Outcomes matter more than a method catalogue
Craig approaches complex client work methodically, with a consistent focus on measured, evidenced outcomes.
On this page: Delivery · Business Agility · AI
Delivery
Southwark Council programme
Situation
A Southwark Council digital transformation brought a substantial network of organisations and people together to improve the council’s website, publishing capability and online services.
Difficulty
The delivery environment included 13 third-party suppliers, approximately 150 Southwark staff involved at different stages across the programme’s delivery and five teams within delivery partner Vangent, all requiring coordination around one programme.
Craig’s role
Craig worked as Programme Manager, coordinating the participating suppliers, Vangent teams and Southwark staff around programme delivery.
Approach
Approach. The work brought the participating suppliers and people together.
Capability. Two distinct groups supported the transformation. The delivery group comprised approximately 150 Southwark staff involved at different stages of programme delivery. The operational group comprised more than 150 web authors, who were trained to run the site day-to-day after go-live. Some people may have belonged to both groups, but each group had a different purpose. Training the web authors made the council self-sufficient on the new CMS; previously, it had paid a supplier upward of £15,000 per change.
Measurement. Governance ran through weekly team meetings, a fortnightly Programme Board and monthly Executive reviews, stepping up to weekly Executive reviews ahead of go-live. Independent audience research by Synovate, a market research firm later acquired by Ipsos, comprised 25 assisted user sessions (“surfs”) and four focus groups of 10 residents, conducted over three research phases and including eye-tracking analysis of the final site design. This research provided the basis for the finding that 90% of respondents said the redesign made them more likely to use the site.
Change
The redesigned service increased web use, improved accessibility and shifted more service requests and transactions to lower-cost online channels. Service-request processing time fell by over 50%, and online transactions saved over 80% of the cost of face-to-face servicing.
Measured outcome
The programme was delivered just ahead of schedule and within 0.2% under budget. Web visitors increased by 40%, traffic on interactive maps increased by 250%, and the site rose 279 places in an accessibility/DDA compliance review. The CMS investment achieved full payback within six months. Online parking services reached 40% migration to the web channel within one month and were on track to save over £144,000 a year. The programme won IT Project Team of the Year in the Project Excellence category at the BCS and Computing UK IT Industry Awards 2010.
Capabilities: Delivery · Organisational improvement
Government Spending Challenge
Situation
From May to August 2010, Craig was a Senior Project Manager at Directgov, managing significant web projects including HM Treasury’s Government Spending Challenge website for the Office of No. 10 Downing Street. The service was launched by the Prime Minister and Mark Zuckerberg.
Difficulty
The service operated under head-of-government visibility and reached approximately 400,000 page views an hour at peak. Shortly after launch, its open public-comment feature attracted a wave of inappropriate submissions, creating an immediate risk to public confidence.
Craig’s role
As Senior Project Manager, Craig identified the risk and led the incident response.
Approach
Craig redesigned the site with reduced interactivity and led its relaunch: from identifying the problem to restoring the service online, the turnaround happened on the same day.
Change
The revised service returned online with the immediate public-comment risk controlled. The Drum’s contemporaneous report covered its return.
Measured outcome
The programme Craig’s work supported went on to save the UK government over £500 million; the site enabled the public contribution that formed part of that wider programme. The source is an Institute for Government briefing note, which cites Delib’s own 2010 case study, The Spending Challenge – UK Government uses Dialogue App to save over £500m per year.
“Craig and I started working together under extremely pressurised circumstance bringing together digital engagement content on to a web platform. All under intense ministerial scrutiny. Craig brought trustworthy technical insight about the platform and fully understood the content side of the equation. He had a level head when and good judgement on prioritising real requirements from ‘helpful suuggestions’”
— Nick Jones, Head of Digital, Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Office (2011–2013)
Capabilities: Critical Thinking · Delivery · Agile
CIO Council secure procurement portal
Situation
A CIO Council procurement portal had a security problem that needed both identification and resolution.
Difficulty
The solution had to meet the security need while avoiding the cost implied by the initial budget.
Craig’s role
Craig contributed to identifying the security problem and delivering the secure solution.
Approach
The work connected diagnosis with implementation: understand the security issue, define a suitable response and carry it through to delivery.
The insecure existing procurement solution and site were identified as unfit for purpose and completely replaced—not patched or incrementally improved—with a new secure solution delivered in under three months, at approximately 98% under the initial budget estimate.
Change
A secure procurement solution replaced the unresolved security problem.
Measured outcome
The secure solution was delivered in under three months, at roughly 98% under the initial budget.
Capabilities: Critical Thinking · Delivery · Leadership
VisitScotland e-commerce rescue
Situation
VisitScotland’s online tourist booking platform needed to launch against an external deadline.
Difficulty
The entire development team had been poached by other businesses shortly before the deadline.
Craig’s role
Craig identified poor delivery processes, led developer recruitment, and rebuilt the test environments.
Approach
Craig identified bugs in the supplier’s work that resulted in six-figure fines for the supplier, while rebuilding the team and the delivery process from a standing start.
Change
The development capability and delivery process were rebuilt in time to meet the deadline.
Outcome
The online tourist booking platform was rescued and delivered on time.
Capabilities: Delivery · Critical Thinking
Business Agility
Enterprise Agile Coach, Admiral Group plc
Cardiff, Wales · March 2021 – December 2022 (1 year 10 months)
Situation
Admiral Group’s agile transformation had progressed only partially, with adoption inconsistent across teams and no central capability to sustain it.
Difficulty
Turning a stalled, partial transformation into a durable capability that teams would actually keep using once the coaching engagement ended, rather than reverting once support was withdrawn.
