01Programme Setup
Governance built before the first slip rather than in response to it.
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Project Management
Complex programs, delivered against the date you actually committed to.
Program setup, recovery and governance for multi-year work — including the independent read on a plan that has already started slipping.
The practice
We set up, run and recover complex programmes — the multi-year kind where the date was committed publicly and the plan has started to drift quietly.
Programmes rarely fail on technology. They fail on governance cadence and on who is permitted to say no. By month nine the plan has met reality, the decisions are queueing, and nobody has the standing to change scope. We build the cadence that surfaces slippage in weeks rather than quarters — and we are willing to be the ones who say the date has moved.
Start here
Programmes fail on governance, not technology.
By month nine the plan has met reality, decisions are queueing, and nobody in the room has the standing to change scope. The technology is usually fine. What has broken is the cadence and the question of who is permitted to say no.
We build the cadence that surfaces slippage in weeks rather than quarters — and we are willing to be the ones who tell a steering committee the date has moved, which is a service more often than clients expect.
- Programme setup
Core - Plan, governance, decision rights and reporting, built before the first sprint.
- Recovery
Core - An independent read on a programme that has stopped moving, and a route back to a defensible date.
- EPMO
Core - Portfolio governance stood up while delivery continues rather than by pausing it.
- Benefits realization
Core - Tracking what the programme was funded to deliver, after go-live.
- Contract PMs
Not us - We do not supply project managers by the seat.
- Software implementation
Not us - We govern implementations. We do not sell or implement the software.
What we do
Four ways this practice is bought.
Most engagements start as one of these and grow into a second. None of them are productised — the shape is set in the first two weeks.
02Recovery
An independent read on a programme in trouble, and a date that can be defended.
03EPMO
Portfolio governance stood up inside a live programme.
04Benefits Realization
Measuring what the programme was funded to produce, after everyone has moved on.
Alliances
Where the programme runs on somebody else’s platform.
A large share of delivery work now sits on top of a vendor platform, and the platform’s own methodology arrives with it. We hold the alliances so we can argue with that methodology on your behalf — we take no referral fees, no resale margin and no implementation revenue from either of them, which is what makes the argument worth having.
Salesforce
Programme governance for Salesforce implementations and the operating model around them — including the uncomfortable question of whether the org needs the module at all.
The allianceNVIDIADelivery governance for accelerated-compute and AI programmes, where the schedule risk is hardware lead time and platform readiness rather than anything in the project plan.
The allianceOur thinking
What we pride ourselves on.
Three of these are true of every Taidou engagement regardless of practice. They are also the three things we are most often told are unusual — which says more about the industry than about us.
The person who scopes it runs it.
There is no handoff between the team that wins the work and the team that does it. If you met someone in the first conversation, you will still be dealing with them in the last one. This is the single thing clients tell us they notice first.
We write down what we are not doing.
Every engagement starts with a scope that names the things we have deliberately excluded and why. It makes the first conversation harder and every conversation after it easier.
We stay past the point it is comfortable.
Most firms hand over when the design is agreed and the change has been announced — the moment of maximum fragility. We hand over to named owners after it is running, and we come back to check.
Where this lands
The industries we bring Project Management to.
Related thinking
What we have published on this.
Research
Why transformation programmes stall at month nine
ResearchInteroperability isn't a compliance deadline. It's a business model.
CMS-0057-F is being treated as a date to survive. The organizations treating it as an operating decision are the ones still compounding on it in three years.
WorkBack-office migration across three delivery centres
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