Leading Complex Architecture, Security, and Transformation Projects

Steering complex transformation at the center of infrastructure services

The Architecture, Security & Transformation division sits at the center of Société Générale's Client Relationship and infrastructure services. Its role is to facilitate the transformation of business applications by leading projects with a high level of complexity in an international context.

To reinforce the Global Technology Services entity and its partner IT departments, Société Générale brought in a Project Director/PMO from Synapsys with strong expertise in leading complex projects, to serve as Technical Project Manager. Rigor, autonomy, curiosity, and adaptability were the qualities required to meet the expectations of the project.

Ambitious first missions

The Technical Project Manager's first mission was to track the resolution of 5 application issues identified as blockers to integrating cloud applications with the SG platform.

"Given the complexity of Société Générale's ecosystem, the first mission was mainly about understanding the organization, getting familiar with the core tools and processes, and setting up my own organizational system: mind maps, a stakeholder register, a to-do list, a document tree, glossaries, time tracking, and more." — Technical Project Manager

The Technical Project Manager then took charge of evolving the Kubernetes CI/CD platform to optimize its performance and stability and absorb the rapid growth in activity.

Within 10 days, the first steering committee was organized to align the client and service provider, so both sides could work together constructively. It was a success: six workstreams were launched, covering areas from performance and resilience to a new billing model.

In parallel, the Technical Project Manager worked on refreshing an application authentication and authorization solution, including costing out the various upgrade scenarios, and tracked the resolution of RH5/6 and W2K8/12 obsolescence across the department's entire Middleware scope.

Leading a two-datacenter migration

Since January 2023, the Technical Project Manager has led the global management of a two-datacenter migration project. The goal: prepare and execute the switch of all legacy assets to the new network, migrate storage to address obsolescence, and contribute to cost-saving efforts, all while factoring in the datacenter consolidation strategy and numerous business constraints.

In parallel, work on the 2024 budget (workload, OPEX, CAPEX) and coordination with business stakeholders is underway to prepare the 2024 migration plan.

The Technical Project Manager works alongside 4 project managers (storage, network, middleware, datacenter) who lead the preparation and execution of the migration waves, around fifty technical and functional stakeholders, and roughly 80 business stakeholders.

They also contributed to CSR initiatives to implement an eco-design approach for solutions "by design" throughout the project lifecycle, and organized preview sessions to brief department heads within the Retail Client Relationship entity on projects likely to affect them and share lessons learned.