I project managed the deployment of a new ITSM system to an English County Council as part of their Digital Transformation drive. This called for multiple workshops to scope Incident, Service and Change management. One particular challenge was managing their changing requirements.

This would not ordinarily be difficult for a Project Manager to handle, but the consultant was not experienced with working under a PM or push back on requirements – therefore I discovered that the client had habit of going directly to the consultant with the changes they wanted, causing scope creep.

When I discovered this I instructed the consultant that they were to work to specification and not accept any more instruction changes from the client. This obviously did not go down well with the client who, rather than approach me, complained to the vendor directly. I defended my decision and cited the risks on delivery if the customer kept making changes to the scope without consulting the PMO.

Although they were unhappy, they did accept the points that I made. The business agreed with the vendor that we would extend the project and provide some free consultancy as a gesture of goodwill to the client, getting their agreement to stick to the budget and the plan.