Ellie Petty, IT Service Manager, has been with Landmarc since June 2019 after taking six months off work to landscape her garden. Ellie is based at Head Office and works tirelessly with the IT Team to ensure that all of our IT Services remain operational. Here Ellie shares her experience of Landmarc so far.
My job involves keeping all of our IT Services up, online and available and managing Major Incidents when they occur. I manage the Service Reviews with all of the Business Owners, looking at Continuous Service Improvements and I also provide Test Management for Project and Change deliverables.
“I engage with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) to ensure they sign off any planned outages that may affect them and assist with communicating these. I am also responsible for the annual IT Customer Satisfaction Survey, analysing the results to improve the service we provide to all our users. After the core accountabilities, I also support any other IT activities required by the Business or our Head of IT, Ceri Lambdin.
An ‘accidental’ career
“I started my career in a Financial Services Company and progressed into IT, by accident, after completing some User Acceptance Testing, as a Business Subject Matter Expert (SME). I enjoyed it, so became a Tester and soon became a Test Lead.
“I worked in various Financial Service companies progressing from Test Lead to Test Manager, delivering a range of products and services to internal and external clients, which included providing Test Governance and Defect Management Services for the £11 Billion GB Infrastructure Programme for Smart Metering.
“After completing my last role I decided to take some time out and spent six months landscaping my garden. I built a shed from scratch, two patios, dug out and laid two artificial grass areas and prepped, laid and built a composite decking area. Unfortunately, it’s still far from finished! I figured I should probably get back to IT before I become obsolete, so began at Landmarc in June last Summer.
Blown away by Landmarc’s IT Services
“The IT Services that Landmarc provide are incredible. I was blown away by the complexities and capabilities delivered by an in house IT Team within a range of bespoke IT Services such as the Bidding and Allocation Management System (BAMS), Range Manager / Viewer and many others. They are complicated systems and to have an IT Service designed, built and tested to the levels the current IT Services have been, is outstanding. They all predate me, so I can’t take credit for any of them, but I’m so impressed by the IT Team’s previous deliverables. And despite the continual hard work, tight timescales and large workloads, we continue to have a laugh and joke along the way!
The IT Team continually go above and beyond
“The amount that the IT Team deliver with the resources available is incredible. For the quantity and size of the IT Services being provided, with the number of users, the IT Team is smaller than I would have expected. Multiple resources are stretched across supporting production and projects. This makes things challenging when we’re delivering so many improvements and projects, along with supporting all the current live IT Services.
“I have worked within many organisations over the years and their IT Teams have always been much larger, just for projects being delivered. The fact Landmarc manage to deliver projects, along with supporting production, with such a small team is extremely impressive. It’s all down to the diligence and perseverance of people within the IT Team continually going above and beyond, often throughout evenings and weekends, which isn’t commonly known within the wider business. So while this is a challenge, the team continue striving to deliver.
Life at Landmarc is vibrant, varied and rewarding
“I find supporting and mentoring my team very rewarding, as I’m able to see individuals flourish. It’s been great to pass on the positive feedback received so far from this year’s survey to the individuals named as being particularly helpful. The ethos is to deliver for Landmarc, the vast majority of people go the extra mile and it’s nice to see that recognised through people’s comments.
“No two days are the same. Priorities and tasks change regularly, so adapting and changing to ensure IT deliver helps to keep things interesting. As do the great views across the countryside at Westdown Camp, and spotting the occasional helicopter or tank – or hearing the artillery fire!
“Life at Landmarc is full on, vibrant, varied and rewarding. The passion and determination of individuals, Managing Director to Operatives, radiates throughout the company, as does the camaraderie!”