Who we are

Our vision

To live in a world where every project succeeds through professional project managers continuously developing their skills and flexibility in behaviour.

Our values

• Consulting only works with integrity and we will always do what is in the best interest of the client.
• We will value and respect the organisational culture and diversity of our clients, and seek to understand their maps of the world.
• We have a passion for project management and peak performance and will demonstrate that in all we do.

Our team

We are a team of passionate professionals with broad and deep knowledge and experience of all things related to delivery of strategic initiatives and major projects.

We help you to build delivery capability in your organisation through a blend of consulting, coaching and training.

Peter Parkes   Ivor Lewis   Bob Assirati   Roy Cooper   Michael Beale   Mike Jones   Richard Allen   Sandra Parkes

Dr Peter Parkes MBA

I have held senior roles in project management in the public sector, private sector, public private partnerships and ‘big 4’ management consultancies.  I am experienced across the life-cycle, from start-up to close-out, and have worked in many industries and sectors.  My passion, however, is getting the best out of the team.

I have a Masters in project management (MBA) with a final dissertation on best practice for project management of technology while working in the nuclear sector.  I am a Fellow of the Association for Project Management, certified to the highest level of practitioner (CPM), sit on the main board of the professional body and act as Board Champion for best practice groups (SIGs).  I was a founding member of best practice groups  for Governance, Assurance, and Portfolio Management, a co-author of several publications on the topics and a regular conference speaker on aspects of best practice.  I sit on the steering group for the APM’s Body of Knowledge and contributed to several sections.  After a lifetime of continuous professional development I am chartered by several professional bodies and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, BCS, RSC, RSA, and IBC.  I am a committee member of the Institute of Directors.  I started my journey in NLP in the early ‘90s and progressed to Master Practitioner.  I wrote the book NLP4PM and developed the supporting training course to address a shortage in competence based training for aspiring project managers to balance the popularity of training in method and process.  I am a Certified Coach and Mentor.  I have a passion for peak performance and continuous personal and professional development and promise to infect you.

Ivor Lewis

Starting our as an engineering apprentice with Rolls Royce, I spent a decade in international management consultancy before progressing to take up several board appointments, including: Production Director with JCB, Manufacturing Engineering Director of  what is now BMW Mini, Managing Director of worldwide operations for Diageo, Business Development Director for Perot Systems (now Dell), and Managing Director for Birse Rail(now within Balfour Beatty).

Substantial improvements in performance required both cultural change and breakthrough management thinking and I have applied theory to practice in many boardrooms.  I can help you to do the same.

Bob Assirati

Bob Assirati

Starting out as an operational research analyst with the National Coal Board, I moved through management positions with several companies to commercial director with what is now HMRC before being appointed as Chief Executive of CCTA.  When that was no more, I became Major Projects Director of the Office of Government Commerce, and within the Cabinet Office when OGC was absorbed, taking responsibility for oversight of the UK government’s major projects.  I remain a board member of the BCS.  Benefits from large capital investments can be realised with the right blend of process, skills and behaviours, and I can show you how.

 
Roy Cooper

I have a long and established record in project management and business change working for companies including: EDS, IBM, CSC, Reed Elsevier, Welsh Assembly Government, Bupa, Xerox, Rolls Royce and Vodafone. Roles have included:
• Stakeholder management to executive board level
• Programme Management and portfolio management best practice implementation, including PMO setup
• Trouble-shooting Projects £1m – 200 million
• Managed strategic service organisations of 2 – 5000 people
• Managed global IT service contracts, TCV £2000m, through start-up & transformation
• Negotiated and managed IT Service, Outsource and SI contracts
• Designed and led EMEA wide Six Sigma Programmes
• Coached Business Leaders and Individuals to excellence, using certified coaching techniques, practices and interventions
• Managing major change and transformation programmes incorporating business wide systems implementation, end to end business process re-engineering as well as cultural and behavioural change.

