I came in as a senior technical manager, but my role changed several times as my new co-workers got to know me and we learned how I could best serve their clients and therefore the company. As it had been a while since I was doing contract work and it was my first exposure to an on-shore\off-shore development model, I needed a few days to get acclimated. Everyone was friendly and supportive, and it was only a few weeks before the scenario changed from "this is your project with this client" to "this is your client".

My study in Neuroscience became mature shortly before this time and it led to some excellent discussions and efforts made by the directors to give me projects within the health care sector. The first was with Drexel College of Medicine and its hospital affliate. Needless to say I was excited and never minded the weekly drive out philadelphia for status meetings. My task was to manage the creation of a physician on-boarding solution so it touched virtually every major area of the University\Hospital organization.

It was here that my new appriciation for the process of gathering and specifying software requirements (SRS) jumped to a new level. At the center of the solution was a workflow that represented the hiring and onboarding process and therefore a major component of the buisnes. I realized that a SRS needed to capture a "day in the life" of the people who would be using it and that those people did a lot more than they may realize. And it was not just that tasks they performed, but the exceptions and workarounds they routinely managed. In the end, I engaged everyone from administrative assistants to the Dean of the school in the generation of the requirements specification and the result was what the then CIO called the most complete picture she had of how that part of the business operated.

To impliment the workflow, I had chosen Microsoft's new solution and I had a feeling they would be very interested in having such a well respected institution as an early adopter. So, I called around their offices and eventually secured us entry into a program which secured for us and Drexel a level of support so high that I was given the cell phone number of the BizTalk Product Manager. We ended up delivering the first solution based on the technology into production in the world and Microsoft did a joint press release with Alliance and Drexel.

I had decided early to create a new sales platform based on the delivery of Windows Workflow Foundation solutions, so I had my team create this solution with that in mind. Because of this work and my convincing Microsoft to extend the same level of support, we quickly closed with another client that resulted in $1 million in new work.

The story may have continued happily from this point, but with Fusion just acquired by Alliance, then Alliance itself heading to the selling block, and the world economy begining to fall into the abyss, I, instead, found myself on the layoff list.