FIT Newsletter — 16 September 2026

📝 Article

By Dave Milliken

A goal can be genuinely exciting. It can give you real direction, and it can make you feel that something new is actually possible. But a goal on its own isn't always enough. You can hold the clearest ambition in the world and still genuinely struggle if you don't have the support, time, money, structure, energy, and practical arrangements needed to actually keep moving toward it. That's exactly where support planning comes in, asking one central question: what genuinely needs to be in place around me for this goal to have a realistic chance of succeeding? That support might come from people, money, time, routines, equipment, information, rest, encouragement, a genuine backup plan, or simply enough space to actually think. The important thing is to stop imagining that goals exist in isolation. They genuinely don't. They exist inside real, messy, already-full lives.

What is important to you?

Before planning the actual support, start with the person, you. What genuinely matters to you outside the goal itself? If the goal is writing a book, that doesn't mean the rest of your life quietly disappears while you do it. You might still genuinely value time with friends, family, social contact, rest, exercise, quiet time, paid work, hobbies, privacy, or simply having fun. That matters because a genuinely good support plan shouldn't achieve one goal by quietly destroying everything else that actually gives your life value. If being around people genuinely matters to you, a plan built around isolating yourself for six months may simply not be sustainable. If quiet time matters, a plan that expects you to write in a genuinely noisy environment probably won't work either. Support planning starts by honestly asking what you need to keep in your life while you pursue this.

Protect what already matters

People sometimes become so focused on a goal that everything else quietly slides to second place. That can genuinely work for a short burst. It's considerably harder to sustain over months. A plan that requires giving up every evening, every weekend, every social connection, and every opportunity to rest may eventually become the exact thing that causes you to stop altogether. A better approach is deciding in advance what you genuinely want to protect, Friday evening stays social, Sunday stays free, mornings are for writing, afternoons are for paid work. The support plan is what creates real boundaries around the goal. It should never let the goal quietly consume everything else.

What do you want to change or achieve?

The next question is genuinely straightforward: what are you actually trying to do? The support plan needs to connect directly to a clear goal, write a book, complete a qualification, change career, build a business, improve fitness, finish a major project, reduce debt. Without a clear outcome, support planning stays genuinely vague. You might know you need help, but help with exactly what? The clearer the goal, the considerably easier it becomes to work out what support is actually relevant to it.

Keep the goal genuinely visible

When life gets busy, it's remarkably easy to lose sight of the original purpose entirely. The support plan should therefore keep the actual goal visible throughout, "I want to complete a first draft of my book within twelve months" becomes the anchor everything else gets checked against. Whenever you're considering a new support arrangement, ask honestly whether it genuinely helps you move toward that. If yes, it probably belongs in the plan. If not, it's probably unnecessary.

How will you actually be supported?

Now for the genuinely practical part. What support will actually help you make real progress? Writing a book might mean setting aside one hour every morning, using a genuinely quiet room, carrying a voice recorder or using your phone to capture ideas as they arrive, asking someone to review chapters, using a calendar to protect writing time, joining a writing group, or using software that helps organise notes properly. The key throughout is being specific. "Get more support" isn't genuinely a plan. "Write between 7:00 and 8:00 every morning" is. "Ask Sarah to review one chapter each month" is. "Record ideas on my phone the moment they occur to me" is. Specific support can actually be used. Vague support just sits there looking encouraging.

Support doesn't always mean another person

When people hear the word support, they often picture somebody else physically helping them. That can genuinely be part of it. But support can just as easily be a routine, a tool, an environment, a reminder, a checklist, a calendar, a genuinely quiet space, a deadline, a piece of software, or a savings account. Good support planning simply asks what would genuinely make the desired behaviour easier to actually do.

