innate leadership + pragmatic delivery = project delivery with heart

I’m interested in cold hard facts: that you have the best chance of delivering your project on time, on budget, and in scope if you treat your delivery team, your funders and your stakeholders with ruthless honesty, respect and reverence. I believe failure can make you a better project manager. In my experience, if you create a great place to do projects, you will increase retention, commitment, productivity and return on investment. I’m convinced that 20% paper work and 80% people work is the right formula for successful project delivery.

welcome!

I deliver, coach, speak and write about projects.

I’m an energetic and experienced project manager. With smarts. Taking an idea, a benefit, a possibility and making it so: that’s where I excel.

I coach project managers who feel stuck, overwhelmed, in need of clarity and direction to progress their project. I provide a space for powerful, healthy conversations that allow for your unique skills, resources and creativity to shine.

I consult on your project environment to turn your business strategy into a pipeline of work, prioritised to give you the greatest benefits first. I can help bring a clarity of purpose to your PMO so that you do the right projects, and do those projects right. I assure projects providing the rigour of regular independent challenge by a trusted advisor at key milestones.

I speak at conferences about topics like why project failure is good for business, and what your Project Board should really care about.

I write for industry magazines. I’d love to write a guest post on your blog.

‘Working with Sarah was an absolute pleasure. As a project manager, she is capable, intelligent, articulate, politically astute and simply makes things happen, all while maintaining an excellent sense of humour even in the most challenging of situations’ ~ Sean Wilson, Managing Director, CODEC Group Ltd

before today

At university I studied psychology, literature, philosophy, poetry, feminism, history, theology and politics; consequently I am a fabulous dinner party guest. I also have a Post-Graduate Diploma in Business. I am a PRINCE2 Practitioner, I’ve worked extensively with the PMBOK and I’ve just embarked on an intensive training programme with CTI to become a Co-active Coach.

I earned my Project Management stripes well over a decade ago at Unisys New Zealand, managing the release programme for driver and vehicle databases; we significantly reduced road deaths and injuries. I wrote the Solution Development Life Cycle and high-fived our Change Board when we started working smarter and saving money.

I was the Head of Information Technology at the Serious Fraud Office in London where I spent my days with prosecution lawyers and forensic accountants fighting white-collar crime.

I managed a pilot project to support 26 men to change their lives. I established a multi-agency panel to support offenders as they transitioned from prison back to the community; the project was funded by a South London Council, the Metropolitan Police and the London Probation Service (two-thirds of my Project Board had powers of arrest). The project approach was tweaked and refined and rolled out across London. A year later it went national.

I inherited a PMO team who spent a lot of time updating templates and creating reports for the Executive Board of the biggest bank in New Zealand; we changed the way projects were approved by introducing business cases based on ROI early in the process. The PMO started conducting project reviews, where we’d dive deeply into a piece of work, understand the challenges and successes, and make recommendations to the Board. We gave them the information to stop projects that didn’t measure up before we had invested heavily. Pretty soon the project managers stopped coming to the PMO  for a risk register template and instead, asked us to facilitate risk workshops.

I worked with Bexley Council to create a visionary project pooling money, talent and ideas for community projects in the poorest and most socially deprived areas of the borough. As the programme manager a typical week included supper with the Chief Executive of Charlton Football Club to convince him donate football coaching and referee training; a workshop with brilliant teachers and parents at Thamesmead Academy to create before and after school programmes, a Town Hall meeting to engage residents, and several long council meetings. They called it ‘Transforming Social Capital’; we called it building a community.

I have set up several new teams, reconstructed old ones and once made a company of 26 people redundant in an afternoon. Change can be difficult. Integrity matters. Compassion and kindness are my weapons of choice.

‘Sarah is a highly competent programme manager who provides structure and clarity to those who work with her. She also has a great sense of humour’ ~ Judith Toland, Consultant to CEO of Consumer Focus

project scars? I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours – contact me to discuss how can we work together.

I black coffee, travelling on trains, white roses, finishing crosswords, steak medium-rare, a well-turned phrase, big-brained scientists, the departure lounge, hand-written letters, the possibility of aliens, remote New Zealand beaches, the colour red, old movies, the information superhighway, London life, organic shapes, the poetry of ee cummings, live music, Pol Roger, Rococo chocolate, ginger tea, ad-free content, picnics, pay day, and a good night's sleep.

The views expressed on this site are entirely my own and do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of any past, current of future client, employer or colleague. No individual, company, or product is named without permission. Feel free to re-post, facebook share, bookmark, print off and pin to the notice board in your office tea-room, email, tweet, tattoo, and/or graffiti my content. I just ask that in sharing the love, you credit it back to me.