Nick was originally engaged to provide guidance on Best Practice Programme Governance to a key high profile Programme, and to help get Board approval for a £40 million business case. Although there was an adherence to Prince 2 at the Project level, at the Programme level there was a very real lack of knowledge on how to structure programmes and report against them. Nick quickly embedded a formal programme board and reporting regime which was then adopted by the entire programme portfolio within the organisation.
Nick was then given the thorny task of converting a major programme trial into a pilot that the board could sign off for approval to implement. This was complex in the extreme, involving the accurate, individual validation of 110,000 claimants, the processing of data around their claims and delivery within the £12 million budget before December 09.
This business programme received regular scrutiny by the Minister and Board-level Directors, it had other programmes dependent on its delivery and there was huge media interest in its outcome. It tested Nick’s stakeholder and supplier management skills to the absolute limit and in a public sector environment that was initially alien to him. When Nick leaves this client at the end of the month he will leave a legacy of how to structure and manage large interdependent programmes. Furthermore, the pilot is close to achieving the 110,000 claimants processed
