Section 06 / 22Listen, map and lock the plan in five days
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Listen, map and lock the plan in five days
Week One
Take hold, set out my stall, put a plan on the table
Week one is where I take hold of the programme, get the right people around the table and put a credible plan in front of leadership. Business case, scope, work packages, milestones, governance and vendor evaluation all moving by Friday.
Business caseScope & work packagesMilestone planGovernance & RACIStakeholder engagementVendor mobilisation
Day 1
Take hold, set the tone
- Meet the CEO and executive sponsor to confirm success criteria, budget envelope and the non-negotiable 30 September date
- Introduce myself to the Bulgaria bid team and country leads, camera on, first names, no slides
- Agree the weekly cadence, the one-page steer format and who sits in which forum
- Set up a shared project workspace so every artefact has a single home from day one
Day 2
Map the ground truth
- Walk the end-to-end bid lifecycle with the team, from lead through to win/loss, and document what really happens
- Catalogue every spreadsheet, template, shared drive and workaround the team relies on today
- Sit alongside two or three bid contributors to see the friction first-hand, not through a manager's summary
- Capture pain points, manual steps and the handful of things people would fix tomorrow if they could
Day 3
Stakeholders and scope
- One-to-ones with CFO, Group Commercial, IT lead, DPO and the Bulgaria bid team lead
- Introductory calls with country leads across the Arriva footprint, listening for the local nuance
- Draft the scope statement: what is in, what is explicitly out, and what is a phase-two conversation
- Confirm the initial work packages and who is best placed to own each one
Day 4
Suppliers on notice
- Review Monday.com, Salesforce and Edison365 positioning against the emerging requirements
- Draft the demo script, scoring rubric and information request so every vendor answers the same questions
- Lock demo dates in the diary and set the expectation that answers are time-bound, not open-ended
- Open a vendor RAID so commitments, gaps and follow-ups are tracked from the first conversation
Day 5
Business case and plan on the table
- Present a high-level business case: problem, options, cost envelope, benefits and the 30 September commitment
- Publish the 13-week milestone plan with work packages, owners, key deliverables and critical path
- Walk leadership through governance, RACI and the escalation route from standup to CEO
- Get an explicit green light to proceed into requirements lock and vendor evaluation
Week 1 deliverables
What lands, who owns it, when it is due
Concrete outputs on the table by Friday. Every item has a named owner and a target day so leadership can hold the plan, and me, to account.
| Deliverable | What it contains | Owner | Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| High-level business case | Problem, options, cost envelope, benefits and recommendation | Project Manager | Fri, Day 5 |
| Scope statement | In scope, out of scope, phase-two candidates, assumptions | Project Manager + Bid Team Lead | Thu, Day 4 |
| Work package breakdown | Requirements, vendor selection, data, config, training, rollout, governance | Project Manager | Thu, Day 4 |
| 13-week milestone plan | Owners, dependencies, critical path and the 30 September commitment | Project Manager | Fri, Day 5 |
| Governance pack | Forums, cadence, RACI, escalation SLAs and one-page steer template | Project Manager + Executive Sponsor | Fri, Day 5 |
| Stakeholder map | UK leadership, Bulgaria bid team, 14 country leads and engagement plan | Project Manager | Wed, Day 3 |
| Requirements v0.1 | Draft functional and non-functional requirements plus non-negotiables | Project Manager + Bid Team Lead | Fri, Day 5 |
| Vendor evaluation kit | Demo script, scoring rubric, information request and locked demo dates | Project Manager | Thu, Day 4 |
| RAID log and decision log | Live from Day 1, reviewed in every delivery standup | Project Manager | Mon, Day 1 |
By Friday
What I will have achieved
- High-level business case on the CEO's desk with options, cost envelope and recommendation
- Scope, work packages and key deliverables agreed and written down
- 13-week milestone plan published with owners, dependencies and critical path visible
- Governance in place: forums, cadence, RACI and escalation SLAs signed off
- Vendor evaluation mobilised: demo dates locked, scoring rubric agreed, RAID open
- Stakeholder map complete across UK leadership, Bulgaria bid team and 14 country leads
- Team knows who I am, how I work and that I will roll my sleeves up alongside them
This is how I work. Come in, listen hard, then set out my stall: a business case leadership can defend, a plan the team can execute and governance that keeps suppliers honest. By Friday everyone knows the scope, the milestones, who owns what and that the 30 September date is being run by someone who will roll their sleeves up alongside the team to hit it.