Umesh Patel Email & Phone Number

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

•Leading the Programme Centre of Excellent team to ensure that WMCA Single Assurance Framework (SAF) standards and disciplines are fully embedded across WMCA Programme Portfolios. •Providing consultancy and coaching of WMCA standards, guidance and best practice to senior members of WMCA directorates and external partners to ensure that they fully understand WMCA’s Single Assurance Framework (SAF) standards, requirements, assurance process and the necessary requirements needed for business case consideration and approvals.•Responsible for developing a network and close working relationships with WMCA directorates and key programme stakeholders from each local authority, LEP and delivery partner as well as subject matter specialists across the wider WMCA community to ensure effective assurance of WMCA investment projects and programmes are implemented in accordance with WMCA Single Assurance Framework.•Leading in the development and maintenance of the Activity Register & Forward plan, ensuring that the single source of data and MI for all WMCA Project Portfolios is maintained and is accurate to support scheduling of business case reviews, change request reviews and for planning and resourcing purposes. •Responsible for regular engagement with WMCA Directorates in the development and maintaining of project portfolio pipelines and external funding register, so that they are synchronised with the Activity Register & Forward plan.•Minimising risk for WMCA directorates and external partners by understanding their challenges and anticipating risks to business case approval dates and acting quickly to avoid negative consequences through escalating with appropriate mitigation.•Developing and implementing training offerings, systems and processes including templates and reporting methodologies, to support the development and delivery of effective Projects and Programmes.

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

•Appointed to provide cross-programme PMO direction and support to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Programme.•Leading and supporting cross-programme reporting, providing visibility on the performance of the Programme through management dashboards and reports for senior leadership.•Performing project assurance activities including health checks on reporting, and highlighting areas for improvement to workstreams and wider project team members.•Took ownership for completion of project documentation for new internal project carrying out discovery, Project Initiation Document (PID), and high-level project plan.•Managing relationships with a wide range of internal partners and working collaboratively to provide effective and consistent communications across the partner network.•Established and maintained project documentation and controls, monitoring and tracking project risks, schedules and budgets, openly communicating the project status at all times.

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

•Setup new PMO function providing direction to both Portfolio Manager and Head of Change, and coached junior staff ensuring project excellence.•Implemented governance standards across the portfolio, including tracking, monitoring and progress of programme deliverables.•Took ownership of the resourcing tool and chaired resourcing meetings assisting in the proactive allocation of resources and ensuring that project demand is met, and that resource utilisation is allocated accordingly.•Coordinated Minor Changes, producing project plans and reporting on activities, risk and issues. •Obtained management approval to implement changes to current ServiceNow Portfolio System enabling project workflows, and allowing the creation of MI that weren’t previously available.•Managed relationships with Clients and senior stakeholders in matrix environment, by setting expectations and delivering by removing obstacles through problem solving.•Analysed data in ServiceNow, and created MI packs for the portfolios of requests scheduled, in progress and completed.•Produced the Portfolio Plan for senior management using Level 3 activities from Project Managers project plans.•Collaborated with senior management to create a repository of templates e.g. Proposal Request, Business Case, Status Report and responsible for rolling out to the Portfolio.•Responsible for overseeing, reviewing and consolidating of weekly reporting produced by Project Managers.

Telford, England, United Kingdom

• Tasked with co-ordinating the rollout of TM1 resource forecasting across the Change Management function to Project Leads and Project Managers, enabling the ability to provide project forecasting, budgets and actuals.• Collaborated with Portfolio Leads and Finance to ensure budget management was carried out at project and portfolio level, and chaired monthly meetings to resolves any differences with financial reporting.• Engagement with executives, business experts & project professionals to implement Gating Panel to track completion of Project Gates, and ensuring timely sign off of project documentation relevant to the project phase in line with the End to End (E2E) lifecycle.• Led a team of PMO Analysts ensuring performance and conduct fell in line with company procedures through regular 1 to 1's, appraisals and objectives tracking.• Delivered workshops to PMO Team embedding best practice procedures, and standardised way of working in an Agile environment.

• Setup up Governance for the Transformation of a large Government Account, with the objective of delivering £1 Billion savings to the public sector.• Tasked with troubleshooting and implementing Quality Assurance and Programme Governance, including project reporting, resourcing forecasting/reporting for delivery into a large Government Account.• Managed relationships with Clients and senior stakeholders in matrix environment, by setting expectations and delivering by removing obstacles through problem solving.• Responsible for co-ordinating SME resources to the HO Fusion Project, for delivery into BAU.• Setup and rolled out resource forecasting process for the Programme, enabling the ability to provide project forecasting, budgets and actuals.• Defined and implemented project & programme governance and processes, with buy in from Programme Directors. Implemented reporting of project metrics of resource, planning and RAID management. • Implemented financial budgets and models, including reporting on actuals to aid planning, forecasting and reporting. Set up resource forecasting process, which provided future resource outlook.• Trained and mentored project and programme managers in relation to delivery processes and best practices in order to develop their skills and capabilities, thus supporting delivery improvements across the Programme.• Completed project quality reviews/health checks, monitoring progress, risk & issues, budget and resourcing.• Tracked and reported on project portfolio performance, providing comprehensive and prioritised view of all projects.• Implemented an efficient on-boarding and leavers process, which included user access to network folders, access to secure buildings and arranging the correct security clearance vetting.

