this global view, in many cases, leads the specialized people to understand better what I am expecting from them and to express their concerns or ideas. it.

Question:  "What are your limitations ?"  

Question 6 : How much are you worth ?

For this let my experience and skills determine my worth to a company. The market for a top IT architect is constantly shifting, and I understand this.

Question:  "How much are you worth ?"  

Question 7 : What are your ambitions for the future ?

My ambition is to continue to do what I know best, system development and global IT architecture. This can be done as project manager or system/data architect. I have always loved what I do for a living.

Question:  "What are your ambitions for the future ?"  

Question 8 : How long would it take you start contributing to the firm? 

As consultant for 15 years I learned to minimize the break-in-time. I do my homework in understanding the situation and defining what my employer is expecting from me. In this way I can start to contribute in a minimum of time.

Question:  "How long would it take ... ?"  

Question 9: What is your management style?

I can say I am for collegial management. I use positive reinforcement as often as possible, and I try to be flexible and fair. The real objective is to complete a project while meeting the business requirement in the allotted time and with the allocated budget. To accomplish this everyone must know his responsibility and be accountable for the results. As architect or manager I have to deal with the level of maturity of the organization and define my management style accordingly. An organization at level 2 on the CMM model will accept only simple control to track cost and functionality. On the other hand, a mature organization using a complete methodology, data administration, quality control and process improvement will induce a management style based on specific deliverables and formal quality control. At a mature level the management control is an integral part of the system development process. My work in many organizations at different levels of maturity leads me to base my management style on four factors. The objective is to meet the business expectation. This must be understood by all. At the beginning of the project, the planning phase, I make sure we have deliverables structured according to a methodology or at least we have deliverables defined and accepted by the team for each step of the development process. Using some collegial management style, each deliverable is assigned to a team leader or to an analyst. with the responsibility to work out the details and constraints. In a personal meeting with each owner of a deliverable we finalize the content, and I ask for a commitment on the time frame. I also request a small report at fixed intervals to state the percentage of completion and any other consideration slowing down the deliverable. This simple strategy gives people security and the chance to express their concerns while raising their levels of motivation since they are fully responsible for the results. As manager I can identify potential problems and install cost and function control.

Question:  "What is your management style .... ?"  

Question 10: Why do you think you have a good potential to be a manager?

Simply because I have managed many projects with success, even if I was not the manager in title. I have experience in using methodologies such as RUP or DMR Productivity Plus (P+) for full life cycle development, and my style of management focuses on results, which means fulfilling the business requirements.

Question:  "Why do you think you..... ?"  

Question 11: What would you look for in hiring people?

I would search for someone who is able to give me one or two ways to do something and not the 23 good reasons why we cannot. I also look for team players, as cooperation in developing a project is essential. The technical skills are a must, and in many cases I would ask a colleague having the right expertise to participate in this evaluation.

Question:  "What would you look for hiring .... ?"  

Question 12: As a manager, have you ever had to fire someone?

Yes in few cases. I remember a special case where the project manager called me to fix a project out of control. I fixed the Architecture, data and functions, and redesigned the structure of the project. I reduced the number of teams from 22 to 12. For this I reallocated responsibilities and fired a few analysts. This issue is never easy and must be handled with as much honesty and fairness as possible. The decision of firing someone MUST be based on business and performance issues. As manager I cannot let the situation degenerate because of personal considerations.

Question:  "As a manager, have you ever..... ?"  

Question 13: What do you see as the most difficult task of being a manager?

The ability to control personal ambitions and make people working for a common goal is always a challenging task. Also, keeping the project focused on business requirements involves a variety of adjustments. Many people want to use the latest technology or the newest tools, but my question is always the same: WHY do we need this, and WHAT is the business advantage?

Question:  "What do you see as...... ?"  

Question 14: Describe what you feel is the best work environment?

I believe in a positive work environment where people can take the initiative and are responsible for the results. All organization needs norms, standards and process; this can give people security, but it must not kill the creativity and reduce the work to a “fill in the blanks” process.

Question:  "Describe what you feel..... ?"  

Question 15: Looking back how do you describe your past employer?

My past employer was a large consulting group, which sold business consultant services. I was working for the Seattle branch. They where supporting us by offering good salary, formation and interesting working conditions. Due to the economic situation they have lost about 150 contracts in Seattle in less than 3 months; that is the reason I have quit this employer. .

Question:  "Looking back how do you ..... ?"  

Question 16: What have you done to increase productivity, performance, efficiency, etc..?

In many contracts my job was exactly to propose actions to increase productivity. Sometimes it was by defining deliverables and implementing new tools; this was the case at Boeing. Sometimes it was by performing quality control as the system/data architect.

Question:  "What have you done to .... ?"  

Question 17: Whether you are a "computer wizard", how do you respond to the financial side of your responsibilities?

I am conscious that an IT project can easily get out of control and generate heavy costs for small results. The cost control is a MUST in all projects and is closely related to the quality control. This control has to be done at each phase of a project and for each major deliverable. Normally at the Opportunity phase we define the context, objective of the project and expected cost/benefit. At the beginning of the Design phase the cost is reviewed and detailed by activities. The cost control start. This control stays in place up to the end of the project. The cost control process must be able to detect budget/cost discrepancies and fix the problem.

Question:  "Whether you are a "computer wizard".... ?"  

