Richard Spencer

PMO Leader, experienced in Agile and Waterfall methodologies, Transformational Change Delivery, passionate about making a difference, supporting others to achieve their best

Burley In Wharfedale, England, United Kingdom

About

Programme Management Office (PMO) expert & leader with a passion for delivering operational excellence and empowering others to reach their full potential. Over 11-years of experience working in and leading a Programme Management Office team in a complex organisation and known for a clear focus to add value to any PMO team with strong knowledge of the project methodologies (including the Agile framework & JIRA) and their practical application to provide clear planning, implementing financial control & insight via targeted Management information. Experience of setting up and leading a PMO team and recognised for building careers through leading by example and committed people development.

Experience

  • PMO Analyst at NHS England
    Jul 2025 - Present · 1 yr

    Delivering PMO Excellence for the Platform Modernisation team by establishing and implementing best practices that enhance project outcomes and support organizational goals across the £10M Programme. • Designed and led the creation and delivery of a PMO Maturity Plan, moving the team from inception to a precision driven operating model, embedding consistent processes, improving reporting quality, and building team capability. o Progressed the PMO into a continuous improvement phase with enhanced MI driving proactive insight and decision making. • Introduced Agile ways of working across the PMO, implementing sprint cycles that strengthened milestone discipline and ensured clear delivery targets. • Designed and embedded a new end to end Risks & Issues process, supported by swim lane workflows and delivery team guidance published on the newly created PMO SharePoint site. o Strengthened RAID governance by ensuring the programme RAID log remained accurate, current, and fully aligned, improving escalation quality and enabling more reliable leadership reporting. • Established a programme level milestone planning process, integrating monthly project level plans into a single, forward looking Programme POAP to improve visibility and dependency management. • Built a comprehensive PMO SharePoint site outlining the PMO Maturity plan, POAP, roles and responsibilities, key calendar dates, and guidance for risks, assurance, and planning, creating a single source of truth for the programme. • Developed and published a structured onboarding pack for new starters, improving consistency, clarity, and speed of integration across the PMO.

  • Lloyds Banking Group (Full-time · 18 yrs 5 mos)
    • Business Manager Lead, Program Management Office
      Jan 2021 - Apr 2025 · 4 yrs 4 mos

      • Defined and implemented Agile Ways of Working through introduction of the JIRA project management tool & creation of a series of sprint & Kanban boards, rollout of training, delivery of an Agile cadence plan & running of local activist group to ensure successful adoption. o Scaled Agile Ways of Working (WoW) through a series of agreed experiments & coaching across the wider team o Managed tasks & coached others in Agile sprints &delivered sprint-based reporting via the JIRA to provide insight for continuous improvement in Agile WoW • Planned & delivered planning events following the Agile methodology leading to a quarterly backlog in JIRA • Delivered adherence to 2024 annual spend budgets o Data Analysis & reporting from transaction reports, spend forecast plans & reviews & building of finance MI for area director o Ensured full year headcount costs were within budget by delivering monthly controls and reporting o Produced future year annual spend profiles & FTE forecast to deliver a team operating plan • Created & managed robust financial/ resource & recruitment trackers for multiple projects over a 3-year (2021-2023) £32m change programme. • Ownership of the buying process across the budget – 3rd party supplier engagement, statement of work/work order creation & close working with corporate procurement, Purchase Order creation & Invoice controls in place. • Recruitment via internal recruitment & external/agencies & colleague onboarding • Utilization of existing MI & creation of new MI using Power BI tool providing knowledge & insight o Developed resourcing and recruitment MI in Power BI visualisation software • Led, motivated and coached, ensuring colleagues were multi-skilled and owned their own development o Conducted career conversations across the team & set-up personal goals & development plans for colleagues to enable them to meet the operational needs of the business area aligned to. o Set up clear roles and responsibilities for colleagues in the team

    • Project Manager Program Management Office
      Apr 2019 - Jan 2021 · 1 yr 10 mos

      · Delivered financial control for the bulk annuities programme with a value of £19m in 2020 and £16m in 2019 across a dozen projects. · Set up a finance view to bring together all project spend into one place and delivered aligned reporting to ease insight and approvals. · Delivered 100% compliance with the buying process for all 3rd party engagements & Purchase Orders via a pro-active and quarterly planned approach to successfully deliver £11M external spend programme · Ensured PMO standards maintained across the project programme with logs, milestones, risks and plan deviations all visible

    • Business Operations Manager (PMO_
      Dec 2013 - Apr 2019 · 5 yrs 5 mos

      Led a PMO team of 8 colleagues (including 4 offshore partners) to deliver wide ranging PMO processes and activity for a team of 800 colleagues (200 onshore & 600 offshore) and ensure consistency in the application of processes and tools to support delivery of the £40M annual budget. · Led a team and provided hands-on management of the supplier & partner resource pool: · Delivered a contractor renewals management process and Work Order Drawdown reviews with supplier/partner · Owned and completed each year 100% tracking and visibility of 3rd party Work orders and external spend items · Managed the Invoice payment process including receipt, review, approval and tracking of payments to suppliers · Supplier relationship management via chairing of KPI review meetings · Visited offshore partner offices to set up a new PMO team and to implement a new internally created supply and demand tool. · Managed partner KPIs and SLA compliance. Partner work order drawdowns & onshore/offshore ratio reporting · Provided line management to onshore team and drove team forward through clear roles and responsibilities · Set up and tracked a full knowledge transfer programme between changing offshore partners (WIPRO & TCS) over period of 6-8 months · Led Resource Management activities enabling programme delivery: · Set up supply and demand tracking and aligned MI dashboards in Tableau to provide S&D forecasts for on average 500 colleagues delivering the £40m programme · Provided PMO management of a contractor reduction programme – ensured all contracts were non-renewals and mitigations in place to reduce from 20+ to successfully achieve zero contractors in the team within 12 months. · Owned the starter / movers / leavers process through creation and control of onboarding/offboarding process for all perm/contractor & Partner (TCS/WIPRO) colleagues – ramp up to 640 FTE in 2024; ramp down to 400 in 2015 and then up again to 800 over next 24 months.

  • Mapping/GIS Team lead at Yorkshire Water
    Nov 1998 - Dec 2006 · 8 yrs 2 mos

    Mapping software development delivery, third party relationships, Software testing and implementation