WINNER S CASE STUDY. Project Management Company of the Year 2011 Moorhouse

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1 Category Winner Project Management Company of the Year 2011 Moorhouse Sponsor Overview Moorhouse helps organisations design and deliver successful transformation using a structured programme and project management approach to underpin everything it does. The firm says its entire focus is on helping its clients achieve their goals by ensuring excellence in programme/ project delivery and in directly enhancing the clients internal project management capabilities. The company s commitment to project management excellence begins with its recruitment strategy. All Moorhouse s employees are qualified project management specialists (APM, PMI, PRINCE2, MSP, PMP, MBA etc), as well as experienced former Big Firm global business management consultants. Company culture The firm s leaders say its values integrity and accountability; collaboration; sense of humour and 1

2 perspective, and positive pragmatism are at the heart of driving best-practice behaviours. They say the values support Moorhouse s vision of being recognised as the premier consultancy for delivering excellence in the programme leadership of organisational transformation. Moorhouse emphasises its commitment to sharing its knowledge and improving the quality of project management in the UK. As part of this commitment, the company regularly produces publications and articles on project management best practice for management, sector-specific, national and project management publications. These are freely available from www. moorhouseconsulting.com. The company also recognises that it is not just project management practitioners who seek the latest thinking, and sees part of its role as disseminating best practice PM to non-pm professionals across sectors. One example of this is its nine-month alliance with the Financial Times, exploring benefits realisation. This involved an extensive benchmarking survey, a breakfast seminar with board level executives from 25 companies, two published reports and a news article in the Financial Times. Career development The company follows a strict recruitment strategy, only taking on former big-firm project management specialists with the required experience and interpersonal skills to align with its values and principles. Those who do join, says the company, find a meritocratic organisation where performance is rewarded and promotions supported. We don t believe in time in grade or limits on numbers promoted each year, the company states. Our consultants can be as ambitious and successful as they want to be. Moorhouse is keen to ensure its consultants are equipped with the appropriate qualifications and accreditations for its industry. It therefore supports its staff and associates financially as they work towards industry qualifications such as PRINCE and MSP, and it provides further training to enhance key consulting skills. The company also encourages its consultants and operations team members to attend industry-specific conferences and training courses. In addition, the company has its own programme of professional development, training and knowledge sharing events Knowledge Understanding Development Outcomes Success (KUDOS). Sessions take place twice monthly and are run either by experts within the firm or external speakers. Some events are grade specific, while others are appropriate for the whole firm.moorhouse s training and development policy is based on its Competency Framework. It uses this to support recruitment decisions, training and personal development needs analysis, appraisal conversations and promotion discussions. Communication Underpinning all Moorhouse s internal activities and client engagements is the company s engagement methodology named mapp (Moorhouse Approach to Projects/Programmes). Aligned to PRINCE2 and MSP principles, mapp is a project management repository of guidance documents, templates and examples which can be customised for different engagements depending on size, complexity and risk. Moorhouse s consultants use mapp for every project, both internally and externally, and it provides the formal lines of communication that complement the informal routes used within the company s teams. For each project, mapp provides the guidance and templates for all routes of communication within the project team and to the wider stakeholder groups according to the agreed governance processes. The company has an engagement director for each engagement and weekly team meetings are held to communicate progress and manage by exception. As performance data on each project and programme builds up, the company ensures that its key points are communicated to the appropriate readership through performance dashboards. The firm also encourages its teams to share and communicate project successes and lessons via its firm-wide events. Moorhouse s Annual and Quarterly (multi-day, off-site) Escapes, Purple Wednesdays 2

3 (monthly team meetings with a fun surprise element) and the KUDOS series of events are all occasions to share engagement progress, outcomes and lessons learnt. These events serve as a great motivator to constantly raise the bar in delivery, says the company. In addition to mapp, Moorhouse has an active intranet site, Sharepoint, which is used for the sharing of knowledge and as a communication tool to link teams that are often geographically disparate. APM Project Management Awards Supporting work/life balance The life of a Moorhouse consultant is both intensive and rewarding, says the company, so it works hard to ensure its people perform at their best by proactively helping them achieve a good work/life balance. Key activities designed to achieve this include Wellbeing days offered to all staff in the company s head office. Managers are also made responsible for monitoring their people for excessive hours worked or signs of stress-related behaviour, and for making changes where appropriate. Other ways of working designed to help relieve pressure on consultants include a policy when working away from home (four days at client site, three nights away and the fifth day working from home). Results what its clients say Post engagement, Moorhouse carries out an independent feedback process with clients, based on balanced scorecard criteria that are agreed with clients at the start of each project. The company is proud of the scores its consultants achieve 100 per cent of Moorhouse clients have formally rated them as meeting expectations with 73 per cent rating them as exceeding expectations. Comments from the company s clients are equally positive says the director of planning and projects, Abellio: The Moorhouse team worked well with us and were refreshingly different from many other consultants I have encountered. They clearly knew their stuff and have been able to put their expertise over in a considered and sympathetic way to deliver a product that was both relevant and specific to Abellio s needs. The chief technology officer at EMI added: I have, over the past 10 years, worked with all the leading consultancies and the experience with Moorhouse is different. Moorhouse delivers the experience that the others promise. The Moorhouse team worked well with us and were refreshingly different from many other consultants I have encountered. They clearly knew their stuff and have been able to put their expertise over in a considered and sympathetic way to deliver a product that was both relevant and specific to Abellio s needs. 3

4 The APM Project Management Awards have been celebrating project management excellence since 1993 and the broad range of categories is designed to make entry possible for projects and companies of all sizes and complexity. The awards reflect the invaluable contribution project managers make in all sectors of society and the event provides an opportunity for industry professionals to meet with colleagues and entertain guests as well as celebrate at one of the year s most exciting events. Highly regarded in the project management industry, the awards reflect the dedication and talent that helps to shape the project management community and the world around us. The finalists, winners and sponsors of the awards attract national publicity for their achievement and involvement. Winning an award provides invaluable recognition and kudos to the careers of winners. For more details on the awards and how to enter or attend, visit or awards@apm.org.uk 4

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