Continuing my Grayce story after completing the Development Programme

Grayce Consultant, Rebecca Sheffield shares why she chose to continue her Grayce journey after graduating from our Development Programme and how she's adding value in her consultant role.

Last year Grayce launched a new option for Analysts completing the Development Programme and offered a route in to consultancy, effectively a Level 4 role within Grayce. The role aims to provide more consultancy type experience for Grayce Analysts, and the main reason that I wanted to pursue the Grayce Consultant role was the opportunity to develop my people management skills. As a consultant, I have line management responsibilities for Grayce Analysts on the graduate Development Programme. Having been through the Programme myself, it’s so rewarding to manage these individuals through their Grayce journey, by leveraging my experiences of the Programme and my detailed knowledge of their client site.

How do you support clients as a Grayce Consultant?

I'm currently working in the PMO at a leading asset management organisation. Following six months in the PMO on their programme, I am now using my experience and lessons learnt (as well as previous client assignments) to mobilise a new regulation-driven programme.

As an L4 Consultant, there is increased responsibility in three key areas: Client Delivery, People Management and Account Development. The Client recognises that you are an experienced resource with three or more years’ experience, so gives you greater responsibilities and regards your opinions with more value when you make recommendations.

In addition to this, I act as the lead contact on site, reaching out to new starters, organising Knowledge Exchanges between the Grayce community and ensuring that the team stay connected - especially throughout the COVID-19 period.

A day in the life

The change initiatives that I've worked on at my client have been identified as pivotal to their core strategy. A robust PMO function has been required to keep the delivery of these major change programmes on track, allowing my client to progress with their strategy in the most efficient manner.

Every day in my role brings variation - which is great! I'm responsible for programme assurance; ensuring that the programme will deliver what they have committed to. The processes that underpin this focus on Governance, Financial Management, Change Management, Risk and Issue Management, Status Reporting - and more. My current focus while mobilising a new programme is working closely with the Programme Manager and key programme stakeholders to ensure that each of these processes is appropriately designed and rolled out across the programme to streamline delivery against the business case.

My highlights as an L4 Consultant

Strong organisation and time management are essential when working in the PMO role, to ensure that all processes are completed in a consistent and timely manner (against firm-wide deadlines) to keep the programme on track.  Being able to influence stakeholders to adhere to these processes and deadlines is vital to the success of the PMO function. Finally an important attribute is to be proactive. Whether this is by anticipating the needs of the programme manager, identifying process improvements, or reaching out to project managers to ensure that processes are aligned with their workstreams.

My biggest achievement at on this client assignment has been regaining control of, and continued management of, the £30+ million programme budget. As the programme had quickly grown, the budget had become outdated.  I managed to regain control by eliciting the true financial forecast picture from project managers. I ensured that this was then reviewed on a monthly basis, reconciling the actuals against the forecast, and making sure all resourcing and procurement changes were updated in a master document, which became the single source of truth across all 11 workstreams.

Why Grayce

My client has taken up the L4 consultant proposition because they require PMO resources with more experience in large scale and varied programmes, allowing the programme manager to delegate responsibility with confidence.

The Grayce Graduate Development Programme gave me an amazing start to my career, with opportunities to quickly progress in recognised market leading clients. The supportive and collaborative environment at all levels is the thing I like best about Grayce! The whole Grayce community - from Analysts to Consultants and the HQ team - all live the Grayce values: We Care, We Deliver Excellence, We Succeed Together!

Find out more about how Grayce supports leading organisations nationwide