BACKGROUND

Our client was a local authority covering a new town of 90,000 citizens and employing 900 personnel.

What experience does Obsidian have in this sector?

Obsidian has worked with fifteen local authorities over the past ten years, delivering services ranging across; strategy development, performance management, process improvement, teamwork, Best Value and CPA as well as a range of different and customised training courses.

Nature of client's problem

Our client was faced with the need to run more projects than the organisation had the capacity to resource. In particular, it had recognised that it did not have anyone with the project management skills needed to run a Housing Management System data migration project. The project could not be delayed as legacy system support was due to be terminated.

The client chose Obsidian because we had worked closely with the client over the past five years, delivering a range of training and consultancy services. Most significant of these was the design and delivery over a two year period of a management development programme for its 300 most senior personnel. In addition, Obsidian’s programme and project consultant specialist had worked with the client over the previous three years:

• Delivering project management training
• Consulting and assisting with the introduction of a programme management methodology
• Acting in a coaching support role to a programme manager tasked with the implementation of a major change and e-government programme.

Obsidian's experience in this problem area

Obsidian’s specialist consultant had three decades of project management experience across a wide range of project types and environments. He is a member of the Association for Project Management and an active contributor to the Risk SIG.

Objective of Product/service offered by Obsidian

The objective of this assignment was to deliver the project on time and within budget, whilst maintaining continuity of the operations that the Housing Management System supported.

How the assignment was carried out

Obsidian negotiated an “Interim, Part-time, Project Management” role based initially on a daily rate plus expenses for a minimum of six days and a maximum of ten days per month.   This allowed the consultant some degree of flexibility in determining the rate of effort needed to keep abreast of the project management task during the initial stages of the project. However, as the last three months of the project approached it became clear that the agreed interim management rate would contribute to a budget overrun, given that the role was moving towards a full-time commitment. Obsidian renegotiated a fixed price contract for the final two months. This allowed Obsidian’s consultant to devote as much time to the project as was necessary to ensure success. The project culminated in an intensive “Go Live” seven day period, involving many hours of overtime from all members of the project team.

Benefits for the client

• Continuity of housing management operations was maintained.
•  Timescales and budgets were kept under control.
•  Many of the techniques and disciplines associated with best practice in project management were deployed as examples to help other project managers within the authority improve their ways of working.