01 · Investment
Business case development
Treasury-grade and ICT business cases that survive scrutiny. We
write the case the executive will defend in front of the budget
committee - not the one the template asked for - with strong
benefits logic, honest assumptions and risk in language a
non-technical board can interrogate.
Most cases fail at committee because the problem was never stated
in terms the organisation agreed on, or because the options
analysis had one credible option and two strawmen. We fix the
argument first, then write it down.
How we help
-
Strategic, outline and full business case authorship for
executive delegate approval
- Problem statement and initiative objectives framing
- Options analysis with credible counterfactuals
- Benefits realisation logic and measurement plan
- Cost modelling and sensitivity analysis
- Risk register tied to mitigation accountability
- Delivery approach and milestone definition
- Executive narrative and decision-paper drafting
-
Red-team review of a case someone else has drafted, before it
goes to committee
What we produce
A single approval-ready case plus the working artefacts behind it:
problem statement, initiative objectives, benefits framework,
options analysis, cost model, risk register, delivery approach and
key milestones. Each stands alone, because in practice they get
pulled apart and read separately.
Recent proof
Within the multi-year mandate that followed the WCMS recovery at a
major Australian research university, the principal ran the
initiation, business case and procurement of an enterprise digital
content and asset management platform - the investment argument,
the market approach and the delivery plan built as one piece of
work.
Read the case study →
Typical engagement
Six to twelve weeks depending on stage gate and supporting
evidence base.
02 · Sourcing
Procurement & RFP advisory
Most delivery is won or lost at the procurement event, long before
any code is written. We design RFPs that test for capability, run
evaluations that withstand probity scrutiny and manage the
handover from contract signature to delivery without the usual
six-week gap.
A large evaluation panel is not a problem to be managed down. It
is how an organisation with real stakes makes a decision it will
still back in two years. The job is a method disciplined enough
that consensus is earned rather than negotiated.
How we help
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RFP and EOI design - requirements, evaluation criteria, response
structure
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Restricted RFP design for capability-critical procurements
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Probity-compliant evaluation governance, including large
multi-function panels
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Weighted evaluation methodology design (e.g. 70:30
technical-to-financial)
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Vendor due diligence, BAFO, contract negotiation and delegate
approval
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Implementation-partner selection alongside the platform itself
- Vendor onboarding and delivery kickoff
What we produce
The evaluation methodology and its weighting, the response
structure suppliers are scored against, the clarification and
demonstration schedule, the scoring and consensus record, the BAFO
round and the recommendation that goes to the delegate - built to
be read by someone testing the process after the fact, because
occasionally someone does.
Recent proof
At a federally funded cyber security research centre, the first
delivery decision was a sourcing one: a managed service provider
and a security operations centre procured, contracted and
integrated to run as one service, with the operating model between
them designed so the centre received one service rather than two
vendors with a seam.
The discipline runs back two decades: at a large public university
the principal ran a three-vendor evaluation across roughly forty
criteria under a NSW whole-of-government panel contract, with
agency pricing challenged line by line.
Read the case studies →
Typical engagement
Ten to sixteen weeks across pre-market, evaluation and
contracting.
03 · Delivery
Program delivery
Enterprise change mobilised, built and cut over under one
accountable senior lead. This is the work the
delivery team exists
to do - platform migrations, CMS and CRM replacements, security uplift
and the integration work underneath - with the Director leading and
only the roles the work needs engaged alongside him.
Most of what Vantage Meridian has delivered was never a rescue. It
was a funded program with an immovable date, a lot of moving parts
and an executive who needed it to land without drama.
How we help
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End-to-end program leadership under executive governance, from
mobilisation through to cutover and handover
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Enterprise platform migration and replacement - data platform,
content management and CRM
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Integration delivery across the enterprise estate (Course Db,
MuleSoft, Marketo, SugarCRM and equivalents)
-
Concurrent programs run in parallel to fixed, externally-set
deadlines
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Coordination across internal teams, vendors and managed service
partners operating on different commercial arrangements and
reporting lines
-
Vendor and implementation-partner procurement carried through
into build, rather than handed over at signature
-
Cutover planning, release quality and the post go-live support
window
-
Delivery through the nine-role team, sized to the work rather
than to a package
What we produce
The delivery is the product, but it arrives with a trail: the plan
and schedule, the requirements baseline, the test strategy and
exit standard, the cutover runsheet and go / no-go decision and
the operational acceptance the receiving team signs. All of it to
the
Vantage Meridian Delivery Framework and the house artefact standards.
