Team Insight – Doug Whyley, Managing Consultant

Doug Whyley, Managing Consultant

Doug Whyley
Managing Consultant

A week in the life of a Managing Consultant

I joined the Transformation Unit in 2018 and have been here 4 years. My career to date has been exclusively in public sector consulting, having started with a private consultancy specialising in healthcare productivity and then consulting in a programme delivery capacity for a large third sector organisation.

Since joining the TU I have led on a wide range of projects and programmes including setting up a new model of care for secure mental health in South Yorkshire, development of a Rapid Diagnostic Centre in Greater Manchester for patients with non-specific cancer symptoms, and the design of a new hospital in North Manchester.

Alongside programme delivery I also have internal responsibilities within the TU’s Quality and Performance portfolio, home line management of five colleagues, and I support recruitment of our graduate cohorts. For Quality & Performance we focus on ensuring consistent delivery of high-quality work for our clients, alongside effective contract management.  I therefore lead on our operational management system that retains and provides insight on all our contracts and overall financial position.

I should also add that I have captained our TU rounders team for the last 4 years, go Tigers!

A typical week for Doug

 Monday

• Liaise with programme director to prepare for a programme steering group meeting later this afternoon, and ensure stakeholders have all the necessary papers and information
• Attend weekly TU Monday Check-in with colleagues to hear about their weekends and their work plans for the week. We also sang Happy Birthday to a colleague (on Teams which is as awful as it sounds)
• Meeting with a project clinical lead about reconfiguration of consultant job plans to address temporary service requirements
• 1:1 with one of my direct reports to discuss her project pressures, health and wellbeing and internal roles in line with her personal objectives.

Tuesday

• I’m in the office today, opportunity for a change of environment and to see colleagues and hear about what they are working on
• Follow up on actions following the previous day’s steering group meeting including preparing for an options appraisal
• Attend the bi-weekly TU Business Development Huddle to understand what new opportunities we have in our pipeline and our performance against our business development targets.
• Had lunch with colleagues in the office kitchen, promptly at 12.30 every time! A sandwich from the local deli did the trick.
• Attend issues/escalation meeting for a clinical information system implementation project and update on progress against actions
• Meet with a colleague to prepare for a project mobilisation meeting the following day

Wednesday

• Attended our Quality and Performance weekly team meeting to review progress and actions. I updated that the knowledge repository (a library for our client deliverables) that I have supported my colleague with is now refreshed and live. We agreed to update colleagues on the internal Friday check-in.
• Attended our Home Line Managers Meeting where all home line managers were asked to encourage the team to complete the NHS Staff Survey. We also provided feedback on a well-received baby-loss awareness seminar we recently held.
• Attended a client Project Management Office meeting to provide an update on progress and to share some recent outputs.
• Meeting with a Director of Surgery to discuss delivery options for a new service.

 Thursday

• Meeting with client about a clinical service strategy and next steps. We agreed attendance for an extraordinary progress meeting and agenda required.
• Meeting with client about clinical information system implementation project to follow up on reports of clinicians having issues with the new system and cancelling patient appointments. Agreed action plan to resolve.
• Stakeholder meeting regarding future options for a gastroenterology service. Feedback to be shared via the next steering group meeting next week.
• Meeting with client programme director to review progress and any issues from the week.
• Catch-up with my colleague to review progress on a number of projects and agree actions for coming week

Friday

• In the office again today and attended our weekly Friday check-in. Each week we hear an update from our directors on each of our five portfolios. We then hear from the whole team about how their week has been and what the weekend has in store them. A great chance to reflect on the highs and lows of the week.
• Finalised a paper setting out an options appraisal to be sent out in advance of a steering group meeting next week and met with the client Programme Director to prepare for that meeting
• Delivered an internal learning and development session for our recent graduate cohort around practical problem-solving techniques. The group presented a task that had been set for them during a previous session and we continued the learning.
• Took time to reflect on a varied but fast-paced week and to plan for the following week.

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