Philippe is a great person with sound understanding of UML techniques and a very pragmatic approach to large application development project. Definitely someone to recommend if you are looking for a trusted advisor.
August 20, 2007
Albert Wei, Project Manager Customer Care, Icon Medialab Belgium

Philippe is well respected within the Agile community. He regularly and generously shares his insights about effective software development practices with others and several times I have gained new perspectives from him which I've woven into my own practice.

August 14, 2007
Scott Ambler, Senior Consultant, AmbySoft, Inc.

Rigor, involvement, enthusiasm, versatility are Philippe's qualities I really appreciate. I regularly work with Philippe since 2004, and I am still impressed by the extent of his knowledge. If you are looking for advice about architecture, software engineering or IT methodologies be sure that this person is the good one.

September 2, 2007
Top qualities: Expert, High Integrity, Creative
Thierry Vanden Broeck, PMP
hired Philippe as a IT Consultant in 2004, and hired Philippe more than once

Philippe has done a very great job as Methodology coach at Steria Benelux SA/NV. He does not only know many different Development Methodologies ,but his drive and enthusiasm in his courses combined with on the field coaching are the keys of successful implementation. It's a real pleasure working with him!

October 21, 2007
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, Creative
Henk Vandendooren
hired Philippe as a IT Consultant in 2002, and hired Philippe more than once

Philippe is a big professional specialized in new technologies. He has helped Steria to acquire rapidily and efficiently new development approaches based on UML, RUP and java technologies. All the missions he has lead for Steria were a great success !

October 22, 2007
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, Creative
Jean-Marc Canon
hired Philippe as a IT Consultant in 2,004, and hired Philippe more than once

I have had the opportunity to attend design and UML training courses taught by Philippe. Philippe's courses are unique given their high standard, quality and content. They provide this great balance between theory and practice and this in a clear manner. Having taught courses myself for several years I would say that anyone would benefit immensely from his courses and from Philippe's teaching skills. As I have worked alongside Philippe, I know that his teaching skills are not his only asset. I have been really impressed by his professionalism and high quality standards. Philippe is a very talented and invaluable architect and designer. He has this rare quality of being able to both summarise difficult concepts well and drill-down into the fine-grained and intricate details when considering a system and the interaction of the components. I would finally add that Philippe also has great and wide technical knowledge and practical experience ranging from J2EE to tcl/tk.

October 25, 2007
Xavier Renard, Software Engineer, Steria
worked directly with Philippe at Steria Benelux Sa/Nv

Philippe was our methodology coach and trainer for more than two years. He did an excellent job in a demanding environment. His interventions and his attitude to get the job done were much appreciated.

December 3, 2007
Top qualities: Expert, Good Value, Creative
Marc Berghmans
hired Philippe as a IT Consultant in 2,005, and hired Philippe more than once

The course that I followed (UML) was well formatted and given as a pro, it gave in total an extended view of the concept of UML and more. It gave us the opportunity to enlarge our line of sight in the aspect of modeling existing systems.

October 19, 2007
Joeri De Kegel, Java Developper Analyst, Steria Benelux
worked directly with Philippe at STERIA Benelux

Je sous-signé Michel De paepe, atteste avoir travaillé avec Philippe Back sur un projet Belgacom appelé Bill Viewer.
Cette application fonctionnant sur le Web permet aux clients Belgacom d’accéder des services liés à la facturation comme visualisation de la facture, visualisation des appels, demande de ré-envois…
Durant ce projet, Philippe Back a demontré une grande compétence technique dans tout ce qui touche aux technologies Web. Son jusqu’au boutisme pour ce qui concerne la qualité en fait également une personne très fiable.

Michel De Paepe
CSC Program Director

TO WHOM THIS MAY CONCERN

I hereby would like to recommend Philippe Back as project manager and web site designer.
Our company has called upon the services of Icon Medialab and Philippe back was on the team that set up our site that we are more than satisfied with.
The site has recently been refreshed and Philippe Back played an important role to fulfill this task. The outcome was a success.
We therefore pursued the collaboration and it was he who managed and delivered our new Extranet section. It met our expectations and he was and still is available at all time for online help and support.
It was a pleasure to find such professionalism and we enjoy and seek to pursue this collaboration.
Delphine de Kinder
Project Manager in Communications
EUFISERV s.c.