Build support directly into the environment

The best support is very often something you don't need to remember every single day. If you want to write in the morning, leave the notebook genuinely ready the night before. If you need to capture ideas, keep the recording app genuinely easy to reach. If you need uninterrupted time, block it directly into the calendar. If you need a weekly review, schedule it in advance rather than hoping you'll remember. The less a plan relies on constantly remembering what you were supposed to do, the more reliably it actually holds up over time.

How will you support yourself financially?

Some goals genuinely cost money. Others cost time, and time can genuinely cost money too. Taking several months away from regular work to complete a project means genuinely asking how you'll actually pay for that time. Do you have savings? Will you keep working part-time alongside it? Can you reduce costs elsewhere? Do you need funding? Can the project be phased around your existing job instead? Financial support isn't separate from the goal itself. It can genuinely determine whether the whole thing is sustainable at all.

Be genuinely realistic about money

It's remarkably easy to build plans that quietly assume money will somehow appear later when it's actually needed. A better question is what resources you genuinely have right now, and what happens if those resources start running low. "I have enough savings for three months," "I'll work two days a week while writing," "I won't reduce paid work until I have six months of expenses saved," "I'll review my finances monthly," all turn financial support into an actual part of the structure rather than something quietly left to chance.

And this isn't purely about willpower or good intentions, either, there's genuinely strong evidence that structural commitments around money work considerably better than simply resolving to save more. Researchers ran a randomised field experiment with a bank in the Philippines, offering some customers a special savings account that voluntarily restricted their own access to the money until they'd hit a savings goal they'd set themselves, while a comparison group carried on with an ordinary account. After a year, the customers who'd voluntarily locked themselves out of easy access to their own savings had increased those savings by roughly 81 percent more than the group without that restriction. Nobody in that study became more disciplined overnight. They simply built a genuine structural barrier around the behaviour they wanted, and the structure did a considerable amount of the actual work that willpower alone tends to struggle with. That's precisely the same logic behind building financial support directly into a goal plan rather than simply hoping the money sorts itself out through sheer determination.

Plan for financial pressure before it genuinely arrives

If money becomes tight, decisions get considerably harder to make well in the moment. So decide in advance what you'll actually do: if savings fall below a certain level, increase paid work; if the project costs more than expected, pause non-essential spending; if funding doesn't arrive, extend the timeline instead of abandoning it. That gives you real choices to fall back on. A support plan shouldn't quietly assume everything goes perfectly. It should genuinely include what happens once things get difficult.

How will you manage working towards the goal?

Every plan eventually runs into real life. Work gets busy. Someone gets ill. Money gets tight. Energy drops. Another opportunity shows up out of nowhere. Something entirely unexpected happens. The genuinely useful question is what you'll actually do once progress gets harder. Writing a book might mean deciding in advance: if work gets extremely busy, reduce writing rather than stopping completely; if burnout genuinely sets in, take one full week off; if a target's missed, review the timetable rather than abandoning the whole project; if money runs low, temporarily increase paid work. None of that is a sign of weakness. Those are contingency plans, built calmly, before you actually need them.

Give yourself genuine permission to adjust

People often build plans as though changing them later would automatically mean failure. That tends to make a plan genuinely brittle. A better plan includes real flexibility from the very start: if you become exhausted, you're allowed to stop for a week; if your workload shifts, you can reduce the weekly target; if the project takes longer than expected, you can extend the deadline; if the goal genuinely stops making sense, you can review it properly. That permission matters enormously. Without it, people tend to keep pushing long after the original plan has quietly become unrealistic.

Plan for the bad days, not just the good ones

Don't build a support plan designed purely around your best possible day. Design it for the tired day too. A good day might mean writing 2,000 words. A genuinely bad day's minimum might simply be opening the document, reading the last page, and adding one single paragraph. That still keeps a real connection to the project alive rather than letting it go cold. A genuinely sustainable plan needs to allow for that kind of variation.

How will you stay in control?

