Ian Quest

Ian Quest, Director of Consulting, Quick Release

Ian Quest is director of consulting at Quick Release. Based in London, Ian operates internationally as he leads QR_’s growing consultancy arm. His focus is on radical programme acceleration and scale up. An early career in aerospace engineering led to senior leadership roles with several prominent manufacturing consultancies, culminating in the directorship of Newton Europe’s Air, Land & Sea business. Ian joined QR_ full time in 2017, having previously provided non-executive advisory services to its founders.

Open-source Disruption in Support of Audacious Goals

The need for complex engineering solutions to global challenges on both an organisational and transnational level is only increasing. But how can development programmes be radically accelerated now, rather than at the end of what could plausibly be a decade long ‘transformation’ project? Ian Quest, director of consulting at Quick Release, argues the huge strides required can be made with minimal changes to existing enterprise architecture and process design, instead relying on aspirational mindset shifts around getting the basics of data quality, reporting and programme governance right. Delivered through the empowerment of ‘best athletes’ supported by rapidly developed digital tools based on existing open-source modules, the speed, focus, and ease of deployment of these open-source digital tools have potential to reshape the PLM value equation. This vignette will provide a whirlwind tour of the thinking behind and real-life implementation of this methodology, drawing on recent automotive and medical device contexts.