I have excellent interpersonal skills, supported by a certification as Master Practitioner of NLP and Master Coach, enabling me to help build high performing skilled and motivated teams as well as effective value based relationships with stakeholders.

Michael Beale

My early career was in buying for high street brands, culminating in General Buyer for the Do-It-All DIY chain.  This gave me a strong background in negotiation skills as well as general management.  From there I moved on to become Strategy Development Manager for BT (British Telecommunications) during the time when it was morphing from a government monopoly to a major commercial telecommunications company.

I trained under the founders of NLP, being a certified trainer under Richard Bandler and certified coach under John Grinder.  I specialise in 1-2-1 training and coaching and executive support.  I also run ‘Tribal Gatherings’ for like-minded NLP professionals.

Mike Jones

I graduated in Computer Science and progressed through a number of senior project and management roles in the utility, rail and consultancy sectors, culminating in Managing Director for Energy Retail with ABB.

I completed a second degree in Psychology and now focus on executive coaching to develop Emotional Intelligence.  I am an accredited 360 degree feedback assessor and EQ assessor.

Richard Allen

My Project Management work over three decades has delivered business change through systems changes, mainly in the London financial sector.  I’m qualified through APM and PRINCE2, and experienced in many waterfall projects, and I’ve also run agile projects as a qualified DSDM PM, and Certified Scrum Master.

I learned my NLP Master Practitioner through multiple well-known trainers, covering Systemic NLP, Time-Line techniques and Accelerated Learning style. I’m a certified Trainer of NLP, and a certified Co-Active Coach.

I’ve found that Project Management thinking fits well with NLP’s well-formed outcomes, logical levels, and time-line shifts, to help decide and follow-through on goals.  While my Co-Active Coaching and Ericksonian language brings an enjoyable seamless way to align your inner conviction and energise your motivation.

My professional coaching has been a mix of personal career coaching, and helping people to face big challenges in their life.

Sandra Parkes

I am an HR professional and trainer specialising in workplace wellness, leadership and performance management and have delivered these functions across Europe, Middle East & Africa for a global blue chip company.

I hold a PGCE in adult education and a Masters in Education specialising in Leadership and Management.   I am a Fellow of the Institute for Learning (FIFL)  and of the RSA, and a professional member of the Insitute of  Leadership & Management.

I am a certified NLP practitioner and have completed and trained a wide range of personal development courses. I am also an accredited workplace wellness consultant and a leadership development facilitator (DDI).

Testimonials and Endorsements

I was introduced to the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming via my involvement with sports coaching. This exposure to NLP illustrated to me what a fantastic tool this could be for the Project Management profession. We generally recognise that our people are our greatest asset and that we operate in a world where relationships are key, however, so called ‘soft skills’ can often be the hardest to master. With NLP our people can learn to be even more effective in their dealings with their teams, clients and key stakeholders. The release of Peter’s book is perfectly timed and fills a large void in the market.

Peter Chana MAPM, MCIOBProgramme DirectorBovis Lend Lease Consulting Chairman, Woodnesbrough FC (Juniors)

Method and process are important in project management, but knowing how to use them is even more so. Most project managers can increase their effectiveness most by developing their soft skills, recognising that finesse can be more effective than brute force. Once developed, they will find that their skills are much more transferable across not only project types, but whole industry sectors. This book showing the application of tools like NLP to develop competences will help you on that journey and will certainly whet your appetite for more. Peter’s lively style is compelling and benefits from his imaginative use of appropriate quotations and personal anecdotes. For me this book throws light on a major component of our journey towards greater professionalism in project management.

Bob Assirati

I found the book very well structured in the way it combined the theory of NLP (at not too intense a level) with practical exercises and examples, and very well written. I thought that a PM who took it seriously and followed the book right through would develop some very good people skills, whether or not they decided to take it any further. The book is about the ‘soft skills’ of Project Management, which are so often ignored; indeed I would strongly recommend it to any Manager who recognises the need to work with and through people.