A goal can quietly start controlling you rather than the other way round. Staying in control genuinely means tracking what's actually happening and honestly deciding whether the plan's still working, which usually needs real review points built in, weekly reviews, monthly reviews, a three-month milestone, a six-month milestone. At each one, ask whether you're genuinely on track, whether the plan's still realistic, what's actually changed, which support is genuinely working, which support is genuinely missing, and whether the target itself needs adjusting. The point of monitoring was never judging yourself harshly. It's simply giving yourself honest information to work with.

Targets help you stay genuinely oriented

Targets are useful precisely because they tell you whether real movement is actually happening. Plan to write 5,000 words a month, and after three months you've written 14,000, you're broadly on track. Written only 2,000 instead? That tells you something genuinely needs to change, maybe the target was unrealistic from the start, maybe the support's inadequate, maybe the available time was simply overestimated. Either way, the target gives you something concrete to actually review against, rather than just a vague feeling that things aren't quite going to plan.

Control also means genuinely saying no

Support planning isn't only about adding things in. Sometimes it's genuinely about taking things out. If you're serious about a major goal, you may need to say no to extra commitments, unnecessary meetings, work that can genuinely wait, distractions, and other projects competing for the exact same time. Staying in control means actively protecting the resources the goal genuinely needs, rather than letting them quietly get eaten up elsewhere.

What will you actually do next?

Eventually, every support plan needs to produce a genuine action. What's the very next thing you'll actually do to build the support structure itself? Not "write the whole book," but perhaps choose the writing time, set up the workspace, create a savings target, ask someone to review the first chapter, buy the notebook, or schedule the monthly review. That next step needs to be genuinely concrete. A support plan that only ever exists as a set of good intentions won't end up supporting very much at all.

The next step might be about support, not the goal itself

This distinction genuinely matters. If the goal is completing a qualification, the next useful action might not be studying at all, it might be arranging childcare, requesting flexible working, buying the required software, setting up a genuine study space, or speaking to the tutor directly. None of those actions directly complete the course. But they genuinely make completing the course considerably more possible, and that's precisely what support planning is actually for.

Think about the whole system around the goal

A goal was never really just one single action. It sits inside a genuine system: time, money, energy, people, environment, skills, resources, health, and existing responsibilities. Ignore any one of those areas, and it may eventually become the exact thing that quietly stops your progress. Support planning simply asks what the whole system genuinely needs, not just the goal in isolation.

Seven questions worth using

A genuinely useful support plan can be built around seven honest questions: what's important to you, what needs to remain part of your life while pursuing this goal; what do you actually want to change or achieve; how will you genuinely be supported, through people, routines, tools, environments, and structures; how will you support yourself financially, and what's the backup plan; how will you manage working toward the goal once life genuinely gets difficult; how will you stay in control, monitoring progress and making honest adjustments; and finally, what will you actually do next, the concrete action that starts building the support structure right now.

The important part

A goal gives you real direction. A support plan is what actually makes the journey possible. You can have a genuinely excellent goal and still fail if there's no time, no money, no structure, no recovery plan, no genuine support, and no honest review built in anywhere. The point of support planning was never removing every single difficulty, that's genuinely impossible. It's making sure that when difficulties inevitably show up, you're not starting entirely from nothing. You already know what genuinely matters to you, what you're actually trying to achieve, what support you'll need, how you'll fund it, what you'll do once things get difficult, how you'll honestly monitor progress, and what happens next. That's what turns a goal from something you merely hope will happen into something your actual life is genuinely organised to support.

Further reading

Drive, by Daniel H. Pink, is useful when designing support that genuinely helps you stay connected to goals you actually value, tied to autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

The Joy of Work, by Bruce Daisley, explores how environment, concentration, energy, social connection, and working conditions genuinely affect your ability to do meaningful work consistently over time.

Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini, explores commitment, consistency, and social influence, and helps explain why genuinely clear structures, visible commitments, and supportive environments can determine whether intentions actually become action.

The strongest goals aren't necessarily the most ambitious ones. They're genuinely the ones supported by a life that actually gives them room to happen.

