Alan Ferguson

Alan Ferguson was brought up in Belfast by his optician father and housewife mother, alongside two older sisters. His interest in aircraft combined with very good A level results won him a university scholarship with the Royal Air Force. After a gaining a degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Southampton University he went to RAF College Cranwell to complete his post-graduate training as an Engineering Officer.

Alan then spent sixteen years is various roles throughout the RAF:

• At RAF Odiham Alan was responsible for all mechanical transport operations; this involved 160 prime movers and 60 staff.
• At RAF Leeming he was in charge of a flight line that handled over 50 aircraft and up to 250 movements each day. He was responsible for two out-stations (Dishforth & Topcliffe) and later for second line aircraft servicing that comprised 10 work streams.
• Next came a move to RAF Germany. At Gutersloh Alan was responsible for the engineering operating readiness and safety of the Harrier & support helicopter forces.
• On returning to the UK Alan was stationed at RAF Halton, an engineering training centre. Alan was responsible for the management of 12000 students per annum, up to 2000 of whom were resident at any one time.
• And so to Scotland – at RAF Leuchars Alan was the structural maintenance authority for the northern air defence fleet.
• And finally RAF Swanton Morley where Alan carried out programme & project management for initiatives worth £400m, including the piloting of structured methods.

During this time Alan married Susan, a civil engineer he had met at Southampton. They have two daughters – Rose who is training to be a nurse after spending several years abroad and Liz who is an event manager.

‘Retirement’ Alan left the RAF in 1991 at the age of 38 having held the rank of Squadron Leader for several years. He initially spent four very interesting years working as a project manager for Norwich Union and then decided to establish his own management consultancy organisation.

Today that organisation is AFA, which delivers accredited training and consultancy services around the world with Alan in the role of managing director.

During the first 18 months of its existence AFA built a solid client base which came to appreciate the clarity & honesty of AFA’s consultancy advice. And then Alan was invited to Sunningdale for the launch of the PRINCE2 project management methodology. After assessing the quality & robustness of the method and looking at the business case for offering training & consultancy support in it, Alan decided that AFA should become one of the founding Accredited Training Organisations (ATOs).

Since the mid-nineties Alan has played the lead in the development of structured management methods in partnership with the UK Cabinet Office and APM Group (the examining body). Alan and other AFA consultants have served on the reference groups, and as authors and examiners for all the major management methods, and for the qualifications offered by the Association for Project Management.

So what are Alan’s predictions for the future? He believes that we are in the middle of a sea change in management thinking. We have spent at least ten years developing and rolling out individual management methods. The challenge and opportunity now is to integrate the Best Practice methods so that we have a lean and effective set of guidance as outlined in AFA’s Practices for Delivering Change (PDC) seminars.

Certainly some parts of the UK market for AFA’s services has reduced as the Government’s austerity measures have started to bite; but as local authority & central government staffs are reduced there is increased need for specialist consultants & interim managers to provide additional, short term capability.

In addition there are plenty of new opportunities outside the UK. AFA has both direct clients and business partners in Australia, the United States and several European countries. In the first half of 2011 AFA provided services in New Zealand, Uganda, Haiti, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Poland, Romania, Spain, Belgium,

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