Summary

The company was in the midst of a significant business expansion that included the acquisition of five organizations simultaneously. The project was behind schedule and over budget at the mid-point of the implementation. Remaining on this track would have resulted in the loss of critical clients and associated revenue, along with a significantly reduced return on investment for the acquisition and development program.

In the midst of this transformative growth, senior management wanted to improve overall project management through better monitoring, control, and reporting while ensuring critical deliverables and targets were met.

Key Activities

We provided project management and consulting and, after assessing the health of the various programs, we made several key recommendations and supported the delivery of these initiatives on several fronts:

• We consolidated all decision-making responsibility with the project sponsor, appointed a technology champion, and improved the understanding of roles and responsibilities by developing a formal responsibility matrix. These actions clarified accountability and responsibility throughout all levels of the project, improving decision making as well as the delivery effectiveness of the project team.
• We worked with the company to integrate and coordinate multiple work streams including groups from business, operations, marketing, implementation, real estate, and technology. Standardized documentation was created for individual work stream reporting and shared with other team members, and an integrated program level master plan was developed.
• To improve the development effort supporting the acquisition, an agile methodology was introduced, focusing on improving the business requirements definition. The improved requirements definition process led to better solutioning, testing, and traceability, and ultimately a completed program with 100% client retention.

Results

• The company grew dramatically by successfully integrating more than 10,000 new customers, and doubling the number of claims serviced - meeting program deadlines, contractual obligations, and increasing revenues by over 30%.
• The overall acquisition program was reset and successfully recovered, with all of the new targets and milestones achieved within eight months.
• Two new Call Centres went live as scheduled including renovation of new facilities, development of client-specific policies and procedures, hiring new colleagues, and installation of infrastructure to support the centres.