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📝 Article

By Dave Milliken

Most of us have things we'd genuinely like to change, a better job, more money, a qualification, a new skill, more independence, a healthier routine, a new business, a finished project, or simply a clearer sense of where we're actually heading. The trouble is that wanting something and actually planning for it are two entirely different things. A goal only becomes genuinely useful once it gives you real direction, moving you from "I would like this" to "this is what I'm working towards," and eventually to "this is what I'm doing next." Good goal setting was never about predicting the future perfectly. It's about choosing a direction, building a sensible route toward it, and checking regularly whether that route is still actually taking you somewhere you want to go.

Start by blue-skying it

Before worrying about what's realistic, start by asking plainly: what do I actually want? This is the blue-sky stage, and for a moment it's worth genuinely ignoring money, time, qualifications, other people's expectations, and whether the idea even sounds sensible. Let yourself think broadly: I want to run my own business, I want to earn significantly more, I want to completely change career, I want to write a book, I want to travel, I want to become genuinely expert at something, I want to live somewhere else entirely. At this stage, the point was never proving the goal is achievable. It's discovering what direction genuinely interests you in the first place. Impose practical limits too early, and you risk setting goals around whatever already exists rather than what you actually want.

Let yourself be genuinely unrealistic for a moment

There's nothing wrong with starting with an outrageous version of the goal. Someone saying "I want to make a million pounds in a week" probably isn't setting a useful immediate target, but don't dismiss it outright. Ask what's genuinely underneath it. Maybe what they really want is financial security, freedom from debt, more control over their own time, the ability to properly support their family, room to invest, or a business that produces a genuinely good income. The unrealistic goal often contains real information about the actual goal hiding underneath it, and blue-sky thinking is what lets you uncover that before practicality gets a chance to quietly shut the whole conversation down.

Then bring reality back in

Once you genuinely know what you'd ideally like, the next question is what's actually possible. This isn't about crushing ambition, it's about turning ambition into something you can genuinely work with. "A million pounds in a week" might become "I want to increase my income substantially over the next few years," or more specifically, "I want to earn £500 a week from a new source of income within twelve months." That's now something you can genuinely start planning around. The dream gives you direction. Reality gives you an actual route.

Realistic doesn't mean small

There's a real danger in goal setting of becoming so relentlessly realistic that the goal simply stops being interesting. A genuinely realistic goal should still stretch you, requiring real effort, real change, genuine learning, actual planning, and probably some discomfort along the way, while staying plausible enough that you can honestly imagine a route toward it. The question was never "what can I achieve without changing anything?" It's "what could I achieve if I worked deliberately toward it?"

Define the longer-term goal

Once the idea's genuinely grounded in reality, decide where you'd like to be roughly a year from now. A year works well here, long enough for genuinely meaningful change to actually happen, short enough that you can still hold it in your head. In one year, I want to have completed my qualification. In one year, I want to have moved into a new job. In one year, I want my business producing regular income. In one year, I want to have finished the first version of my project. The goal should be clear enough that when the review date actually arrives, you can honestly ask "did this happen," or at the very least, "how close did I get?"

Put a genuine date on it

Dates genuinely matter. Without one, a goal can drift indefinitely, "I want to complete this eventually" is a completely different thing from "by the 1st of September next year, I want this completed." The date doesn't guarantee success on its own. What it genuinely creates is a review point. When it arrives, you can look honestly at what actually happened, maybe you hit the goal, maybe you got halfway, maybe circumstances shifted, maybe the goal itself changed along the way. The date simply gives you somewhere concrete to stop and honestly assess.

Work backwards from there

Once you know where you want to be in a year, work backwards from it. If you want to be there in twelve months, where should you genuinely be in six? Then in three? Then next month? This turns one large, slightly intimidating ambition into a genuine sequence of milestones. A one-year goal of completing a qualification might mean completing the majority of the coursework by six months, the first several modules by three months, and finishing the very first module plus establishing a regular study routine within a single month. The goal starts feeling considerably less like "complete everything" and considerably more like "complete the next stage."

