1. Comments about Chris Bland from various people associated with the “Early NAP”
project which went live in the Royal Bank April 2002
Note : NAP stood for “New Authorisation Process” – a misnomer as it was essentially a
database of available funds, populated by various overnight batch jobs and used for
authorisation purposes by ATMs, Point of Sale and Branches. Coordination was required with
conversion activity enabling online authorisation of 14.5 million cards.
From Ian Harrold (Business Manager)
I am the NAP Business Manager and worked alongside Chris as part of the
Early NAP Project.
The Early NAP implementation provided to be a great success and a
significant part of this was due to the work put in by Chris. Chris
started off as the Early NAP Project Manager but ended up pulling it
together from an IT perspective in what effectively became an Early
Channels Programme Management role. Chris was also able to assess the
various business impacts caused by the implementation which proved
invaluable to me when I engaged my business counterparts.
The comments received from both Mark Fisher and John White (below) should
be included within any formal assessment.
Mark Fisher - Chief Executive Manufacturing
(reports to Fred Goodwin – RBS Chairman)
The completion of the delivery of early NAP this week is yet another
significant achievement for the integration programme. I know that it is
the result of hard work and excellent teamwork by many people across both
IT and the business. Please pass on to them my personal thanks and
congratulations on another job well done.
John White, Director IT Integration
A wonderful job! It was a very complex task - very complex and many
thanks to all of you.
Cheers
Ian
From Trish Gray (in overall charge of the programme)
I would echo Ian's comments.
I came in as ATM / NAP programme manager at the turn of the year, taking
over from Derek, and Chris has been working directly for me since then.
he has done a very good job of drawing lots of disparate areas together,
particularly in the areas of integrated testing and implementation.
Equally importantly, apart from coming in several nights to see the
implementations in, he worked extremely hard to ensure success of the
overall project.
Regards
Trish
Trish Gray
Front Office AD
Ext 27014 (7770 27014)
Tel 0131 523 7014
Mobile 07774 174 403

2. Comments about Chris Bland from various people associated with the “Early NAP”
project which went live in the Royal Bank April 2002
From Ian Campbell – Production Acceptance
Chris,
Thanks for all your help with the PA and support work- this was a biggy
that went better than all expectations due to the quality of the people
involved.
Haste ye Back !
Ian Campbell
Production Acceptance/Take-On Team
Change Management, Service Delivery
IT Services
1st Floor, Fettes Row, Edinburgh, EH3 6UY
Ext. 20711 0131 523 0711
Email: Ian.a.campbell@rbs.co.uk
http://www.manufacturing.rbs.co.uk/GTpa/
From Mike Jones – Integrated Testing
I was the test analyst planning, scripting and co-ordinating execution of
the Early NAP system integration test with ATM, Teller and Point of Sale.
I had a lot of contact with Chris, particularly during the test environment
build and shakedown. Chris provided a lot of valuable help and I found him
a pleasure to work with.
In particular - the test environment was complex and required a myriad of
applications connected across several platforms. Obtaining support
resources from all the areas involved for build and shakedown proved to be a
major problem and began to threaten our timescales. Although not directly
within the scope of his responsibilities as Early NAP Implementation
Manager, Chris took charge of the problem and initiated and chaired an
ongoing weekly teleconference attended by upwards of fifteen people.
Drawing on his organisational, communication and inter-personal skills he
succeeded in establishing commitment and co-operation from a disparate set
of people very busy with other things.
Mike Jones
Test Analyst
NAP & CPS
*ITS: 7 8003 2377
*Extnl: 020 7480 2377
*Mobile: 07764 940193
From Jill Iveson – Executive Manager – Natwest
A quick line to let you know Chris did a good job for us on the Early NAP
integration work. We were pleased to obtain his services on this as he'd
worked for me previously on ATM integration. He brings structure and
commitment to his assignments and mixes well with the rest of the team. And
most importantly, delivers the items for which he is responsible to the
agreed dates.
Jill Iveson
Phone: ITS: 8003-1054

3. Comments about Chris Bland from various people associated with the “Early NAP”
project which went live in the Royal Bank April 2002
From Scott Dewar – IT Project Manager
I thought it would be appropriate to provide some feedback on the
performance of Chris Bland, acting in his role as PM for the Early NAP
project. Firstly, I will describe the working relationship between Chris and
I . From a technology perspective the project is managed between two key
areas : ITS projects and Application Development. Chris was my interface to
the Application Development and testing areas and similarly, I was his
interface to the "production" environment and infrastructure teams. For the
project to succeed , it required a high degree of communication, direction,
negotiation and decision making between ITS and AD. I would like to say that
Chris excelled in all of these areas and due to his hard work and diligence
my life was made so much easier ! One example would be the detailed
implementation plan that Chris produced (over 50 pages in total) that was
circulated to the production areas back in February. I received numerous
emails commenting on the quality of the publication, and this in turn meant
that all the relevant parties had a clear understanding of our objectives
and how we intended to deliver them. The heightened awareness of the project
was advantageous when we reached the stage of implementation : areas
normally "concerned" with such activities (i.e. Change management,
Production Acceptance) raised few concerns or objections.
Another one of Chris' qualities is his ability to pull people together ,
providing direction and leadership when it was most required. He would often
adopt a common sense approach to problems or issues , and always had a most
pragmatic outlook on things.
Due to the nature of the project ,volatile and potentially confrontational
situations arose with some frequency (particularly towards implementation !)
, however Chris was always able to defuse the situation with his diplomatic
and persuasive approach.
The project involved a large number of technical areas such as CICS,
DB2,VTAM etc , however Chris never appeared to be out of his depth and he
assisted with the preparation/delivery of technical presentations to the
production support areas. This also involved a Q&A session with the Shift
operators, and again Chris spoke with authority on the technical aspects of
the project.
One specific deliverable was the "843 Enquiry" - this is used to provide
available funds information to various agencies within the Group. The
technical solution was groundbreaking, providing connectivity between the NW
and RBS mainframes. Chris was instrumental in both the design and delivery
of the solution, and he managed the technical debate with little help from
myself !
In summary, it has been an absolute pleasure to work with Chris over this
last year and hopefully we will have the opportunity to repeat the exercise
in the future. He is an absolute professional in his approach to Project
Management, and in my experience, excels at everything he does.
Chris is a credit to Logica and I hope he receives the recognition that he
deserves.
Regards,
SCOTT DEWAR
Project Manager
Infrastructure Delivery - Project Services

