Background
Our client was launching a new messaging service within the London Market. The aim was to provide the Market with a more reliable messaging and communication solution, so that all parties in any transaction are accurately updated, as well as benefit from cheaper run cost and virtualisation (cloud hosting) of the service. r10 had been engaged to lead the delivery of the initiative, and this included producing and delivering to an end to end plan, managing stakeholders and communication as well as managing third party supplier requirements.
The Project Management Office (PMO) function within the client’s business had been going through a restructure and therefore has limited capacity to support the project. During the initiation stage of the project, it had become clear that there was a need for a dedicated PMO, and r10 put forward a proposal to provide this capability which was accepted.
What was the challenge?
There was a general complexity of the project interdependences and governance structure, which led to the increasing need to coordinate and manage this without adding too much overhead to the Project Manager.
There were two key challenges in the delivery of this project. Firstly, there are different types of organisations within the London Market, and therefore user needs and requirements are widely varied and often very specific to a certain process or user. This posed a challenge with governance given knock-on impact to a regularly moving scope. Secondly, given the length of the project personnel changed on multiple occasions which led to slight changes in approach or ways of working.
How did r10 help?
Given the regularly changing scope and personnel, there was a focus on key PMO deliverables and maintaining an accurate change record so stakeholders could clearly see what had changed over time. Core deliverables included financial tracking, RAID management, project meeting administration and adherence to client governance model and approach. Through providing these artefacts to a high-quality and accurate standard, it gave clarity to stakeholders and new team members to why certain decisions had been made during the project and its knock-on impact to time, cost or quality.
Alongside this, our people put in the time to develop close working relationships with relevant stakeholders so that when key decisions were made, we were informed early. This was crucial in allowing us to identify any risks or issues early and to be able to highlight these to project leadership and support in developing effective responses.
What was the outcome?
As a result of the structure put in place by the r10 PMO; a cohesive project team has been created and was working towards an aligned goal.
The project was mobilised effectively and is successfully navigating through the governance process. PMO provided continuity; project and organisation support and management of the project journey.