Purple reign

APM 2008 Project Management Company of the Year, Moorhouse Consulting, specialises in building long-term relationships with its clients and always aims to under-stay its welcome.

By all accounts, specialist programme and project (PPM) advisory firm, Moorhouse Consulting, is a fun place to work. On the last Thursday of every month team members are encouraged to attend Purple Thursday social evenings. Previous Purple Thursdays have involved learning the hakka; cocktail making and street dancing.

This approach has had a positive impact on team-working both inside and outside of the business where Moorhouse has built a big reputation in a short space of time.

Set up a little over four years ago, the company has worked on some of Europes most complex programmes including the NHS IT implementation programme and Transport for Londons 12bn investment programme. Notable clients include BT, Department for Transport, Highways Agency, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, National College for School Leaders, Lifelong Learning UK, and Severn Trent.

When asked about the way it works, Moorhouse literature states: We advocate joint working teams where a small number of highly capable consultants support a business-centric effort, adding that solutions need to be firmly grounded in its clients culture in order to be pragmatic and sustainable.

This is achieved by having the right people in place from the outset, and Moorhouse openly admits that it makes an unusual and concerted effort to identify and recruit the very best.

During a recent recruitment drive the firm received 550 job applications. Of these, 20 people were fast-tracked and a further 80 invited to a recruitment evening. From this 40, were formally interviewed and nine offers were made all ex big firm consultants with a minimum of four years project and programme management (PPM) consulting experience.

The same attention to detail also applies to Continuing Professional Development or CPD. The Moorhouse CPD programme ensures that the right levels of support, training and qualifications are available for all staff.

This extends right to the top and provides distinct accreditation pathways to aid development. Each pathway includes core PMM (MSP, APMP, PRINCE2) skills, Management Consultancy Accreditation (CMC) and other professional development such as Institute of Director training

To date 95 per cent of the Moorhouse consulting team are either a qualified PRINCE2 practitioner or have taken the course; 95 per cent are MSP qualified and over half are APM members. Samir Sayed, a consultant with the firm, says: For any management consultant that is committed to developing and applying world-class project management skills, Moorhouse is a great place to be.

To further aid development employees engage in regular meetings with a nominated director and are encouraged to make a Purple Pledge statement in relation to their future career goals.

On a professional level performance is measured using the Moorhouse Approach to Programmes and Projects (MAPP). The framework helps to ensure that best practice is maintained and that problems are brought to light sooner rather than later in the project cycle.

At its simplest, MAPP is a set of clearly structured tools and templates that help improve the definition of project scope and prevent scope creep. This is delivered through an online depository of over 2,000 pages of guidance notes, accessed through a central Sharepoint website.

All Moorhouse staff are expected to comply with MAPP processes and procedures in order to ensure that quality and consistency of delivery go hand-inhand. This, in turn, provides clients with a single point of reference and one that can be repeated or adapted to suit the particular requirements of a project, no matter how big or small.

Also available is Compass a mentoring scheme that matches practitioners with individuals in the client organisation looking to improve PPM capability in specific areas and a knowledge sharing portal called Knowledge Cube. The intention in both cases is to raise professionalism, competence and expertise.

Underpinning all of this is the ability to get along. Working for a relatively small firm helps form close working relationships and makes it easier to discuss project-related issues no matter who the client is. Carol Clarke, programme director of NHS Primary Care Trusts, said recently of her experience of Moorhouse: They lived up to their values of taking their work seriously but not themselves and were down-to-earth and fun to work with.