What our customers say about us.

I was looking for a partner to assist us with two strategic programmes of work. I chose Luminate because I wanted a partner that I could trust and had a track record of delivery. They provided key resources that have really driven and owned the delivery of these programmes of work. They have also demonstrated to us what good programme resources should look like, a real bench mark for us for future project work.

Pete Yates

CTO – Entrada Travel Group

***

Luminate has been integral in partnering with us to provide expertise in the development and execution of several projects in which their involvement has demonstrated the skills and experience they bring.

Tony Arthur

Chief Commercial Officer - Partners Life

***

Jarrod led the programme that transformed the core IT systems at 2degrees.   These types of project are rarely straightforward, with many failing to launch – ever.  Fortunately this was not the case at 2degrees.  Jarrod worked steadfastly with the business stakeholders, members of the IT team, and technology partners in getting the job done.  This took perseverance and resilience, to overcome challenges both big and small.  Jarrod played an instrumental part in providing a path forward and instilled an unwavering belief that “we can do this”. 

Mike Davies

CTO - 2degrees

***

When looking for a partner to assist us with a critical programme of work, I chose Luminate because they offered the needed expertise, experience and they were easy to deal with.

Larrie Moore

CEO - Network for Learning

***

We've engaged Jarrod from Luminate in an advisory capacity on a number of occasions as part of our focus on raising delivery capability. This has included provision of mentoring and coaching to the delivery teams, as well as undertaking project review and recovery engagements where we've felt a senior independent delivery specialist has been required. The depth of delivery experience the Luminate team brings has helped us lift the bar around capability and enabled us to keep our PMO team lean.

Mark Smith

Head of Portfolio and PMO, Group Technology - Fletcher Building

***

Whenever I work with Jarrod, I’m always impressed at his ability to bring sanity and structure to what should be chaos. His ability to cut through the noise, present the facts and instil confidence in stakeholders around complex projects is his super power.

Spencer Bailey

Head of Facebook, New Zealand

***

I've engaged Jarrod on a number of projects across different businesses and industries.  For new projects he has the ability to give me an accurate view of the true business case and execution plan, which ultimately leads to a smoother and more rapid delivery.  When I've brought Jarrod in to help with failing projects he rapidly establishes what is really happening and always provides me with clarity and a way forward.  

Jarrod is my go to programme manager.  When I need something done and done right, he is the first person I call.

Kursten Shalfoon

Principal - The Exponential Agency

***

Aaron has led several key initiatives at the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF) over the last 8 years.  During that time he has consistently delivered successful projects and programmes of high complexity and critical importance.  He built an excellent level of communication with all levels within NZSF and through these projects maintained a focus on delivering objectives and meeting senior stakeholder requirements. 

Greg McHugh

Head of Information Technology - NZ Superannuation Fund

Network for Learning

About the Company:

The Network for Learning (N4L) is a Crown company charged with the responsibility of connecting over 2,450 schools and more than 850,000 teachers and students to the internet via N4L’s Managed Network.

N4L enjoys close partnerships with the Ministry of Education, Local Fibre and ICT Companies, and Spark.

The Managed Network itself provides industry-leading safety and security tools, creating a safer online environment that gives educators, students and their parents the confidence to use digital technologies for learning. The tools include robust internet filtering, threat protection and firewall, supported by a dedicated ’field based’ relationship team, and skilled helpdesk team.

The Problem Statement:

N4L started a programme of work to upgrade the managed network into all 2460 schools.

The upgrade consisted of a product replacement of the current Cisco CWS Firewall product, due to go end-of-life by June 2019, with a new Fortinet solution.

The upgrade is understood to be the largest network migration in New Zealand.

Given the fact that the CWS solution was going end of life, N4L had a limited amount of time to migrate schools. The first milestone in the migration was 400 schools by the end September 2018.

The N4L Executive team identified that the size and scale of the migration meant that the in-house operational team needed additional expert support to i) plan and implement the migration and to ii) put in place the appropriate ongoing governance structure and controls to ensure the programme was right-sized to hit the milestone commitments beyond September 2018.

The Fix:

Luminate was contacted by (N4L) CEO Larrie Moore & CPO Gavin Costello in August 2018 to provide an expert Programme Manager to undertake an assessment of the programme structure, and to establish and run a programme of work to ensure the upgrade is delivered on time and budget.

This involved putting together a migration strategy and execution plan to enable the coordination 12 ICT companies across the country, and a multi company team of 100 strong in Auckland.

The programme execution involved the coaching and mentoring of team members who were critical to the programme’s success as well as the alignment of N4L’s delivery structure with the new Agile structure at Spark, the primary vendor. In doing so and through the adoption of Agile practices, the progress of the programme became highly visible to the N4L executive team and helped build organisation-wide momentum towards the hitting of critical milestones.

The new strategy and delivery approach were approved and put into action in August 2018.

The migration exited the pilot phase and entered the full deployment phase in early September and by 30th September, the team had migrated 407 schools.

Customer Feedback:

Gavin Costello CPO (N4L) - ‘I contacted Luminate when we as a company identified the need for a specialist delivery manager to help coordinate the team to hit 400 schools by the end of September. Now that we have the Luminate team on board we are confident we will achieve our goal of 2,460 schools by June 2019.’

Larrie Moore CEO (N4L - ‘When looking for a partner to assist us with a critical programme of work, I chose Luminate because they offered the needed expertise, experience and they were easy to deal with.’