Global Bank Program Management Office (PMO)

Setting up and managing a Global PMO.

The Client

In 2008 our client, developed the Global Transaction Services (GTS) division to combine relevant businesses across the existing Banking group. The combination made GTS a top-five international payments business and a leading cash management, liquidity management, trade finance and merchant acquiring provider. However, following the 2008 financial crisis The Bank faced unprecedented challenges and as a result of Government aid a restructuring plan was put in place which included the divestment of various businesses.

The Challenge

A program was set up against aggressive timelines to facilitate the divestment of a global payment system, the Bank's cards acquiring business. Pcubed's challenges was to set-up and ensure the global program controls were implemented, managed and robust enough to ensure the Bank's stringent Audit Control were adhered to throughout the following key phases of the projects:

1. Design and build of the Day 1 operating model to support legal separation to the new owner with a series of Transition Service Agreements (TSA) from the Bank
2. Cutover from a Sponsorship based model to a Direct Membership model

The Pcubed Solution

Pcubed's solution included alignment of planning and reporting, revised Governance structure and continuous PMO support to the program. With the use of the Pcubed Program Diagnostic tool we were able to target key concerns of the program.

Planning and Reporting Alignment
Pcubed carried out a series of planning and reporting workshops over a 4 week period to introduce Planview, an Enterprise Portfolio Management solution across approximately 50 users. This allowed Project Managers to update plans independently and ensure consistency across the plans. In addition, this initiative enabled us to automate reporting at a project and program level thus minimizing the time and work effort required for reporting and moreover greatly improving the quality of the plans and reports.

Disciplined Delivery
Pcubed devised, documented and implemented all the planning, reporting, risks and issues controls, ensuring that these were understood and adhered to; this greatly strengthened the disciplined delivery and increased program's maturity level. These controls were reviewed and revised throughout the program to ensure they continued to meet the needs of the program.

Governance structure
Pcubed managed the key governance forum, ensuring it functioned efficiently and was an effective body for resolution, escalation, communication and decision making across the program. As the Day 1 operating model progressed, the size of the teams increased in parallel with the program's pace resulting in us refining the Governance structure, tightening the controls and introducing fast track processes.

PMO support
To support the aggressive timelines of the program the PMO was structured between Core PMO and local PMO with the local PMOs directly supporting Project Managers on a day-to-day basis ensuring robust delivery. This strategic approach strengthened the program's ability to create, implement and sustain controls across the board. One of the early initiatives Pcubed took, based on best practice, was to implement configuration management; SharePoint was used as a central repository for key program information and as the teams increased a detailed induction pack and Governance Terms of References was created which proved to be very useful to various divisions.

Key elements of the solution included:

• Aligning the Diagnostic tool with the program's health-check.
• Rolling out PlanView; using only one central source of factual information to generate plans, reports and capture and monitor risks & issues.
• Reducing effort and time spent on status reporting by automating the program reporting process, and improving the quality of status reporting.
• Increasing transparency by implementing additional Governance events e.g. at a project review board each project plan was critiqued alongside status reports with the program manager present.
• The PMO structure - Core PMO focusing on the overall program controls while the local PMOs executed the initiatives. This strategy also facilitated the Core PMO in becoming an independent, trusted advisory function to the program manager.

The Business Results

Utilizing the Pcubed Diagnostic tool achieved quick wins during the early stages of delivery particularly in identifying and raising key issues that were arising within the program. Refining the governance structure and tailoring it in-line with the program's pace ensured information was being captured in a timely and effective manner. Base-lining the controls into formal program documents facilitated in maintaining disciplined delivery and also provided assurance to the Bank's Internal Audit. Overall, the PMO function became a trusted advisory function to the program and helped to drive the successful completion of this global program.