Overview
Foodstuffs South Island (SI) is the leading grocery cooperative for the South Island. Employing 14,000 people to service over 200 stores Foodstuffs South Island has been a part of our community for almost 100 years.
Millpond has built a long-standing relationship, having worked alongside Foodstuffs SI for over 10 years – delivering both IT and Strategic projects and programmes along with project management training. Key to this partnership is providing project resources who understand the project management process and can work closely with key stakeholders to ensure projects are set up for success.
“We had a couple of really critical and complex projects coming up and we needed a really good project manager who could come in and deliver those projects,” says Matt Richardson, Head of PMO at Foodstuffs SI. Matt felt it was time to bring in a project manager from Millpond. “We knew Millpond had the capability and they are well connected in the global project management landscape. As a training and consultancy organisation, Millpond is always building knowledge, which is something they bring to the partnership with Foodstuffs SI.”
Approach
Foodstuffs SI requested our help to deliver two complex projects across their IT property projects.
They needed someone quickly, but they needed to be the right organisational fit and have the experience required to bring the focus on delivery and also accountability to ensure that the job could be done in the time available.
The key attributes Foodstuffs SI recognised in Millpond were that we:
- are customer focused
- want to make sure that we succeed
- have a good track record of project delivery
- are prepared to flex – to do what is best for the client
- fit seamlessly into the clients project teams
Throughout the projects, the Millpond team delivered new systems within the timeframe and budget.
Once the project was delivered Millpond undertook a post-implementation review, which was valued by the PMO. ” Millpond wasn’t afraid of giving us constructive feedback on where our projects could improve,” says Matt Richardson. Given the PMO have a strong focus on lessons learned, they found it valuable to build this into their project delivery going forward.
Results
Accountability to deliver the projects within an aggressive timeframe
Established some really good relationships with partners
Delivered the new systems within time and budget
Summary
When asked what they enjoyed most about working with us, Foodstuffs SI highlighted the flexibility of our approach, “the process of working with millpond is flexible, they bring a wealth of knowledge to the table.” says Matt Richardson.
Given the ongoing partnership and the success of these projects, Foodstuffs continue to work with Millpond to provide capability and trust Millpond to deliver.
“Millpond bring a much broader brush to project management and they went above and beyond to get us where we needed to get to. Without them, we would have struggled.”