Question 18: How many people have you supervised in your recent job?

No direct supervision except for quality and cost control. As a consultant I acted as project manager in many cases but not with the title. .

Question:  "How many people have you .... ?"  

Question 19: What do you like more, working with figures or words?

It is never far from my mind to keep an eye on the budget, but I prefer words

Question:  "What do you like more ..... ?"  

Question 20: How do you think that your subordinates receive you?

How do you think that your subordinates receive you? In general they respect me and consider me as someone who can help them in their assignment. For this I respect their field of competency and let them take control of their job.

Question:  "How do you think .... ?"  

Question 21: What do you think of your previous boss?

My last boss was a senior executive at Boeing. have great respect for this man. His management style was simple but powerful. All meetings were structured with the same pattern: First, my boss reviewed the “business political situation” and the possible impact of our project. Second, he asked for feedback and proposals on our work or on the subject of the meeting. Third, we identified a course of action and deliverables for the next meeting. The meeting was never longer than one hour.

Question:  "What do you think .... ?"  

Question 22: Describe a situation in which your work was criticized?

In a government agency my contract was to propose a data administration strategy, so I developed a complete strategy including norms and standards, quality control and documentation process. In this I forgot one factor--the organization was not at the level of maturity to accept a complete data administration process. Going back to my homework I proposed some simple deliverables easy to implement and use, which is what my customer was looking for.

Question:  "Describe a situation .... ?"  

Question 23: If I spoke with your boss what he would say about your greatest strength and weaknesses?

For this question let my boss, senior executive at Boeing, express his opinion by this extract from his reference letter: “I have nothing but the best to say about Serge as an Information Technology professional. He works hard, he cares about the quality of the work he produces, he gets along well with his peers, he is thorough and he is committed to completing the work he is tasked to do. He is a very productive employee who can be replied on to create detailed solutions from only high-level goals and strategies. In discussion he is always courteous; he listens thoughtfully and when called upon, presents his opinions with quiet confidence. He is respected for his skills and knowledge by his peers, and can be relied on to state what he knows clearly. I enjoyed the opportunity to work with him, and if the situation presented itself, I would gladly do so again.“

Question:  "If I spoke with your boss.... ?"  

Question 24: How can you handle life under pressure and with tough deadlines?

Tough deadlines are the norme for IT projects. I handle this by doing two things: Get to the point and look at the essentials I have written many proposals with a one or two day deadline. Also, in the project described earlier under the question of firing someone, I was working under extreme pressure to review the architecture simply because programmers and analysts where waiting for the specifications costing a lot of money.

Question:  "How can you handle .... ?"  

Question 25: What do you think you do better: staff work or line work?

As consultants I am usually hired as staff to give advice, but in many cases I act as line in proposing the course of action and management decision to the “official manager”. One example of this is the project in a telecom company I described earlier. The project manager was 24 years old, coming directly from university. My position was as a staff acting as a line. The objective of the company was to give him formation on how to conduct a full life cycle development.

Question:  "What do you think.... ?"  

Question 26: In your current position, what problem have you identified that was previously overlooked?

In a data conversion project involving more than 200 analysts, the scope of the project was not strictly defined at the beginning, which started to generate change requests by the end user directly to the analysts. This situation slowed down the work of the analysts and produced a generation of many releases for the same deliverable. By installing a “change request” process at the Data Architect level we successfully stopped this.

Question:  "In your current position .... ?"  

Question 27: If you had a choice of job and a company what would you choose?

From my experience in many companies I discovered it is the work and the people that are important--not the sign at the door.

Question:  "If you had a choice of job.... ?"  

Question 28:Do you have any objection to take a psychological test?

No

Question:  "Do you have any objection.... ?"  

Question 29: Do you consider yourself as a creative person?

Yes this is one of my characteristics. I will give you one example. At the university, for my degree in computer science, the take-home exam was to develop a program for pattern recognition. This involves complex integral equations, and I decided to do it in my own way. I got “00”. I called the teacher to complain about this. He told me “your note is not “00” but “100”. You are the only one with a new solution, and if you are looking for a summer job just come to see me”. The computer was able to handle only two digits for a note.

Question:  "Do you consider yourself.... ?"  

Question 30: How do you describe your personality?

I consider myself a creative person as opposed to conventional. I like complex problems requiring complex solutions. In general I am calm, not tense, and when called upon I can present my point clearly. Extroverted? Yes I am. At first I consider people honest and looking for the best in the project, but I can be skeptical and ask question before I commit myself. For me the perfect solution is always a compromise, and I know how to deal with this and be flexible without loosing my objective.

Question:  "How do you describe.... ?"  

Question 31: What is your outside reading you do?

It depends on my feelings; sometimes I read a best seller just to relax. Because I can read in French or in English, I like to compare points of view on politics or international situations.

Question:  "What is your outside.... ?"  

Question 32: What are some of your outside activities?

I like outdoor activities; it can be just a walk in a beautiful park or camping. I am also adept at boat sailing.

Question:  "What are some of.... ?"  

Question 33: Are you continuing your education?

Yes, mostly by myself. As an example, after my last contract I decided to take a few months’ break and use this time to build a commercial web site. My intention was to understand better the complexity of a web business. I also use the Internet to complete my formation on specific subjects like Rational Rose.

Question:  "Are you continuing your.... ?"  

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