Measurement of a £860m Major Project
Cyber Benefits Management
Designing and implementing a benefits management system was a critical requirement for the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Programme, to help measure progress towards strategic objectives and provide the full public accountability expected of a £860m Major Project. Working with a small team of specialists, Alex devises a programme-wide approach which tracked benefit delivery, and then linked it to both the delivery of strategic objectives, and business cases for further activity. He also oversaw implementation with over 20 different stakeholders, ensuring that initial concerns were resolved and routine reporting was established. This had a number of positive outcomes, including a positive report from the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee; the approval of HM Treasury, and the subsequent agreement to further funding; and greater cohesion across the range of the Programme’s delivery partners.
National operations fusion centre launched
Fusion Doctrine Implementation
The UK Government needed to help an international partner establish a national operations fusion centre to improve the partner’s ability to combat the rise in human trafficking, narcotics smuggling and returning fighters from Iraq and Syria. A further bonus would be its ability to share better quality information with its own international partners including the UK. In early 2019 Henry began leading the design of the operations centre with multiple senior stakeholders from different areas of government. Henry enabled them to test, refine and then successfully embed new ways of working. The new national operations fusion centre went live in early 2020 and was the hub from which ministers successfully led the country’s COVID-19 response.
Assurance of £90m programme spend
Cyber Maturity Measurement
Alex provided advice and led a project for a UK Government client implementing its first large (£90m) cyber programme. It needed to provide consistent and credible evidence of the impact to its funder. Management information systems were immature and unable to provide any useful data to support the reporting of benefits. Alex worked with the client to develop a maturity model, based on benchmarking different levels of capability development, and he set up a representative group of business users to act as moderators, baselining the initial measures, and then meeting regularly to update their assessments. This enabled the Programme Board to report both internally and to the funder using reliable information, which both reported on and forecast future expected progress. A side benefit was the creation of a network focused on performance, and which used the moderation discussions as an opportunity to raise and deal with wider issues.
Greater rigour in foreign policy decision making
National Security Implementation
We developed and implemented a new capability for an organisation working in the NS sector. It needed to find a consistent and rigorous way of measuring the effect of its operational work, without imposing a heavy burden of extra analysis and reporting. We worked with a range of different groups in the organisation to test the capability with operational teams and to understand where and how to fit a new framework, causing the minimum disruption possible. We produced guidance and training courses to support the framework, and received an innovation award in recognition of our efforts.
Enhanced collaboration across stakeholders
Criminal Justice Measurement
Alex played a leading role to coordinate and advise Criminal Justice System partners and private sector suppliers to implement a tracking and measurement system, which supported Director General accountability for public commitments relating to bringing criminal offences to justice. He facilitated stakeholder relations to ensure that issues relating to the implementation of the system were properly understood and prioritised. Establishing meaningful dialogue with user groups allowed effort to be targeted at the issues that were having the biggest impact. He also worked with senior stakeholders to develop trust and understanding, which enabled a better appreciation of the benefits of the tracking and measurement system, resulting in a decision to approve a contract extension.
Improved agility and competitive advantage
Competitive Lead Maintained
A FTSE 100 financial organisation invited Henry to work with them to improve the performance of its financial intelligence unit. Henry tested the scope of existing knowledge and underlying assumptions about training requirements with managers and analysts from within the unit. He designed a new syllabus successfully targeting the mutually agreed objectives. Since COVID-19 Henry has continued to help the organisation innovate through to impact by designing and delivering online modules and leading monthly analysis workshops online. This has helped ensure the organisation is working in an agile manner and has improved its performance in combating cyber and financial crime.