Case Study: Programme & Project Management

Build a data centre, move a department abroad, refit an office. Complex programmes require simple approaches…

Background

• Business expansion in Asia Pacific for a UK headquartered international investment bank necessitated expanded facilities, including data centre facilities
• The changing regulatory landscape also meant that one part of the trading organisation would be better located in a different country
• With previous experience of the client globally and locally, and with direct experience of the office concerned having led works to reduce the size of it over 8 years previously, C7 Consulting were ideally placed to assist

Approach

• The initial engagement focused on the data centre works needed for the office. Internal staff were tasked with management of the office refit and the trading department move was in its infancy
• However changing demands and requirements quickly necessitated all works be undertaken as soon as practically possible which led to the need for the works to be parallelised
• This placed even more emphasis on C7 Consulting’s typical operating model
• Form close working relationships throughout the organisation quickly
• Gain clear agreement and understanding of objectives and requirements for all pieces of work at pace
• Understand absolute priorities and assimilate all associated risks, issues and dependencies
• Set up clear structures for the management of the projects/programmes of work, paying specific attention to roles and responsibilities
• Communicate effectively – clear, concise, timely
• With each piece of work being challenging in its own right, three well defined strands to the engagement were then established
• Office Refit
• The easiest to cover with internal resources in place to manage the works
• C7 Consulting were able to act in a consultative capacity, bringing experience gained on other works to bear
• Dependencies tracked very closely between the other two programmes of work with key dependencies existing across all three
• Trading Department Move
• Needed to happen the fastest to enable the business to take most advantage out of the evolving trading landscape
• Highly complex, high risk activity involving the move of personal from front through to back office, plus all systems associated with their activities
• Situation complexity was hugely increased as the intended host office was also out of capacity
• Leveraging the operating model laid out for the engagement, activities were broken down into manageable blocks to avoid “admiring the problem“
• With the help of rapid business approval channels, additional third party data centre capacity was brought on line quickly and securely, making good use of C7 Consulting’s Contract Negotiation capabilities
• System migration plans necessitated duplicate builds in the new host country. This allowed exhaustive testing to take place before resources were relocated
• New trading desks were rolled out, heavily leveraging local teams to ensure this happened to corporate standards and in a timely manner
• Careful selection of the migration event timing, facilitated by the close relationships forged with the business, bought extra time to undertake the necessary works using national holidays
• With significant effort into the preparation, cut over work was then relatively methodical
• This was followed up with increased support cover for the first two weeks in the department’s new home
• Data Centre Expansion
• Whilst the business was expanding, the office was not sufficiently sized to justify an “own build” data centre
• C7 Consulting’s now directly proven capabilities in Contract Negotiation were therefore used once more to engage the most appropriate partner for service
• Once requirements, including growth profiles etc, were clearly articulated and documented, RFI and RFP processes were followed to select the partner
• C7 Consulting then managed the vendor closely to ensure correct delivery against the agreement, and act as the key point of contact for addressing changes and issues
• In parallel, it was also vital to ensure all local teams fully understood the detail in the contractual arrangements to ensure they could effectively manage the facility/vendor once live
• Finally, with no in region expertise available, C7 Consulting led the commissioning of the centre on behalf of the client

Outcome

• The client was extremely pleased to have been able to delegate the management of these complex activities to C7 Consulting, providing trusted and experienced resource allowing others to focus on additional global works happening at the same time
• Leveraging local resources wherever possible was also considered a key success, providing “on the job” experience to resources who could then move on to deliver large scale works internally – succession planning
• The office refit provided an additional floor of space, with no longer any need to utilise large portions of expensive real estate for housing systems hence more than doubling the effective real estate available to the office and improving cost efficiencies
• The trading department continued operations from “Friday” to “Monday” seamlessly, despite having been moved more than 1,500 miles in the process. All staff very much enjoyed their new home
• A 200 rack data centre was successfully commissioned, providing badly needed systems capacity and also resilience against earthquakes and other natural disasters which were an essential part of the organisation’s business continuity planning processes
• C7 Consulting’s approach very much owns the objectives as well as the basics of good programme and project management. Formulating, driving and owning the strategy of the approach is how high quality delivery happens

To find out more details about this case study, other examples of C7 Consulting’s capabilities on programme and project management or to find out more about the company in general, please contact us via our contact page.