A Better Plan-it
A Better Plan-it
Working together to deliver success
About
Working together to delivery Projects successfully
Large IT projects have a tendency to underdeliver in one or more areas, whether it is timelines, budget or delivery of expected outcomes. Here at ABetterPlanit (ABP) we work with our clients to provide tools and experience to enhance your programme management capabilities, increasing your success rates and providing real time access to the data you require to properly manage projects and to make clearer and speedier decisions.
Our Purpose
We have vast delivery experience, and most of all have enjoyed delivering large IT and transformation programmes. Much of our experience to date has been with complex financial services deliveries. We do not aim to replace internal or partner programme management or PMO resources. We are here to share our experiences and empower your teams by providing you with supports and tools to estimate, plan and manage your programme successfully, on time, on budget and importantly delivering the promised benefits.
Why are we different ?
We do not look for or even want long commitments or contracts, you can use us for a day, a week, a month or whatever you want, turning on and off the tap as desired and we do not charge you anything for the software tools we provide to you. You can therefore use them for as many projects as you want. We want our customers and partners to be capable and comfortable delivering large scale IT programmes and if you achieve this then we have achieved our goal.
Who we work with
We love what we do and we love working with successful and innovative organisations and people. The organisation we have worked with in the past have great people and great ambitions. Unfortunately many organisations struggle when they move from BAU and business growth initiatives to major programme delivery. This is not because they do not have the right people, it is because they generally do not have the right supports and toolsets and as such are not set up for success. We work with open minded organisations who are willing to listen, learn, share, and are not afraid to get into the detail, and put in the effort and hard work that is required to deliver successfully.
Delivering large programme is difficult and the success rates are low. We want to work with organisations, partners and individuals who really enjoy delivering large complex programmes and want to change the success statistics dramatically.
Services
Where we aim to support you
A Good Start is Critical
Setting up for Success
So many projects start out with the right ambitions, the right strategy, and the right leadership, head off in the right direction but are doomed to failure from the outset due to poor estimation, planning and not having the right control systems in place.
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For smaller projects, or large initiatives that do not have to deliver to fixed deadlines and fixed outcomes, delivering iteratively and adjusting priorities and outcomes as you learn can work just fine.
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For many large IT related programmes (particularly in Financial Services), such as new platforms or platform replacements, migrations and mergers, where millions will be spent, tens of thousands of days effort will be utilised and many many hundreds of resources across multiple parties will be involved, starting the project correctly (back as far as the business case) is absolutely critical. This is where many projects get it wrong and end up on the back foot early on. getting this right requires diligence, hard work and attention to detail. Not only is this key to setting the right budgets and timelines, it is also critical to ongoing control as the project evolves. There is no more important step !
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We will provide support and tools to help you get this right.
Command and Control
Tool and Process drive Success
Too many multi-million, multi-year, complex programmes are planned, managed and controlled using office tools such as word processors, spreadsheets and presentation tools.
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This leads to large numbers of resources being assigned to gathering data and preparing reporting packs as well as endless hours of expensive and specialist resources spent in non value add "update" meetings.
And after all this effort and time is expended, we still do not have the right information required to manage and control the project at management level, or the right insights to make strategic and timely decisions at executive and sponsor level.
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We tend to spend far too much time and money "governing" the projects rather that directing and controlling them. The effort to gather and consolidate data and produce useful information becomes overwhelming for project managers, team leads and the PMO, and as such becomes useless to sponsors, so projects revert to high level assumptions, experiential guesstimates and in many cases best case views of progress which are presented in brightly coloured presentation packs.
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We will provide the tools and supports to replace "guesstimates" with estimates, roadmaps with plans, checkpoints with decisioning gates etc and make it easy to collate and utilise meaningful data for effective monitoring, control and decisioning.
Run the Business Successfully
Manage the portfolio of Change
Each project we deliver has an impact on our capacity to carry out other activities (opportunity cost), and impacts on the overall cost to run the business during and after the project lifecycle.
Understanding the impact on capacity, capability and change resources in general as well as the impact on Business as Usual (BAU) operations is often ignored or is not given enough consideration when large projects get so much of the executive focus and attention.
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We will ensure that the information required to understand BAU impacts and considerations are highlighted and captured in the data and reporting at all times.
Shared Experience
We have hundreds of years of software and project success under our belt
Experience stretching from early mainframes, to the introduction of microcomputers, networking, internet, mobile and digital, cloud and SaaS Solutions. Building successful software products from scratch, establishing and running software and service companies, running large system implementation and migration programmes are some of the many experiences we bring to the table.
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With our vast suite of experiences, we are able to advise and support you on your journey, and will leverage our and your past experiences to help you succeed in you latest endeavours.
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WE work with colleagues, partners and clients to build up a knowledgebase that captures "experience" so that we can share, learn from and leverage this information in current and future endeavours.
Tools to help you cut through all the Noise
Over the years we have built toolsets to help project managers, the PMO and key stakeholders cut through all the detail required to run large and complex IT programmes and to summarise the detail into dash-boards that help manage and control and support prompt and effective decisioning.
Communication and Connection
Large programmes involve lots of parties, lots of individuals, lots of technologies, lots of processes, lots of delivery methods etc, etc. - Our goal is to provide the processes and tools that simplify, remove the clutter and allow the right conversations to happen in an effective way.
Access to the Right People at the Right Time
We are working in the industry for decades and have built up a strong network of of skilled and knowledgeable practitioners. We will provide the right level of access to the right level of experience that empowers you to be in control and access the supports you need when you need them - self sufficiency and self control are our goals - we are successful when you feel totally in control.
Contact Us
9 Foxes Covert, Mount Juliet, Thomastown, Kilkenny R95AX95
+353 87 2840609