Our delivery team deals with almost 40 live projects at any time.
Efficiency, transparency and accuracy are therefore of paramount importance in ensuring we deliver great results for our clients.
That’s why the team has developed its own super productive modern project management office (PMO) toolkit.
Ash Tailor, Head of Delivery, explains how the PMO toolkit works and what difference it makes to our team and clients.
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Delivery management practice
Delivery is something that touches every part of a project – getting it right can be the difference between success and failure.
So, when we set out to design a modern PMO toolkit for our delivery team and clients, we spent some time thinking about the values that underpin our delivery management practice.
We wanted to be diligent and proactive, but with a slickness that made everything feel easy and smart. Our clients need to have the utmost trust in us and control over their own project data, so we aimed to use the latest technology to deliver an agile approach based on our individual client’s needs. And we needed to drive accountability so that we could clearly see what was happening at every stage of the process.
Our six goals were to:
- Generate quality output
- Meet and exceed the client’s needs
- Provide results that support the business objectives
- Achieve the project scope
- Deliver the project on time and within budget
- Satisfy the client
From this clarity, our PMO toolkit began to take shape.
The tech
We developed our modern PMO toolkit using Microsoft Apps Technology. This meant there were no additional software costs for our clients, and that there was little training required due to the existing familiarity of the systems for most users.
Spreadsheets and slidedecks have been replaced with Sharepoint tools that made finding and understanding information much easier – and quicker.
Collaboration tools allow us to work with our clients in real time, supporting great communication and total transparency.
Lift and shift approach
With such extensive experience of delivering digital healthcare projects, we were able to distill our expertise down to repeatable delivery methodologies.
We can lift and shift templates for every stage of the project management process, meaning that we’re using tried and tested methods that we know generate robust results. But the toolkit is also flexible enough to allow us to choose the features we need to deliver the objectives of each individual client and project.
Not only does this standardise the quality of outputs but it streamlines processes. Imagine having a project management toolkit ready to go every time you need it. No more set-up admin. Everything you need – and know works – is waiting for you.
Standards and governance
Maintaining quality is really important to us.
We built in a range of governance controls and standards to ensure we manage every project consistently and effectively.
Key project document templates, such as reporting, RAID logs, communications plans and stakeholder lists, are readymade within the toolkit. This, once again, saves lots of set-up time while also assuring quality across our project portfolio.
A clear set of project guidelines and standards are applied every time, and we’ve created tools to ensure projects align with organisational objectives. We want results to be directly linked to our clients’ core goals.
We also created space in the toolkit to share best practice, examples of great work and document lessons learned, so we’re constantly learning from our work and not reinventing the wheel unnecessarily.
Client impact
One of our main goals in creating a modern PMO toolkit was to make our clients’ lives easier. And we’ve achieved that.
The team members that have used the toolkit so far told us the lift and shift approach has saved them time at the project set-up stage. Quality assurance and transparency, which is at the heart of the toolkit’s content and functionality, is extremely valuable to clients who like seeing their project data and tracking progress at any time. It also gives them confidence that we’re managing their project effectively.
Dashboards tailored to clients’ individual projects – featuring only the information relevant to the project at hand – have also been massively well-received by clients who want to get straight to the data they need when they need it.
Our delivery management practice is growing all of the time to respond to the needs of our business and our clients.
With a robust and modern PMO toolkit at our disposal, we are able to respond to and deliver a host of digital healthcare projects with precision and efficiency.
I’d like to give a special mention to Heather Payne and Ellie Lucas from our delivery team for their hard work and support in developing and managing the PMO toolkit.
Get in touch
If you want to know more about our PMO toolkit or would like our support with a digital healthcare project, please contact Ash Tailor, Head of Delivery, at ash@ethicalhealthcare.org.uk.