Project Start-Up

Ensure your project, programme or portfolio has the best chance of success by insisting that the essentials are in place before committing large amounts of resource and investment.

  • The Brief – the primary control document for defining what you want and state your objectives for the project. This gives you a standard against which to determine project success. We have the skills to ensure that the many inputs can be clearly stated for delivery teams to follow.
  • Feasibility and Viability Studies – essential tests of the brief to make sure that what you are trying to achieve is financially and technically possible. This stops you wasting time on poor schemes or bad ideas.
  • Option appraisals – helping you define and select the best choice to deliver the project. The many options need to be assessed in terms of value and risk against the project objectives in your brief for best results.
Team-Management
  • Business cases and investment appraisals – working with the finance team to ensure that the finances and funding for the project are in place. The aim is to include capital and revenue costs so that the metrics for assessing financial success are in place.
  • Stakeholder management – people deliver projects and all projects, regardless of complexity, require the input of many people. A well-prepared stakeholder map ensures that no person, organization or third party who needs to contribute is missed.
  • Organisation and governance – the creation of decision making boards, terms of reference, authority levels and definition of management information.
  • Systems and controls – the drafting and implementation of essential systems and control for effective delivery. This can include reporting, stage management, exception plans, change control and process mapping to integrate with existing client arrangements.
  • Benchmarking and Key Performance Indicators: putting in place the systems to set objectives and measure performance and progress towards their achievement.

Procurement of Goods or Services

Making the right commercial and purchasing decisions

An essential skill in the senior management team is the ability to make the best strategic choices of where to invest or new directions to take. These choices rarely have sufficient information and are often shrouded with ambiguity and uncertainty.

Robust option appraisals are an essential tool for the senior team. They ensure that the starting point and end state(s) are clear, enabling the strategic thinkers to invest their valuable time identifying options and being creative. This can then be followed by systematic and rigorous analysis and evaluation of options. The result being that the chosen path is auditable, defendable and inspiring for others to follow.

Framework and Partnering Agreements

Establishing long term beneficial supply chain relationships

Many organisations wish to establish long term agreements with their supply chain. We have developed robust systems for tendering, assessing, marking and evaluation to make sure you get the best from the supply chain.

  1. Appointment of project and design team or other professional services – procuring a service rather than goods or products can worry some clients. It requires an understanding of the role and the ability to make clear the deliverables that must be produced. Whether you wish to retain trusted advisors or engage with new teams providing unique skills we can help you get the best team in place.
  2. Appointment of contractors – often one of the largest commercial relationships most organisations can enter, it is critical to get this right. Success is crucial upon the definition of the employers’ requirements or works information, selection and assessment of tenders, negotiation of price and contract award. Each stage is an opportunity to clearly define the risk and ensure the price is right.
  3. Procuring specialist equipment – working with your lead users and procurement teams to ensure that specialist items are fully defined and that the revenue impacts are fully understood. There is generally a need to consider design and installation issues, complex warranties and maintenance regimes that introduce cost and risk.
  4. Working with you – many organisations have internal procurement and purchasing teams, long term financial and legal advisors and technology specialists. These people know the business intimately and we seek to ensure that they are integrated into the project in a manner that allows them to contribute maximum value

Assurance and Healthcheck

For clients whose governance requires independent assurance or for those that have some concerns that project, programme or portfolio performance is not what it should be.

  1. Assurance and fund monitoring – organisational or funding governance often demand an independent review to give comfort that an investment is progressing within tolerable limits.
  2. Audit and gateways – at key stages or gateways to review deliverables against pre-defined measures to determine if progress to the next stage may be approved. This can be part of quality assurance or for independent parties.
  3. Healthcheck review – typically carried out if some concerns have been raised or confidence if certainty of delivery has reduced. The outcome of this report can determine if changes are required to the current team.
  4. Turnaround and recovery – the emergency intervention to instigate a plan to get a project, portfolio or programme back on track. This includes immediate actions to maintain critical path and essential changes for the long term improvement of performance.

Capital Delivery Team

Establishing a centralised team for delivering projects, programmes and portfolios of investment. These are enterprise level teams that provide the resources and create the systems for efficient, effective and reliable delivery.

Contract Management

The contract sets out the terms and conditions for signed parties to conduct their contractual activities. It is essential to follow these fairly and equitably without emotion or prejudice.

Managing and Modelling Costs

Having reliable information to lead and manage your business or organisation.