Vincent Ghislain
Bruxelles, le 01 décembre 2002

Belgacom
Groupe IT.
ITG Strategy
Application Development Strategy

Concerne : lettre de recommandation suite à la prestation de Philippe Back chez Belgacom.

Madame, Monsieur,
Entre 1996 et 1999 j’ai été en charge de l’infrastructure pour l’automatisation des centres d’appels de Belgacom. Ce projet concernait la mise en place du logiciel EDGE pour la gestion des centres d’appels ainsi que d’une plate-forme de EAI basée sur Tuxedo.
Le but du projet était d’offrir une interface unique pour les opérateurs quel que soit le système « back end » accédé.
Philippe Back a rejoint notre groupe en 1998 et a largement contribué à la mise en place correcte de l’infrastructure de ce projet capital et délicat pour Belgacom.
Il a largement participé au design de l’infrastructure pour obtenir un système fiable pouvant fournir une haute disponibilité. Il a amélioré les processus opérationnels pour la gestion de la plate-forme middleware ainsi que la mise en place d’un système automatique de monitoring. Il a également contribué à l’automatisation du processus de release management.
Il a ensuite évolué vers la gestion d’un team dont l’objectif était de définir les standards pour le développement de fonctions business au sein de la plate-forme tuxedo en vue d’obtenir une meilleure qualité et un plus grand niveau de ré-utilisation. Grâce à cette fonction, il a pu améliorer ses compétences en ce qui concerne la gestion d’équipes, la définition d’une mission pour le team ainsi que la mise en place d’objectifs personnels.
Philippe a enfin évolué vers de la gestion de projet avec la mise en place d’une application Web développée avec le serveur d’applications de Sun : NetDynamics.
Dans toutes ces expériences, Philippe a prouvé sa grande maîtrise technologique, son esprit de synthèse très développé, sa capacité d’apprendre très rapidement une nouvelle technologie ou un nouvel environnement de travail, ainsi que sa capacité à mettre en oeuvre un projet et à le mener à bien.

Il est très méticuleux, précis et très attentif à la qualité du travail qu’il fournit.
Suite à un récent contact avec lui lors d’un projet chez Belgacom, il a également montré ses capacités dans le monde J2EE.
Je ne peux que recommander Philippe pour des fonctions d’architecte système ou software, pour le design d’applications, pour de la gestion de projet voir même pour du développement où des connaissances pointues des nouvelles technologies est nécessaire.
N’hésitez pas à me contacter si vous désirez de plus amples informations.
Ir. Vincent Ghislain
Application Development Strategy responsible.

From: Nelson Jorge
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 16:50
To: BE All
Subject: Stroeve Bank - the end!
It is my great pleasure to announce that we have successfully concluded this assignment!
As many of you will recall, Stroeve Bank was our first big private sector assignment (over a million Euros), starting back in early 1999. Since then, this very long project has had its ups and downs, several team changes, its share of technical and client problems, last minute bugs, etc.
Last week, in response to a meeting that Gustaf and I had in Amsterdam, Stroeve Bank sent us an official letter in which they said:
"I am pleased to hereby acknowledge the successful completion of the Stroeve On-line project by Icon Medialab Belgium S.A., as well as receipt of all outstanding deliverables".
And today we have received payment for the last outstanding invoice and I can officially close this project.
While this was NOT an easy assignment by any means, I have surely learned a lot on a personal level and deeply appreciate the support of ALL who have been involved in the project, in particular the last team who, having inherited a not-too-enviable project, was able to turn things around, make a successful delivery and win the client's trust. Stroeve Bank is indeed happy with the current site and the technical expertise displayed by Philippe Back and his team. As a result, they have asked us to provide support and assistance in the future (any volunteers?).
A proper celebratory event will take place with the team after the summer period (and once I've cleared the expense with Gustaf...).
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE STROEVE TEAM FOR ITS PERSEVERANCE AND A JOB WELL DONE UNDER CHALLENGING CONDITIONS!
Nelson Jorge
(soon to be ex-) Engagement Manager of the Stroeve Project