Turning the plan into something you'll actually do

This backwards-planning step matters more than it might look like on paper, and there's genuinely solid research behind exactly why. Psychologists studying what's called the intention-behaviour gap have found, repeatedly, that simply intending to do something is a remarkably weak predictor of actually doing it. A large meta-analysis pooling 94 separate studies and more than 8,000 participants found that people who paired a goal with a specific, concrete plan, phrased along the lines of "when X happens, I will do Y," were considerably more likely to actually follow through than people who held the exact same goal without that specific plan attached, a medium-to-large effect, genuinely one of the more reliable findings in this whole area of psychology. In other words, "I want to complete my qualification" is a goal. "When I get home from work on Monday, I will open the first module and read for thirty minutes" is a plan, and the second one is considerably more likely to actually happen. Working backwards into specific milestones and specific next actions isn't just tidy organisation, it's precisely the mechanism that seems to close the gap between wanting something and genuinely doing it.

Milestones tell you whether you're genuinely moving

A milestone isn't simply a smaller goal, it's also a measurement point. If your six-month target was completing six modules, and six months later you've genuinely completed two, that doesn't automatically mean failure. It gives you real information. Was the original plan simply unrealistic? Did something genuinely interfere? Are you working more slowly than expected? Do you need additional support? Has the goal itself changed? Do you genuinely need more time? A milestone lets you course-correct honestly before you're staring down the final deadline with nowhere left to adjust.

Course correction is genuinely part of the plan

People sometimes treat changing a plan as a form of failure. It isn't. Plans get built using whatever information's available at the time, and then reality happens anyway, circumstances shift, you learn new things along the way, unexpected opportunities show up, unexpected problems show up too. A genuinely good plan should be strong enough to provide real direction while staying flexible enough to change when it actually needs to. Think of it like navigation: if a road's closed, you don't keep driving straight into the barrier purely because that was the original route, you find another way round. The destination can genuinely stay the same. The journey's allowed to change.

Review deliberately, not accidentally

Build genuine review points directly into the goal, a three-month review, a six-month review, a nine-month review, a final review. At each point, ask honestly what's gone well, what genuinely hasn't worked, what you've actually learned, whether you're still moving toward the right goal, what needs to change, whether you need more support, and what the next milestone should actually be. This is what stops a goal from quietly fading into the background unnoticed.

Break the milestone down again if it's still too big

Even a three-month milestone can still feel too large on its own. So break it down further. A three-month goal of submitting three job applications and completing a training course might become: update the CV in week one, identify suitable roles in week two, complete the first application in week three, begin the course in week four, and so on. The smaller the next action genuinely becomes, the easier it is to actually act on.

What can you actually do right now?

Eventually, every goal needs to answer one specific question: what can I actually do now? Not next year, not in six months, not once everything's finally perfect. Now. Maybe the honest answer is sending one email, opening the application form, researching one course, writing the first paragraph, making one phone call, creating a budget, booking an appointment, downloading the information, or talking to someone who's genuinely already done this before. A genuinely useful goal should always eventually produce one specific, useful action you can take today.

Identify the resources you actually need

Goals generally require resources, some genuinely obvious, money, equipment, qualifications, transport, time, and some less obvious, knowledge, advice, confidence, support, contacts, practice, a genuinely quiet place to work, access to the right software. Before beginning, ask honestly what you already have, what's actually missing, what you can realistically obtain, and what you genuinely need help with. A goal becomes considerably easier to plan around once you properly understand the actual gap between where you're standing now and what you'll need to move forward.

People can be resources too

Support was never purely about equipment or money. Very often the most useful resource is genuinely another person, someone who already knows the subject, has done this exact thing before, can introduce you to someone useful, can review your work honestly, can explain a confusing process clearly, can keep you genuinely accountable, or can tell you plainly when your plan isn't realistic. We tend to imagine goals as purely individual achievements, when in reality, most genuinely worthwhile goals involve other people somewhere along the route.

