Deirdre Hough

Facilitated story mapping workshops to identify and prioritise high level requirements for an inhouse freight management solution, which resulted in scope approval by Senior Leadership and commencement of work.

• Collaborated with Freight & Logistics, Documentation and Site end users to understand and document their detailed requirements and implement the following:
• Shipment Planning Toolbox that replaced multiple spreadsheets and streamlined the freight booking and load out process.
• Freight PO and invoicing solution that enabled multiple POs and invoices to be generated in one click, which reduced invoice processing time, number of invoice to PO mismatches and late payments to freight suppliers.
• MPI (Ministry of Primary Industries) Toolbox which enabled eligibility declarations to be raised to MPI for product transfers and exports, ensuring compliance and maintenance of ANZCO’s low re-submission rates.
• Freight rates upload tool, which removed dependency on IT and reduced processing time by 50%.
• Solution for tracking container movements from plant to port, providing greater visibility of freight supplier usage and number of sub-optimal moves.
• Suite of SSRS and Power BI reports to support system use and enable more informed decision making.
• Designed, developed and configured new end-to-end processes for manufacturing and dispatching co-products, using automation to streamline the process and remove inefficiencies.
• Coordinated user acceptance testing across sites and head office, assisting users in their testing and managing their expectations.
• Supported the delivery of training to over 100 users by developing training material including videos and quick reference guides and delivering classroom style training sessions.

• Implemented new and improved forms and workflows for HR, Technology and Risk & Compliance departments using K2 process automation software which involved:
• Facilitating workshops with cross functional teams to understand key pain points with current state forms and workflows and gather requirements for improvements, which resulted in an agreed product backlog.
• Collaborating with the vendor to implement an agile development process that enabled frequent releases of features to users providing value early and often.
• Working closely with the vendor during design to define complex business rules and workflow logic.
• Managing system testing and user acceptance testing for each release including test planning, resource allocation, test scripts, bug fixing.
• Delivering company wide training via online user guides, training videos and lunchtime demo sessions.
• Providing post implementation support to IT to enable maintenance of the workflows and effective trouble shooting.

• Gathered and documented business requirements for improvements to Christchurch City Council’s alcohol licensing system which became the ‘Gold Standard’ for requirements documentation within IT.
• Designed and documented processes for using a new Health & Safety system at PGG Wrightson.
• Senior Business Analyst in Digital Channels at Christchurch City Council where we rolled out a new Project Consultation web page that enabled submission of feedback on Council proposals.
• Project Lead on the implementation of improvements to the Health & Safety system in CDHB.