Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) was formed after the 2018 merger of two regional NHS Trusts. Serving 1.5 million people across Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin, and beyond, MPFT is committed to its mission: ‘Together, we are making life better for our communities.’ With a team of approximately 10,000 staff, MPFT delivers essential physical and mental healthcare, learning disability, and adult social care services.

In 2015, MPFT established a formal Project Management Office (PMO), and, two years later, Wellingtone implemented an on-premise Project Server solution to support the PMO’s maturity roadmap. By 2022, this system was becoming outdated, prompting MPFT to re-engage Wellingtone to transition to a modern, cloud-based solution. Key MPFT team members played pivotal roles in guiding this transformation. This upgrade modernized MPFT’s Project Portfolio Management (PPM) technology and reinforced the Trust’s commitment to continuous PMO improvement.

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Overview

Customer

Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT)

Products and Services

Microsoft Planner Premium

Microsoft Training

Industry

Public Sector

Key Benefits

  • Migrating from Project Server on-premise to a modern, Cloud-based PPM solution.
  • Delivering simple yet powerful PPM tooling to support PMO maturity and align to the business need.
  • Underpinning end-to-end project and portfolio visibility, governance, and assurance.
  • Automating processes and freeing the PMO to focus on delivery and strategy.
  • Supporting the Trust’s PPM maturity and the PMO’s continuous improvement.

A Strategic Tooling Transformation Aligned to the Business Need

“By 2022, we were encountering many of the technical and functional issues you would expect from a legacy platform,” Candice Morris, Head of Service Development & PMO, says. “We needed to upgrade to a modern, Cloud-based solution. At the same time, as part of our PMO Delivery Plan, we were revisiting and evolving our PPM frameworks, policies, and processes.”

Jack Gould, Senior Digital Project Manager, emphasized the alignment of this transformation with MPFT’s digital strategy. “The Trust’s Digital Strategy 2021 to 2026 outlines 15 key digital themes. Moving to a Cloud-based PPM tool would support some of these themes.

“It was a natural decision to use Wellingtone again. They had delivered a successful solution for us previously, so they already understood how we operate. We felt that we could trust them to support us with the right technical skills and project management expertise.”

Options Analysis

An options analysis was undertaken by MPFT and supported by Wellingtone. “We looked to align to Prince2, but with the flexibility to adapt when an Agile or Hybrid approach might be more appropriate,” says Candice. “We engaged with both project-level users and executive sponsors to understand what was working. Their input guided the options analysis, which confirmed that Microsoft Planner Premium was the right choice for us. It also helped us compile baseline data to track Project for the web’s benefits. This is a considerable investment, so we wanted to ensure that we can measure the returns as the new solution embeds.”

Following the options analysis, a formal envisioning exercise was organized with a core stakeholder group. “Wellingtone’s consultant was helpful, sharing industry trends and best practices, what other customers have done, and how Planner could be customized to fit our needs,” says Jack.

Accelerator+: Enhancing and Extending Microsoft Planner Premium’s Capabilities

Wellingtone deployed their proprietary Accelerator+ Power App to enhance Planner’s functionalities, covering the entire project lifecycle—from pipeline management to lessons learned. This customization was tailored to align with MPFT’s methodologies and objectives. “Wellingtone are project management experts, as well as technical Microsoft Platform specialists,” says Candice. “Working with them enabled us to bounce ideas, problem-solve scenarios, and visualize how Planner would generate drill-down visibility, reduce duplication, and improve our assurance and reporting—a key PMO and business objective.”

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Training: Ensuring Success

Before training, the configuration was released for User Acceptance Testing (UAT), helping to refine functionality. “Wellingtone were particularly helpful during this, reviewing the feedback and giving us options to make sure the solution would support our people and ways of working,” Jack says. Wellingtone then trained core PMO staff in August 2022, incorporating a cascade approach to equip the PMO to onboard staff moving forwards. “We took the view that ongoing training also offered an opportunity to refresh people’s knowledge of our frameworks, policies, and processes,” says Candice. “Wellingtone was happy to give us the tools to do that in-house. Alongside their ‘train the trainer’ model, we also created a set of ‘how to’ guides, videos, and resources to provide a useful self-serve reference library. It enabled us to roll out iteratively—first to PMO and project staff, and then across the wider organization—at a pace that suits our priorities.”

Microsoft Planner: Fully Deployed and Driving Results

Planner is now fully deployed across the Trust. New customized features include drill-down program and project dashboards, automated template population and stage gate workflows, and new dashboard tabs for project pipelines, status updates, change and exception requests, benefits, and lessons learned. “Power BI’s reporting capabilities are a particular game changer. We can populate reports automatically and pull in consistent, real-time data,” Candice explains. “This is significantly reducing the PMO’s reporting time, freeing our capacity to focus on supporting strategic delivery through stakeholder management, benefits tracking, and so on. We are working with our Business Intelligence Team to develop our reporting and assurance capabilities in line with our evolving governance structures. Jack regularly talks to Wellingtone to understand Microsoft’s latest innovations and how we can harness them to improve usability further. Where there are ongoing refinements and developments, these are managed as part of our support contract.

A Positive Experience

“The whole experience with Wellingtone has been very positive,“ says Candice. “There is no hard sell—they are friendly, approachable, flexible, and happy to share their technical and project management expertise. I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone considering Microsoft Planner.“