I'm an experienced and qualified Project and Change Management Specialist with extensive experience of helping charities, not-for-profit, and SMEs of all sizes to specify, plan and successfully implement projects and change. My specialisms include:
I combine project management skills with technical awareness, and an ability to make complex information readily understandable at all levels; I’m also experienced in working with suppliers and third parties, ensuring everyone is working together effectively. My aim is to always add value, particularly by bringing clarity and sanity to projects and change.
There are some great testimonials from customers below, but please also see my recommendations on LinkedIn or contact me for a free consultation.
Alice
There’s a wealth of choice out there for systems and software providers, technical specialists, and third party agencies; having worked with several Alice can work with your organisation and teams to understand your initial needs and requirements, to then identify a shortlist of possible options, and support you during the selection process and vendor interviews to get to a final choice.
With hundreds of successful projects delivered, Alice can help you at various points in your programmes or projects to advise on best practice approaches to questions you’ve reached, put plans together for different eventualities, be a sounding board, provide some sanity and clarity. This can be through retained or ad-hoc services, formal or informal workshops, documentation, or just being available for a quick chat. Specific activities could include board facilitation and reporting, needs analysis, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) oversight, pausing and re-starting programmes, and troubleshooting challenging projects.
Projects are often pushed onto existing staff, spreading their time and reducing their work quality. Having an external consultant manager, available on demand depending on the project needs, gives you a consistent and experienced professional who can draw from your team’s expert knowledge and experience but help them to retain focus on their roles and what they do best. Support can include everything from Initiation, Planning, Specification, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Issue Management, Training Facilitation, Go-Live, and Post-Implementation – along with all the supporting documentation, updates, meetings, and reporting.
Alice has a way of working with people, getting the best from them while keeping your best interests in focus. Programmes and Projects can often put strain on organisation, supplier, and third party relationships. Alice can help mediate and navigate these relationships to get a strong delivery from everyone involved at great value to your organisation.
Sometimes it’s beneficial to have an outside view, to check in on specific areas of the organisation, or to provide rapid cover in unplanned circumstances. Alice can help with this by getting to know the organisation and teams, working with them, and facilitating changes and improvements. This could be in the form of health checks, team away days or workshops, short-term interim support, short-term cover of organisation roles.
Speaking and facilitating come as standard with good programme and project management, however this also translates well to speaking at events or webinars, and facilitating key meetings or workshops to keep them on track (virtual or otherwise). Using these skills every day, and being passionate about effective operations, management, and leadership Alice can bring to life these topics and get great results from teams from her years of experiences.
Following Alice’s studies in Sport and Exercise Science at Loughborough University, specialising in health promotion and psychology in her final year, she began putting that into practice in community health and wellbeing projects across Warwickshire, and implementing initiatives to improve health and well-being for all, but particularly young people at risk and those in disadvantaged areas.
Alice worked with a variety of systems, software, and processes to deliver projects but often found herself adjusting or improving them. Being an end user, but with technical awareness and understanding, she felt more could be done to better help organisations deliver their projects and services. This led to Alice making the move to delivering software projects to Charities and Not for Profits, and was lucky enough to land a dream job with thankQ who focused on providing specialised software for all aspects of charity and not for profit operations.
When thankQ was acquired in 2012 into The Access Group, Alice stayed in the business as a Project Manager before progressing to Senior Project Manager, Team Leader, and ultimately a member of the Not for Profit Division Management Team. During this time Alice delivered successful programmes & projects, including the first pilot projects for the major change to the latest cloud based version, thankQ CRM. Alice has the privilege to work with many organisations including UnLtd, Keele University, Stroke Association, National Union of Journalists, Citizens Advice, Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), and the Foundation and Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens (KEW Gardens).
Following any acquisition or merge of organisations there’s a period of time to adjust and align, Alice assisted in that process at The Access Group to ensure the teams were best set up to deliver highly effective services. Ready for change, and with a strong network and a wealth of experience, Alice decided to brave the world of consulting. An early move in this was to support Blackbaud as an interim Project Manager, again delivering sector specific software. Prior experience meant she could hit the ground running and delivered several successful projects in a short period of time, whilst also building her knowledge and experience.
Alice founded Ginniff Consulting to give her more freedom to independently add value to a sector she loves to support, as it adds value to the world. Through Ginniff Consulting, Alice has worked with a number of household name organisations to improve effective operations, supported many smaller NFPs and Charities in establishing systems for growth and efficiency, and worked with numerous small businesses delivering organisational change projects for growth. Alice loves working with organisation teams and seeing the whole picture, not just the project or system being implemented. She works with all levels of programme and project delivery, from end users through to senior management and trustees. Alice brings a breadth of experience and knowledge that can be applied to a variety of charities and NFPs; she also understands the specifics and nuances of the sector and what it takes to deliver successful projects, and make change happen.
Alice can help you operate and manage change effectively, so you can focus on being passionate and excited about your mission!
Please get in touch to request your free remote consultation for new or existing customers, or if you just want more information.