Understand exactly what needs to change

A goal generally exists because something about your current situation genuinely needs to change. What's actually different between where you are now and where you want to be, knowledge, income, experience, qualifications, behaviour, confidence, connections, time management? Once you genuinely understand that gap, the plan gets considerably clearer. Knowledge gap, learn. Experience gap, practise. Qualifications gap, study. Contacts gap, network. Money gap, build a genuine financial plan. The goal tells you where you want to go. The gap tells you exactly what actually needs to change to get there.

Make the goal genuinely meaningful

A goal is considerably easier to sustain once you genuinely know why it matters. Ask why you want it, then ask again why that matters too. "I want a new qualification" leads to "because I want a better job," which leads further to "because I want more independence and more control over my own future." Now the qualification is connected to something genuinely deeper, and that connection becomes genuinely useful once the actual work gets difficult.

Be careful with goals that never genuinely end

Goals can turn unhealthy when they simply reproduce themselves endlessly, more, then more, then more again. There's nothing inherently wrong with ambition, but it's worth genuinely asking what would actually be enough. If the only honest answer is "more than I currently have," the goal may never actually provide real satisfaction, however much of it you eventually get. A genuinely good plan should include not just "what am I trying to achieve" but also "why is that genuinely enough for this particular stage of my life."

Review the actual cost

Every goal carries a real cost, time, money, energy, attention, opportunity, sometimes real stress. Ask honestly what you'll actually have to give up to achieve it, and whether that trade is genuinely worth making. A goal can be entirely achievable and still not be worthwhile, you might be technically capable of finishing a demanding qualification while working full-time, but if doing so genuinely wrecks your health, your relationships, and everything else in your life along the way, the goal itself may need redesigning. Achievement genuinely matters. So does the actual route you take to get there.

Don't confuse somebody else's goal with your own

People can spend years chasing goals they never genuinely chose for themselves, the family expectation, the career somebody else once called sensible, the qualification everybody around them already has, a definition of success quietly inherited from somewhere outside themselves. It's worth asking plainly: if nobody else ever knew I was doing this, would I still genuinely want it? That question can be genuinely revealing. Your goals were never obligated to impress anybody else. They only need to genuinely make sense within your own life.

Write it down

Writing a goal down makes it genuinely more concrete, and it doesn't need to be complicated. Record the goal itself, why it actually matters, your one-year position, your six-month milestone, your three-month milestone, your one-month milestone, your very next action, what resources you'll genuinely need, and your review dates. That's genuinely enough to turn a vague ambition into something you can actually work with.

A simple goal-planning structure, gathered together

Blue sky: what would I genuinely love to achieve? Reality check: what version of this is actually achievable? One year: where do I want to be? Six months: what should genuinely be true by then? Three months: what progress should I have made? One month: what should I complete first? Now: what's the next genuinely useful action? Then add what resources you'll need, who can genuinely help, when you'll actually review the plan, and what would make you honestly change direction.

The important part

Goal setting was never about predicting exactly what your life will look like in twelve months. It's about choosing a direction deliberately. Start by genuinely thinking bigger than seems immediately practical, ask what you actually want, then bring reality back into the picture. Turn the dream into an actual goal. Give the goal a real date. Work backwards from it. Build genuine milestones. Review them honestly. Adjust the route when it needs adjusting. Identify the resources you genuinely need. And eventually, reduce the entire plan down to one specific question: what can I do next? A good goal gives you somewhere real to aim. A good plan gives you an actual route, and turning that route into specific, concrete next steps, rather than vague good intentions, is precisely what the research on follow-through consistently shows makes the real difference. Regular review is what keeps making sure that route still genuinely leads somewhere you actually want to go.