Approach
Approach. Jointly established Admiral’s Agile Centre of Excellence and advised the Agile PMO. Designed and delivered interactive training across Agile 101, Squad Lead, Product Owner, Delivery Lead, and Leadership tracks, using a Spotify-model approach tailored to Admiral’s context, to more than 500 people.
Capability. Set up ongoing agile communities, a drop-in clinic, and external events to embed learning beyond the training room, and built a central Confluence reference space to sustain it. Coached individuals at every level, from team members to senior leadership and Release Train Engineers.
Measurement. Delivery relied on Actionable Agile, Jira, Confluence, Miro, Mural, and Microsoft Teams.
Change
Adoption moved from partial and inconsistent to embedded and self-sustaining, with communities, drop-in support, and a living knowledge base in place beyond the coaching engagement itself.
Measured outcome
Over 500 people trained across five course tracks; agile capability established at every organisational level from individual contributor to senior leadership.
“I’ve worked closely with Craig over the last two years and I can say that he has contributed so much to the initiatives that we have embarked upon since the birth of the Agile Centre of Excellence at Admiral Insurance. His knowledge experience and continuous thirst for understanding of the latest theories and advice has kept us on our toes and challenged us to improve day by day.”
— Jez Winkless, Agile Coach, Admiral Group Plc
Capabilities: Agile · Delivery
Enterprise Agile Coach, BT (Mobile Tribe)
Remote (full UK lockdown period) · June 2020 – February 2021 (9 months)
Situation
BT’s Mobile Tribe needed to scale its agile delivery model and build sustainable coaching capability, entirely remotely during COVID lockdown.
Difficulty
Establishing effective ways of working and a coaching culture across a rapidly growing set of squads with no in-person contact, while also contributing to BT’s wider agile rollout beyond the immediate team.
Approach
Approach. Worked daily with Tribe leadership to develop excellence in ways of working across a scaled agile delivery model (Spotify/SAFe), as the Tribe grew from 4 to 12 squads with no increase in management overhead. Part of a coaching centre of excellence rolling out agile across BT.
Capability. Supported Scrum Master and Product Owner onboarding, hackathons, three Big Room Planning events, tribe leadership, Release Train Engineers, and cross-tribe synchronisation. Developed an agile learning pathway and learning library for the tribe, recognised as both innovative and helpful by the wider BT agile community.
Measurement. Supported adoption of Scrum, Jira, Confluence, Jira Align, Mural, and delivery metrics across Product Owners, Scrum Masters, RTEs, and Delivery Leads.
Change
The Tribe scaled from 4 to 12 squads without adding management overhead, while sustaining consistently positive feedback from leadership and squads.
Measured outcome
Squad count tripled (4 → 12) with no increase in Tribe management overhead; contract extended on the strength of results.
This work was independently profiled by a BT colleague: Building a (remote) culture of safety, Robin Wong, Medium.
“Craig has worked with me for around 8 months across 2020 and 2021, as Agile Coach for our Tribe. We aim to be a Tribe which evangelises Agile principles, delivers great outcomes and enjoys a great culture. Craig has been critical to our success against these 3 measures. In his time with us, the Tribe has doubled in size, largely through the arrival of newcomers to Agile. Craig has been almost entirely responsible for embedding strong and resilient Agile practices, and also for up-skilling incoming Tribe members to a level where they can deliver quality. He has balanced a tenacious enthusiasm for the methodology with a pragmatic and patient approach to his day-to-day interactions with Tribe members and Tribe leadership alike. He has also lent considerable support to Tribe-wide initiatives aimed at safeguarding mental wellbeing during the COVID pandemic. Craig’s departure is a significant blow - he is very well-liked within the Tribe, and I couldn’t have wished to have had a better Agile Coach by my side on this programme. I wish him every success, and have no hesitation in recommending him for future work.”
— Phyroze Mohamed, Technology Tribe Lead, Programme Manager, BT (2020–2021)
Capabilities: Agile · Delivery
Trading technology hardware team turnaround workshop
Situation
A hardware engineering team at a trading technology firm in the City of London, building FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays — reprogrammable chips used for ultra-low-latency trading systems), was struggling with delivery friction and had been operating without an Engineering Manager in post.
Difficulty
Blockers to shipping were not clearly understood even within the team, and decision-making ownership had become unclear in the absence of permanent leadership.
Craig’s role
Craig was engaged to design and facilitate a full-day offsite workshop for the team.
Approach
Craig designed a structured day combining trust-building exercises, diagnostic discussion of the current delivery process, disciplined experimentation techniques, and facilitated work on team listening, challenge and decision-making norms, adapted specifically to the needs of a neurodivergent-inclusive team.
Change
The team left the day with an agreed, owned set of interim actions, clearer decision-making norms, and explicit agreements on how ideas would be raised, challenged and decided in the absence of a permanent Engineering Manager.
Outcome
The client confirmed that the facilitated day had helped the team surface its blockers and leave with owned actions and clearer decision-making norms.
Capabilities: Team Facilitation · Delivery
AI
siliconglen.scot AI-assisted rewrite
Situation
The legacy site, siliconglen.scot, had a substantial body of content requiring rewrite.
Difficulty
Approximately 900 pages had to be revised while retaining analytics so that the effect could be assessed rather than assumed.
Craig’s role
Craig led the siliconglen.scot rewrite using AI assistance while retaining measurement.
Approach
AI assisted the page rewriting, while human judgement and analytics remained part of the process. This is an example of using AI to support delivery rather than outsourcing judgement to it.
Change
The site’s content was rewritten at scale and its performance continued to be measured.
Measured outcome
The rewrite was followed by over 1,000 new users the following month, a 260% increase in visits, and a 500%+ increase in revenue.
Capabilities: AI & Critical Thinking · Delivery · Improvement
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