Fractional · Sydney
Portfolio, PMO and delivery leadership.
Portfolio Manager · Head of DPMO (Acting) · Delivery Lead · COO, Life and Passing Digital / Gaia Digital
I run a digital PMO, and M&A integration is part of that work. I am taking on the same work for a small number of companies, and I build the automation that takes manual work off their teams.
- Since 2016
- Senior delivery, starting at Westpac
- Time
- Up to two days a week, on site in Sydney or remote
- Terms
- Pro rata on the hours I work, with no minimum term or hours
01 · What I take on
What I take on
The role is whatever the portfolio needs it to be: chairing governance one week, coaching a project manager or sitting with a stuck program the next.
Portfolio management. One exec view of status, dependencies and decisions.
PMO and DPMO leadership. Standards, cadence and coaching for project leads.
M&A integration. Part of the digital PMO I run now.
AI and automation. Automating reporting, PMO admin and other manual work.
Governance. SteerCo packs, risks with named owners and clear exec reporting.
Delivery leadership. Hands-on from plan to go-live, vendors included.
02 · Selected work
Selected work
Portfolio governance lead
Multi-program portfolio
Rebuilt the SteerCo and the forums around it
I cut duplicate forums and put an owner and a date on every action.
Left behind
A SteerCo pack and cadence, a decision log, a portfolio dashboard.
Portfolio performance lead
Executive reporting
One monthly view of ROI, benefits and delivery confidence
I tied benefits to delivery milestones, so value risk showed up early.
Left behind
A value dashboard, a benefits register with owners, a monthly exec pack.
Portfolio and program lead
Large initiatives
One way to shape, design and deliver every large initiative
I set entry and exit criteria for three stages, with templates for each.
Left behind
A stage gate playbook, a business case template, a readiness checklist.
Program readiness lead
Enterprise platform replacement
Operations ready before a platform replacement went live
I tied readiness checks to each go-live stage and ran scenario-based training before the switch.
Left behind
A go and no-go readiness plan, BAU runbooks, a handover pack with SLAs.
03 · How I report a portfolio
One week’s notes, and the page the executive reads
A status page is where decisions get an owner and a date.
hi all quick one before the steerco.
crm vendor still hasnt sent the build, think we are 2 wks behind1??
Not confirmed yet, so it goes in as about two weeks, and I ask the vendor for the date.
migration dry run was meant to be fri 6th, prob not happening2 now.
The Day 100 cutover depends on this dry run, so it leads the risks.
finance upgrade fine, UAT signed off3 tues.
Good news gets one line.
someone needs to ok the weekend cutover window4, sarah said she'd ask the COO but not sure she did.
A decision with no confirmed owner. It goes to the top, with the COO named.
security review found 3 MFA gaps, james fixed 2, last one waiting on vendor patch5.
Keep it, and ask for the patch date.
budget ok-ish, contractor costs up6 a bit this month.
Off this page until there are figures. I asked finance for them, for the monthly cost report.
acquisition team asking if the day 100 cutover date still holds7??
The real question, and only the steering committee can answer it. It becomes the headline.
The Day 100 cutover date is at risk. It depends on a CRM migration dry run that will not go ahead on Friday as planned.
Overall: at risk
Decisions needed
- Hold or move the Day 100 cutover date.Steering committeeThu 12 Nov
- Approve the weekend cutover window.COOTue 10 Nov
Risks and issues
- CRM vendor build about two weeks late, being confirmed with the vendor, so Friday’s migration dry run will not go ahead.Delivery leadNew date by Mon 9 Nov
- One of three MFA gaps waits on a vendor patch.Security leadPatch date by Mon 9 Nov
Done this week
- Finance system upgrade: user acceptance testing signed off on Tuesday.Finance
Asked for before this went out
- The vendor’s confirmed build date. Delivery lead.
- Whether the COO has seen the cutover window request. Integration lead.
- The vendor’s patch date. Security lead.
- This month’s contractor cost figures. Finance.
See the notes it came from, with my edits
hi all quick one before the steerco.
crm vendor still hasnt sent the build, think we are 2 wks behind1??
Not confirmed yet, so it goes in as about two weeks, and I ask the vendor for the date.
migration dry run was meant to be fri 6th, prob not happening2 now.
The Day 100 cutover depends on this dry run, so it leads the risks.
finance upgrade fine, UAT signed off3 tues.
Good news gets one line.
someone needs to ok the weekend cutover window4, sarah said she'd ask the COO but not sure she did.
A decision with no confirmed owner. It goes to the top, with the COO named.
security review found 3 MFA gaps, james fixed 2, last one waiting on vendor patch5.
Keep it, and ask for the patch date.
budget ok-ish, contractor costs up6 a bit this month.
Off this page until there are figures. I asked finance for them, for the monthly cost report.
acquisition team asking if the day 100 cutover date still holds7??
The real question, and only the steering committee can answer it. It becomes the headline.
In the reporting automation I build, AI drafts this page and a person makes these edits.
04 · AI and automation
Automating the manual work
I build automations like the reporting draft above, on the systems a team already uses, with AI only for the reading and writing.
Meeting notes and actions
Runs on: Teams or Zoom, Claude, Planner or Jira.
- 01The meeting is transcribed.
- 02AI pulls out decisions, actions and owners.
- 03Actions go into your tracker, and owners are told.
Re-keying data between systems
Runs on: Make or Power Automate, system APIs.
- 01A record changes in one system.
- 02The automation maps and checks the fields.
- 03The other system updates, with a log.
Two live platforms
Life and Passing Digital, where I am COO
Gaia
An end-of-life platform for memorials, online wills, eulogies and a private document vault.
A Sydney florist I co-run
Studio Terra Florals
I built its site and back office: Square checkout, an AI assistant that takes orders in chat, and ChatGPT ordering.
05 · Rates and working arrangements
Rates
Day rate, a day being eight hours
$1,850 + GST$2,035 including GST
I only charge for the time I put in, pro rata against the day rate. One day a week comes to about $7,400 + GST in an average month, and two days about $14,800 + GST.
Working arrangements
Invoiced fortnightly in arrears on fourteen-day payment terms, with an hours breakdown on every invoice.
Travel and expenses are covered by your organisation, with notice given and agreement reached before anything is purchased or booked.
All work products belong to your organisation from the day they are made: reports, templates, tooling and working documents.
Either side may end the arrangement with fourteen days’ written notice. No minimum term, no minimum hours.
Nothing needs to be signed. If this works for your organisation, we agree on a start date and begin.
Daniel Xuereb
- When are you not the right person?
- Five days a week calls for a full-time hire, and a whole engineering team calls for a firm. I am one person.
A thirty-minute call, or a statement of work.
Talk the work through on a call, or get the statement of work I would send after one, made out to your company for whoever approves the spend.