• Accountable for delivering process improvements to British Petroleum. Analysed existing processes, identified duplication and inconsistencies across various systems, introduced system improvements and achieved full buy in from the key stakeholders. This resulted in improved planning, reporting and SLA achievement. • Identified and produced SLA / KPI measurements that weren’t previously available by analysing information in existing tools, and implementing new changes. • Managed delivery of multiple infrastructure changes, involving SAN, server builds, moves, backups, decommissioning etc.• Led a portfolio of projects, and co-ordinated functional delivery teams to enable successful project delivery.• Presented weekly project update to BP and acted as the first point of contact for all queries, project related issues and escalations.• Co-ordinated functional delivery teams to enable successful project delivery, assisting in go-live cutover and for arranging service handover (operational acceptance.)• Tracked Project Milestones, Risks & Issues and the Project budget, and assisted go-live handover.

• Setup and managed the PMO function ensuring governance, planning, resource management and other critical processes were well aligned to the strategic aims of the account. And led, trained and managed Regional Processing Teams in South Africa, Bulgaria & India, developing consistent values, systems and processes across all teams.• Improved on Quality Assurance by implementing standardised practices and procedures across differing Regions and Accounts.• Reviewed Customer Project documentation including Proposals, Changes of Scope and documents authorising Commercial Cover and standardised processes which improved delivery to SLA’s.• Identified and produced SLA / KPI measurements that weren’t previously available by analysing information in existing tools, and implementing new changes. • Implemented Client Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) into existing Close Out Report process.• Expert understanding of PPMC Project Portfolio System, so that Project workflows were delivered as soon as possible, and that Project weren’t delayed.• Took ownership for Process documentation, and ensured that they were kept updated at all times.

• Produced/maintained project plans implementing tollgates. Identified all activities, milestones and dependencies to ensure project management and client representatives were kept fully informed.• Identified the lack of integrated plan for use of a Test System by multiple project teams. Developed an integrated plan to capture all test requirements to allow all individual projects to be aware of the availability of the Test System and build this element into their plans.• Provided critical analysis of programme schedule and impacts of changes to ensure Project Directors/Managers recognised potential issues and slippages, and that impacts to other Project Management Office functions were reflected in all project controls.• Supported Programme Directors and Project Managers through the programme planning process to ensure that all activities, milestones and dependencies were identified. Presented the milestones and schedules to the Client on a weekly basis.• Provided planning advice, support and training to project personnel, including Project Directors/Managers and supported them to progress, maintain and deliver activity schedules.• Advised and supported Project Managers on planning techniques, assisting in the development, maintenance and progress of activity schedules. And assisted Project/Programme Managers to prepare work breakdown structures with resource and cost budgets.

• Led a major global project to replace the Messaging infrastructure at British Gas Group; acted as the key interface with the Project Management Office to define and plan resource requirements, identified appropriate skills and coordinated the assignment of personnel to the project, resolved all issues to ensure full and timely project resourcing, therefore ensured adherence to project-critical path enabling on-time delivery of replacement of the obsolete system.• Delivered projects for transfer-in of major infrastructure from blue chip Clients, and ensured acceptance criteria was met for operational readiness.• Managed delivery of infrastructure changes, involving SAN, server builds, moves, backups, and decommissioning.• Monitored, audited and escalated acceptance issues, risks and dependencies to ensure ongoing compliance to TSG Service Level Agreements and budgets, and assisting in go-live cutover for successful handover of IT solutions to Run Services, having delivered requisite training, design and implementation documentation.• Produced project estimates to feed into the Service Implementation Managers and Programme Managers, and produced/maintained project plans; provided requisite reporting to ensure full information across project teams.• Took ownership of raising Change Requests, and chasing Impacts and Approvals to agreed timescales, in order to for successful delivery.• Reported on updates in Projects Team meetings (e.g. Issues, Dependencies, Activities Completed, Activities in Progress, Late Activities, Actual Time consumed against estimate project time.)• Reviewed Programme Manager demand plans to ensure allocation of demand, matched and booked resources, identified and resolved discrepancies.• Led a team of technical personnel within the Technical Services Group (TSG), and acted as interface between Technical Resources and Service Implementation Managers to determine early resolution to issues and escalations.

• Project managed the relocation of the IT and Telecoms from their manufacturing and office sites to a new warehouse and office, involving constant liaison with 3rd party contractors and suppliers.• Delivered a complete telecoms infrastructure fit-out of a new £25m manufacturing and office facility. Developed the specification, gained senior level approval. Liaised with suppliers to ensure the supply, install and maintenance.• Successfully managed the migration and integration of 2 UK sites and 3 overseas sites (including India) to a common network enabling common applications including manufacturing systems, servers and email systems.