Programme management — customer-side accountability for multi-vendor ERP programmes.
Multi-year, multi-vendor, multi-workstream ERP programmes — frequently as the customer-side accountable PMO alongside other implementation partners. Charter, governance, workstream plans, risk register, status cadence. The discipline a board can sign off.
What the PMO runs
Programme charter → governance model → workstream plans → risk register → status cadence → stage gates. The instrumentation a multi-year programme needs to stay on its rails.
Engagement window
Typically 12–36 months, scaled to programme size. Embedded retainer ; can be scoped as a fixed-term engagement or a rolling renewal.
Team profile
Programme director (twenty-plus years), PMO leads, workstream leads, business-analyst pool. Customer-side : programme sponsor, finance lead, operations lead.
Multi-vendor by design
We run alongside other implementation partners — Big-Four firms, niche integrators, internal teams. The PMO is the connecting tissue, not a competing implementation partner.
What the PMO ships
Each artefact is contractually deliverable and customer-owned. The PMO leaves a stronger programme team than it found.
Programme charter
Scope, objectives, success criteria, governance, accountability matrix, decision rights, escalation paths. Signed by the sponsor before the programme starts.
Governance model
Steering committee cadence, workstream governance, risk-review rhythm, status-reporting model, change-control board. The governance is the spine.
Workstream plans
One detailed plan per workstream, with deliverables, dependencies, owner, RAID register, milestones, acceptance criteria. The plan a workstream lead operates against.
Risk and issue register
Live register of risks and issues, with named owners, named mitigations, named due dates. Reviewed weekly in the workstream cadence, monthly in the steering committee.
Status cadence
Weekly workstream status, monthly programme status, quarterly board-grade status pack. The cadence that prevents the half-year surprise.
Stage-gate reviews
At each phase boundary — discovery / blueprint / build / cut-over — a stage-gate review with explicit go / hold / no-go criteria. The customer's veto, not the integrator's confidence.
Why a deister-owned PMO is different from a Big-Four PMO
Big-Four PMOs run alongside their own implementation teams. The PMO and the implementation partner share an incentive : land the programme. That alignment is efficient when the configuration lands clean and dangerous when it doesn't, because the partner who would otherwise escalate to the customer is also the partner being escalated about.
A deister-owned PMO is structurally on the customer's side. We are not the implementation partner running the build (in most of these engagements) ; we are the discipline keeping the build team honest. The risk register names the risks across all partners. The stage gates are the customer's go / no-go, not the implementation partner's confidence. The board read is what the board needs, not what makes the integrator look good.