4. Comments about Chris Bland from various people associated with the “Early NAP”
project which went live in the Royal Bank April 2002
From Chris Toplis – my direct report !
Chris Bland has asked me to give feedback on his work during Early NAP.
I joined Early NAP as a developer a couple of months before Chris took on
the PM role. Certainly before Chris joined it was very chaotic and in need of someone to
take control.
The problem with early NAP was that none of the teams were working together.
Chris changed this and got everyone working in the right direction
I believe I was the only person assigned to Chris as a resource so at his
request I did various tasks. I found he was always fully supportive. When I met a poor
response with requests he would assist in pushing for an answer. Despite the obvious
pressure he was under he never channelled it through to me.
He organised and chaired regular audio conferences between all the
departments and I on the whole felt well informed as to what was happening.
Although I'm based at Kegworth and Chris in Fettes it was always my
impression that he worked very long hours to ensure the success of the project.
There is no doubt that Chris was a big part in the success of the Early NAP
project.
Regards
Chris Toplis
* ITS 7- (from London) 6- (Edinburgh) 8112 1143
External 01509 671143 Mobile 07778 235678
* A Wing, Kegworth Data Centre, Packington Hill,
Kegworth, Derby DE7 2GF
* Chris.Toplis@rbos.co.uk
From Derek Andrews (originally in overall charge of the programme)
As you are aware this is the second role Chris has undertaken for me
in the past 18 month. When I managed to get Chris we already has a
significant backlog of work and challenges facing us.
Chris's organisational and communication skills and sheer hard effort
certainly helped to pull the project round.
He even kept smiling when being continually being bombarded by the bean
counters for endless progress reports.
Super effort

5. Comments about Chris Bland from various people associated with the “Early NAP”
project which went live in the Royal Bank April 2002
From Murray Darling – Technical Guru for the NAP Application
I worked with Chris on Early NAP, he was my Project Manager.
I reckon he did a good job in his role, which required the high level
co-ordination and control of several different areas. He brought a much
needed degree of stability to the project when he joined. He seems to have a
good ability to focus on delivery and the important issues, which was vital
at times on this project when there there was a deluge of information being
circulated.
Murray Darling
NAP Development/Support
22262
From Lester Gibbons – Team Leader on an associated project
I worked with Chris on the Early NAP project, co-ordinating the mainframe
changes required for Teller to interface to Early NAP.
Chris didn't start right at the start of this project but very quickly got
up to speed with the many issues that existed at the time that he joined.
These related primarily to all the team involved working away in
semi-isolation and not really fully understanding what anyone else was
doing.
Chris did, in my opinion an excellent job of getting everybody talking and
understanding what everyone else was doing. Chris's patience in handling
people who were being very obstructive for what seemed to be trivial issues
was a major factor in everyone keeping their heads. When time-scales were
tight again Chris kept things moving and escalated the attachsec issue to
its eventual resolution very smoothly as it looked to be a show stopper for
a while.
Chris is in my opinion very capable at handling complex projects requiring
the co-ordination of multiple simultaneous streams. It would be a pleasure
to work with him again.
Thanks
Lester Gibbons
Team Leader
Branch Platform Mainframe
25967

6. Comments about Chris Bland from various people associated with the “Early NAP”
project which went live in the Royal Bank April 2002
From Murray Darling – Technical Guru for the NAP Application
I worked with Chris on Early NAP, he was my Project Manager.
I reckon he did a good job in his role, which required the high level
co-ordination and control of several different areas. He brought a much
needed degree of stability to the project when he joined. He seems to have a
good ability to focus on delivery and the important issues, which was vital
at times on this project when there there was a deluge of information being
circulated.
Murray Darling
NAP Development/Support
22262
From Lester Gibbons – Team Leader on an associated project
I worked with Chris on the Early NAP project, co-ordinating the mainframe
changes required for Teller to interface to Early NAP.
Chris didn't start right at the start of this project but very quickly got
up to speed with the many issues that existed at the time that he joined.
These related primarily to all the team involved working away in
semi-isolation and not really fully understanding what anyone else was
doing.
Chris did, in my opinion an excellent job of getting everybody talking and
understanding what everyone else was doing. Chris's patience in handling
people who were being very obstructive for what seemed to be trivial issues
was a major factor in everyone keeping their heads. When time-scales were
tight again Chris kept things moving and escalated the attachsec issue to
its eventual resolution very smoothly as it looked to be a show stopper for
a while.
Chris is in my opinion very capable at handling complex projects requiring
the co-ordination of multiple simultaneous streams. It would be a pleasure
to work with him again.
Thanks
Lester Gibbons
Team Leader
Branch Platform Mainframe
25967