Founded in 1951, Murphy is a leading multi-disciplined engineering and construction company operating across the USA, Canada, and Europe. With 4,000 employees and 300 projects across the energy, natural resources, transportation, and water sectors, Murphy is dedicated to improving lives by delivering world-class infrastructure. Supporting this impressive portfolio is the IT division, which is responsible for managing Murphy’s day-to-day IT functions and requirements, as well as driving continuous improvement, change, and transformation initiatives.

Over the past year, the IT PMO has delivered a significant refresh. It has moved from siloed portfolio data to full visibility and pipeline control, supported by Microsoft Planner Premium with Wellingtone’s Accelerator+ portfolio management solution. The PMO has also introduced a brand-new service desk model and transformed IT’s profile across the wider business. While the technology itself played a pivotal role, the success of the program also depended on driving the right cultural change over time.

Overview

Customer

Murphy

Products and Services

Microsoft Planner Premium

Wellingtone Accelerator+

Power BI training

Country

United Kingdom

Industry

Engineering and Construction

Murphy’s IT PMO Maturity Journey: A Snapshot

• A single source of portfolio truth in less than a year.
• Robust IT governance, processes, and visibility to prioritize and control the project pipeline.
• Customized Power BI reporting to support sponsors, SteerCos, and leadership in their roles.
• A shift in perception of the IT PMO – now seen as an enabler of business change.

Murphy Group needed to establish IT as an enabler of strategic change and benefits for the wider business. And the IT PMO needed to drive that transformation. The journey began, with a review of IT governance. A cross-company Digital Steering Committee was established, responsible for reviewing, evaluating, and sponsoring business change requests, as well as for overseeing the portfolio pipeline. At the same time, the IT division looked to implement a new service desk solution plus a new portfolio management solution, with the latter delivered by Wellingtone.

Murphy Group wanted something that would give full visibility and control at the portfolio management level. Some of Murphy Group key stakeholders had previous experience working with Wellingtone. So, they knew that Planner Premium with Accelerator+ offered the functionality needed. But they were also confident in Wellingtone’s extensive PMO expertise. Murphy Group felt that Wellingtone had the knowledge and experience to support through the change roadmap and configuring, and implementing the technology.

Underpinning Business Change with the Right Technical Process and Requirements

Wellingtone began by conducting a requirement-gathering exercise focused on aligning Planner Premium with the new processes that the IT PMO wanted to introduce. Wellingtone’s team was very flexible in accommodating late requirements changes. Murphy Group really appreciated this helpful approach since it was really important to get those requirements absolutely right to support the wider change needed to deliver.

According to Murphy Group, the result is a portfolio management solution that provides flexibility and control at an appropriate level for different user groups. “We call our configuration of Planner Premium our ‘IT Project Centre’. It gives us full portfolio and pipeline visibility across our different workflows, ensures that every project request is properly reviewed, prioritised and scheduled according to the business case, and provides full visibility across project delivery status from start to finish. The configuration is flexible, allowing us to differentiate between larger, more technical projects requiring a full project management process versus smaller backlog projects managed by our technical leads with a lighter touch approach. The resourcing module is also extremely useful. It helps us map our resource allocation, make realistic commitments, and rationalise how and why we are allocating resources so that stakeholders understand our decisions.”

Transforming Portfolio Control with Value-Adding Reporting and a Continuous Improvement Mindset

Wellingtone also worked with the team to create a repository of portfolio-level reports using Power BI. “The richness of data we can draw into a single report, and the impact of that data, is really significant. We use our reports to update the Digital Steering Committee so that they can make timely, informed decisions to guide the work. Project managers can quickly and easily update their sponsors via a single dashboard. It’s fast and simple for them, but it generates powerful business intelligence, a single source of truth, and a real-time view for sponsors. Everything we do now is managed within the solution – we have made a real step-change in our project management culture and maturity. We are so proud of what we have achieved, and feedback from stakeholders and leadership confirms that we are delivering what the business needs from us.”

Looking ahead, the IT PMO plan to build on the first year’s success with a continuous improvement approach. “We are starting to look at rolling it out to users beyond IT, as well as exploring the potential of the benefits and finance modules. Planner Premium is the right tool for us and Wellingtone is the right partner. They understand that implementing change like this is about more than just configuring the technology. It’s about embedding new processes and ways of working. And they have the right expertise to support that journey from both a technology and a PMO perspective.”