What people say about us

Here is some recent client feedback.

“In what was the third time I have worked with Ken Burrell, I engaged Pragmatic PMO on a strategic programme that had been running in feasibility mode for 8 months, and was about to move into implementation.

When Pragmatic PMO was engaged, we had no project management function or framework to support the programme I had come in to recover. As a result the programme had little in the way of basic project management infrastructure. Some of the suppliers had no purchase orders in place and had been working on (steadily diminishing!) good faith for months.

Within three months, Pragmatic PMO had put in place:

1. A financial framework.
Pragmatic PMO raised purchase orders and made sure that suppliers were paid up to date (including one who had been owed more than £300k for more than 8 months). They designed and built a programme cost tracker that gives me an overview of how >£85m was being spent against budgets across >200 suppliers and >50 projects, and identified a looming >£1m cash flow crisis that we resolved through a change of approach.

2. An integrated programme schedule.
Pragmatic PMO created a schedule that identified and modelled dependencies between the programme’s projects to give visibility of how any delays in one project would lead to delays in other projects and hence the programme overall. From this they created a “look ahead” view of tasks that are overdue, under way, and coming up over the horizon, and focused the team on delivery with a Key Dates and Countdown tracker showing the most important dates for each phase (with a simple colour-coded floor plan diagram), and a colour-coded countdown showing the time remaining between now and the project Go Live date.

3. Programme framework and governance.
Pragmatic PMO set up a “heartbeat” of regular meetings for the programme team and steering committees (with agreed terms of reference) and created the information packs these meetings would discuss. They set up shared registers for risks, issues, decisions and so on, and ensured that meeting outputs were issued promptly and followed up on.

This list is not exhaustive; essentially Pragmatic PMO implemented just enough project management fundamentals and discipline to enable the programme to robustly deliver some fantastic outcomes for the client.

If you are looking for strategic programme delivery support services that you can actually lean on, Pragmatic PMO should be at the top of your list.”

Mark Ferguson, Programme Director (2019)

“I engaged Pragmatic PMO to provide PMO oversight and to make PMO improvements to the governance, planning and financial management of the Group Target Operating Model programme.

Ken quickly put the programme onto a sound footing with a regular, efficient reporting cycle. He also delivered two significant programme management artefacts which will help us run programmes in the future: an integrated Programme Schedule (with a summary view for Exec stakeholders) and a Programme Financial Tracker; both of these he backed up with comprehensive user documentation.

Ken’s approach is friendly but professional; he has a sound knowledge of project delivery and PMO processes that would benefit future organisations using Pragmatic PMO’s services.”

Richard Humphrey, Head of Group EPMO and Portfolio Director (2016)

“I brought Pragmatic PMO into the EMEA regional PMO to bring oversight to the Finance project portfolio, and to make improvements to PMO processes in the areas of Financial Management and Stage Gate Reviews.

Ken built good professional relationships with the programme and project teams, helping them to navigate through AIG’s Project Management Lifecycle. He also delivered two significant process improvements: a Finance Report using data extracted from HP PPM Center via SAP Business Objects to give more visibility of financial year budgets (together with monthly splits of expense by resource type); and a project Stage Gate Review and Checklist template. He backed up both of these with process documentation and Quick Reference Guides.

Ken’s approach is friendly but professional, and I would recommend Pragmatic PMO to anyone looking for robust, good quality PMO services and real process improvements.

Eoin Byrne, EMEA Program Management Office Executive, (2013)

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