Recent proof
-
A national broadcaster's audience analytics platform migrated to
Snowplow inside six months, against a deadline the platform
vendor set and would not move - event tracking and tagging
rebuilt across the web, mobile and app estate, SDKs upgraded
across mobile, tablet and connected-TV, new data models and
dashboards built in Superset and Power BI, 100+ staff
coordinated across product, data and engineering behind them. No
incidents raised at the 30 June cutover.
-
The same broadcaster's Redshift, Athena and Snowflake estates
consolidated to one governed platform and one unified data model
- corporate KPI reporting migrated without interruption,
dedicated data marts stood up for product analytics, marketing
and media, and the legacy AWS estate decommissioned behind them.
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A Sitecore headless CMS replacement at a regional multi-campus
university - a 3,000-page estate, 100 online forms rebuilt and
four integrations landed. Live to the schedule agreed at an
executive go/no-go checkpoint, with no incidents raised at that
cutover and minimal post go-live support requests.
-
Two concurrent enterprise programs at a federally funded cyber
security research centre - a Salesforce CRM and research
delivery platform and a Microsoft 365 E5 security uplift with an
MSP and a SOC contracted and integrated as one service.
Board-committed dates held across both programs.
Read the case studies →
Typical engagement
Program-length, and scoped to the program. Recent work has run
from six months for a data platform migration to a multi-year
multi-campus CMS replacement.
04 · Governance
PMO stand-up & uplift
The PMO is the operating system of complex delivery. Done well, it
lets senior leaders focus on the few decisions that matter; done
badly, it's a status-report factory nobody reads. We stand up new
PMOs and uplift existing ones, designing the artefact set, cadence
and reporting line that match your delivery complexity rather than
imposing a generic framework.
How we help
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PMO operating model design (charter, mandate, escalation
pathway)
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Artefact library: status, RAID, decision logs, change control,
benefits
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Cadence design: weekly, monthly and quarterly rhythms that
actually fit
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Tooling configuration (Jira, Smartsheet, Microsoft 365 stack,
ServiceNow)
- PMO team uplift and capability development
- Independent PMO health check, where one already exists
Typical engagement
Eight to twelve weeks for a stand-up. Four to six weeks for a
targeted uplift or health check.
05 · Assurance
Steering committee governance
Most steering committees spend forty minutes hearing what happened
and ten deciding what to do next. That ratio is the wrong way
around. We redesign the steering pack, agenda and decision papers
so executive time goes to the decisions only they can make, and
issues surface before they become headlines.
How we help
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Steering committee charter, membership and decision rights
- Pre-read protocol and decision-paper structure
- Status dashboard design - RAG that means something
- Issue and risk escalation thresholds
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Independent steerco chair facilitation (where appropriate)
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Board reporting derived from, not duplicated by, the steerco
Typical engagement
Four to six weeks to design and embed. Often combined with a PMO
uplift.
06 · Independence
Delivery assurance
An independent senior pair of eyes on your most consequential
delivery, before the board asks for one. Health checks, gate
reviews and red-team analyses for programs where a missed warning
sign costs far more than an external opinion.
How we help
- Confidential delivery health checks (two to four weeks)
- Gate review preparation and independent gate assurance
-
Red-team analysis of program plans, business cases and
procurement strategy
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Pre-board reviews - what the board will ask, before they ask it
- Vendor performance assurance during delivery
- Post-implementation review and benefits validation
Typical engagement
Two to six weeks. Often the start of a longer engagement, but
never required to be.
07 · Recovery
Project recovery
When a program is red - or about to be - the first sixty days
decide whether it can be recovered or needs to be reset. The
Recovery Protocol™ runs four phases, from the day we are
engaged to the day permanent delivery leadership takes back the
wheel. Every artefact, meeting and escalation maps to one of them.
How we help
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Diagnose - independent assessment across scope, schedule,
governance, capability and stakeholder alignment
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Re-baseline - scope, schedule and budget re-cut with traceable
rationale
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Re-govern - the governance pattern reset around the recovered
baseline
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Re-mobilise - handover to permanent delivery leadership with the
cadence running
-
An honest written call on when the right answer is reset rather
than recover
Read the Recovery Protocol™ in full →
Typical engagement
Sixty days across the four phases, from diagnosis to handover.