Sally Smedley, HR Director and executive coach

Projects are delivered by people, success is getting teams of people to work together for a common goal. Project processes, tools and techniques help in delivery, but they are used by people. There are many texts on the process used in project management and they are relatively straightforward to understand and learn, people are more complex. This book on the people side of project management provides structure to help you as a project manager, and the teams around you, deliver successful projects. Peter has made this subject an enjoyable read bought to life with practical illustrations from his own extensive project management career. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to project professionals whether starting out on their career, or those with more experience seeking to constantly improve their performance.

Alistair Godbold

In this book Peter Parkes focuses on an increasingly valued aspect of project management. Soft skills have always underlain excellent project management performance, but the underlying concepts and techniques have not been clearly expressed. Peter has now demonstrated how NLP can help many of us, in a most helpful and engaging way. The benefits of applying, rather than just reading, his approach will become apparent to those concerned with supporting individual projects as to those governing major portfolios of programmes and projects. Knowing the depth of knowledge and experience on which this book is based I have no hesitation in recommending it.

David Shannon Hon Fellow APM

Method and process are important in project management, but knowing how to use them is even more so. Most project managers can increase their effectiveness most by developing their soft skills, recognising that finesse can be more effective than brute force. Once developed, they will find that their skills are much more transferable across not only project types, but whole industry sectors. This book showing the application of tools like NLP to develop competences will help you on that journey and will certainly whet your appetite for more. Peter’s lively style is compelling and benefits from his imaginative use of appropriate quotations and personal anecdotes. For me this book throws light on a major component of our journey towards greater professionalism in project management.

Bob AssiratiDeputy PresidentBCS – The Institute for Information Technology Honorary Fellow, Association for Project Management Major Projects Director, Office of Government Commerce

Efficient and effective transformation projects in the public sector will need to be delivered by astute, mature, experienced project managers with a real sense of self awareness, and awareness of what the customer wants and needs. Enable East has been inspired by Peter’s structured NLP framework to give project managers a practical, common sense, approach to develop their own self awareness and soft skills and tune into key project stakeholders in order to ensure project success.

Sam Brown

Efficient and effective transformation projects in the public sector will need to be delivered by astute, mature, experienced project managers with a real sense of self awareness, and awareness of what the customer wants and needs. Enable East has been inspired by Peter’s structured NLP framework to give project managers a practical, common sense, approach to develop their own self awareness and soft skills and tune into key project stakeholders in order to ensure project success.

Sam BrownDirector of Projects, Enable East (an NHS Trust)

Organisational change is dependent on transformational leadership. Peter has demonstrated underpinning skills in leading, motivating and influencing in his work over many years. We are glad that he has now captured the essence of these and many other skills in his book on application of NLP for professional project managers.

Chris Dunn

Project failures, whether in terms of delivery or benefits realisation, continue to grab the headlines and there is a widely held perception that the project management profession does not learn from its mistakes. Methodologies and processes are clearly part of the answer, but we also need to address the people dimension of project and programme management, and this means looking beyond traditional approaches premised on the rational economic man paradigm of incentives and sanctions. Let’s be clear, there is nothing wrong with such approaches, apart from the fact they don’t work! They may be necessary, but are rarely sufficient – the difference that makes the difference is to apply approaches that engage people in terms that tap into their creativity and desire to contribute to a worthwhile cause. This is where NLP, and this book in particular, is key. Read it, apply it and not only will it make you a more effective project manager, it will also ensure the projects you are engaged in are more successful.

Steve Jenner FAPMAuthor of 'Realising Benefits from Government ICT investment - a fool's errand' and co-author and chief examiner of the OGCs 'Management of Portfolios'. Chairman, Portfolio Management Specific Interest Group, APM (Formerly Director of IT for Criminal Justice)