Further reading

Drive, by Daniel H. Pink, is useful for thinking specifically about goals that are genuinely personally meaningful rather than simply externally imposed, tied to autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

The Joy of Work, by Bruce Daisley, is useful for thinking through the actual conditions needed to make real progress, energy, concentration, environment, and genuinely realistic working practices.

Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini, explores commitment and consistency, and helps explain why making a genuinely clear commitment and taking one initial action can make it considerably easier to keep moving in the same direction afterwards.

Goals are useful when they genuinely help you move. They become considerably less useful the moment they turn into something you simply admire from a distance. So think big. Make it genuinely real. Break it down. Put real dates against it. Then do the next thing.

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📅 Event

Overview
Ireland's largest tech conference returns to ICC Belfast on 15 Oct 2026 for a bold, practical day of AI, data and digital innovation.

AI is no longer a future trend - it is a present business reality. Big Data Belfast 2026 returns to ICC Belfast on Thursday 15 October 2026, bringing together the people, ideas and technologies shaping what comes next.

Presented by Analytics Engines, alongside Headline Partners Accenture and AWS, Big Data Belfast brings together leaders from industry, government, academia and the wider innovation ecosystem for a timely and high-impact day of conversation.

This year, the focus could not be more relevant.

There has never been a more important, or more opportune time to be talking about AI and the big issues surrounding it, on the big stage. From productivity, competitiveness and enterprise transformation to ethics, regulation, cyber security, infrastructure, workforce change and trust, AI is now influencing decision-making at every level.

As Ireland's largest tech conference, Big Data Belfast will once again provide a major platform for those conversations - combining keynote sessions, industry insights, practical case studies and cross-sector debate. Following our largest conference to date in 2025, which welcomed over 1,000 delegates, 80+ speakers and 25 exhibitors, the 2026 event promises another standout gathering for the technology community.

Expect a day built around the themes that matter now, including:

From AI experimentation to enterprise value
Agentic AI and the next wave of transformation
Trust, governance, ethics and responsible innovation
Sovereign compute, infrastructure and digital independence
Cyber security for an AI-first world
The future of work and the human-AI workforce
Edge AI and intelligent real-time systems
AI in action across health, manufacturing and financial services
Whether you are a business leader, technologist, founder, policymaker, investor, researcher or student, Big Data Belfast 2026 is where big ideas meet practical insight.

Supporting sponsors: AICC, Allstate, DailyPay, Dell, MCS Group, Momentum One Zero, Options Technology and E-Futures (Queen's University).

Event Information & Booking →

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💼 Vacancy

As a Junior Implementation Consultant, you'll work alongside experienced consultants to help customers successfully implement and adopt the company's software.

You'll get involved across the implementation lifecycle, helping understand customer requirements, configure the platform, work with data, test solutions and support customers through training and go-live.

You'll take on responsibility early on for your own customers and implementation projects.

What You'll Be Doing

Supporting the delivery of software implementations for customers
Helping gather and document customer requirements
Configuring software and workflows around customer needs
Working with customer data, including mapping, checking and validating information
Supporting data migration and system configuration
Testing solutions ahead of customer go-live
Helping run customer workshops and implementation sessions
Supporting customer training and product adoption
Working alongside Product, Engineering and other internal teams
Using tools such as Excel, SQL, Power BI, Alteryx or Power Automate
Troubleshooting issues and helping customers resolve problems
Learning how to manage software implementations from discovery through to go-live
About You

You don't need to have years of implementation experience. This could suit someone coming from software, technology, data, professional services or another client-facing environment who wants to build a career in technology consulting.

Ideally, you'll bring:

Some experience working with software, technology or data
Strong Excel skills and confidence working with data
Exposure to SQL, Power BI, Alteryx, Power Automate or similar tools would be useful
Good analytical and problem-solving skills
Confidence communicating with customers and colleagues
The ability to understand business problems and think through solutions
Strong attention to detail and organisation
A genuine interest in technology and learning new systems

Apply / Vacancy Details →

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