Tactica
l support for Business Improvement programmes and projects in Scotland: | Print this page for easy reading |
"Your initiative will fail if you don’t have sufficient access to critical skills at the right time."
"Tactical support makes it easy for you to get the difficult stuff done in short (typically 3-12 week) assignments rather than having to invest heavily in a full-time Programme or Project Manager for 6 - 18 months at a time".
In an ideal world every programme and project would have all the people it needs with all the required skills available just when they were needed – every time!
However, here in the real world, this simply doesn’t happen. Instead teams often have to stretch themselves to learn new things quickly, work harder and for longer hours. The project's commissioner also ends up spending more time (sometimes much more) than they originally intended because they have to bridge the gaps that the available skills don’t cover. This is all part and parcel of leading and participating in projects and its all okay… up to a point.
It’s not okay to work this way if:
Critical success skills (not simply knowledge) |
Stakeholder Engagement and Management; Delivery Strategy / Business Case Development; Work Definition and Breakdown; Estimating; Performance Analysis and Reporting; Problem Solving; Team Leadership and Management; Integration |
- | The gap is in one or more of the critical success skills (see box), that’s just begging for failure. |
- | Compensating for the skills gap is likely to burn people out (you can’t deliver if you and the team are all on sick-leave) |
- | The project commissioner’s additional involvement is likely to adversely affect their other commitments / business as usual activities (robbing Peter to pay Paul) |
- | The extra costs in terms of additional time to deliver (usually under-estimated), funding (as a knock-on impact of time and the direct costs of learning) and potential for reduced quality (the apprentice’s work rather than the master’s) are clearly quantified and accepted by all stakeholders. |
We can provide you with tactical suppport to help you deliver your initiaitives - right from the pre-planning stages all the way through to the post-implementation evaluation... and all points in between. In project jargon - at whatever points we are needed across the full project lifecycle.
The benefit of our approach for you is that you only invest in outside specialist help in the specific areas you need it, instead of having to hire a Programme or Project Manager for the full duration (although we can do that too if it's what you need).
Here are some service descriptions to give you some ideas about how best you could deploy our skills and expertise. If you have any questions or if you would like to find out more about a particular element, please feel free to get in touch: Scott.Henderson@Strathfleet.com Mobile: 07768 781 026
How we can help you...
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Programme and Project Assessment
From a project commissioner’s perspective, the best insurance against derailments (especially last-minute disasters) is to carry out periodic assessments that go beyond routine progress reporting. A well structured assessment will investigate the status of those underlying fundamental factors that are so critical to delivering successful programme and project outcomes, will assure you about what is going well and will show you where to focus your efforts. Our assessment tools will help you to answer these qustions: "How confident are we that this initiative will deliver a) its objectives, b) on time and c) within budget?" "What evidence do we have to support our assessment of a), b) and c)?" "What are our immediate priorities to keep things on track/get things back on track/deliver an acceptable outcome anyway?" Get started now with our free resource: The Programme and Project Health-check Assessment Tool For custom assesments, a 'fresh pair of eyes', help or advice, email Scott.Henderson@Strathfleet.com or call 07768 781 026. |
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Programme and Project Recovery
If things have already started to go wrong and you can't seem to get things back on track quickly you need to act fast to minimise the damage: The first thing you need to do is get a ‘fresh pair of eyes’ to review your initiative. They should have a background in Programme or Project Management and have analytical skills. They will need to take you through some form of diagnostic process and make informed recommendations as to what you need to do next. We can help you to pinpoint the root-cause(s) and to develop a strategy to get things back on track or, if its too late for that, a strategy to deliver an acceptable outcome. Try out our Health-check Assessment Tool for free The Programme and Project Health-check Assessment Tool. It will help you to identify the right questions to ask. For an informal, confidential chat about the assessment or to talk over your options for Recovery please email Scott.Henderson@Strathfleet.com or call 07768 781 026. |
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Programme and Project Preparation
Much of the success of an initiative depends upon the quality of preparations made before getting started on the doing bit. When things go astray, it is most often due to flawed preparations. Here are the sorts of things we can help you with to get your initiaive off to the best possible start: | Outcomes we can help you to achieve: | Benefits | Deliverables | | Commissioner and stakeholders are agreed on the outcomes, benefits and deliverables that constitute a successful initiative. | Clarity of Purpose. | An approved statement of purpose. | | Commissioner and stakeholders are agreed on the strategy to deliver the agreed outcomes, benefits and deliverables. | Clarity of Direction. | An approved statement of strategy. | | Commissioner and stakeholders are statisfied that the tactical and operational plans are congruent with their strategic intention and are based on reasonable assumptions about the time, cost and effort required for sucessful delivery. | Clarity of Execution arrangements. | An approved plan and a mandate to proceed. |
We can work with you on a 'Pre-planning to Initiation' package or can help you to deliver preparation components on a 'tactical' basis. For a confidential, informal chat about what you want to achieve and how we might help, please email Scott.Henderson@Strathfleet.com or call 07768 781 026. |
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Programme and Project Implementation
Reputational damage is done when you don't get your intiaitives off to a good start, if you fail to navigate a safe path through the implementation or if you leave 'loose-ends' to trip up others. Here are the sorts of things we can help you with to get your initiaive delivered with your reputation intact (or even enhanced!)... | Outcomes we can help you to achieve: | Benefits | Deliverables | | Work is initiated with the minimum of fuss or disruption to others. | Organisational Goodwill is maintained | - Pre-start resource agreements - Kick-off briefings, meetings and assignments - Initiation reporting | Implementation is completed in a mature fashion and in line with Commissioner and Stakeholder expectations. | Confidence during implementation | The agreed results plus: - Meaningful, accessable reporting - Rigorous risk and issue management - Robust change control process - Systematic decision making & communication - Clear, objective decision support materials | | Post-implementation 'loose-ends' are tied up and meaningful information about the initiative is readily accessible. | Reputation longer term | - Completion report - Records archive - Redeployment arranagements |
We can work with you on a full implementation package or we can help you to with implementation components on a 'tactical' basis. For an informal, confidential chat about what you want to achieve and how we might help, please email Scott.Henderson@Strathfleet.com or call 07768 781 026. |
How we can work together... The first thing that we do after you contact us is to schedule an informal meeting where we can explore together (and in confidence) where your programme and project support needs may lie.
We like to invest this time to reach a common understanding of the context, challenges and your desired outcomes. This in turn allows us to provide you with a specifically tailored proposal based on what we have agreed you want to achieve (rather than a standard sales script full of PRINCE2 jargon about what we want to sell you!).
We will only provide you with a proposal if we are agreed that our services are a good match for your requirements. If we can't help you, we will let you know at this stage wherever possible. We'd rather refer you to someone who can help than take up your time trying to figure out a way to 'shoe-horn' our approach or availability into your requirements.
Next, we will have a follow-up telephone conversation to discuss the proposal. At this stage we will agree whether or not further discussion is required to take things forward. When the decision is reached to move forward, we enter into a contract and then we make a start.
How we can contract for services...
We can contract direct with you if your procurement arrangements allow it. For speed and convenience many of our clients prefer to contract with us through agencies who participate in existing supplier agreements. We can work with you through Eden Scott, Hays Executive, Munroe Interim or your preferred agency.
For more information about how we can work together please contact me on Scott.Henderson@Strathfleet.com
or call 07768 781 026.