Uncovering the true state of play and what’s needed for success

BACKGROUND

A social services organisation was partway through a major transformation programme implementing Microsoft Dynamics involving multiple suppliers and internal teams, working towards a committed go-live date.

The programme underpinned key business functions across finance, operations, marketing, and customer engagement, making it central to how teams would operate day to day.

Alongside delivery, there was a growing need to understand whether the solution would fully support these areas in practice. Not just in principle, but in a way that could be adopted consistently across teams, deliver the expected value, and replace existing legacy platforms without introducing additional complexity.

As the programme progressed, key dates for user acceptance testing and data migration had been established and committed.

As those dates approached, successive demonstrations, rather than increasing confidence in the solution, were beginning to raise questions around what would be delivered and whether it would meet expectations.

What this work made possible

Using an AI-powered, 15 domain diagnostic tool with over 400 data points, analysis supported our review, reducing the time required to examine and reconcile multiple sources, while ensuring that interpretation and judgement remained human-led. This enabled a clear, evidence-based position to be established without pausing or resetting the programme, allowing facts to be surfaced and understood before more disruptive decisions may be required.

The work centred on five areas:

1. Document and scope alignment: Reviewed contractual and delivery artefacts to establish what was defined, how scope was represented across documents, and where alignment or interpretation was required.

2. Delivery and responsibility mapping: Clarified what had been delivered, what remained, and how responsibilities were understood across suppliers and internal teams, including ownership of key activities and dependencies.

3. Commercial position and risk awareness: Provided a clear view of where costs, change requests, and additional licensing or platform extensions could arise, and how these related to expectations of what was considered in scope.

4. Readiness across testing, data, and rollout: Brought together planning and assumptions across testing, user readiness, data migration, and rollout activities to show how they connected, and where further clarity was needed.

5. Structured clarification, action planning, and governance support: Produced a non-judgmental, structured set of questions and actions designed to:

• confirm what had been delivered
• clarify what remained
• align expectations across all parties before progressing

Each item was supported by:

• defined ownership
• required evidence
• a suggested timeline aligned to the delivery plan
• an explanation of why the item mattered
• the potential risk or impact if not addressed

This created a clear, prioritised plan for progressing outstanding areas, providing a practical mechanism for decision-making, escalation, and maintaining momentum towards UAT, data migration and go-live.