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Skills and Sectors

We draw on wide experience in very different sectors and industries but there are many issues that are similar whatever and wherever the organisation is.

Specialisations

• Strategy Development and Implementation 
• Project and Programme Management 
• Change Management 
• Risk management 
• Identifying and maintaining business benefits 
• Business analysis and process improvement 

If you are looking for something and cannot see it  Please ask.

Presentations and Publications, including

Project representation and workshops for the client
Presentations and workshops on

• Change Management
• Business Case Development
• Process management
• Project Management
• Project Success

Our Objectives

Barry Tuckwood Associates provides independent management consultancy, focussing on project management. Our objective is to provide clients with advice and support in ensuring that their projects meet their business requirements. This means that not only must they run on time and to budget but that they must also meet their strategic goals.

Our objectives therefore extend from helping clients make strategic choices about which projects in which to invest, to practical choices about how their projects are managed. Our ultimate objective is to make best practice project management a natural part of the way that the client runs projects, to help them become expert in project management. Key to this are Control, Communication, Planning, and Risk Management.

How we achieve it  

Working alone or with Associates we put forward a proposal to the client, including attending briefings and presentation meetings where necessary. The nature of project management roles results in company-wide involvement, leading to an understanding of the issues across a broad spectrum of business functions. This breadth leads to the ability to understand quickly a client’s business needs. Analysis leads to a focus on the exception items, those areas where the problems are most serious, the risks highest, and the need for rapid resolution is greatest.

We seek to adopt a uniquely practical and team orientated approach, working alongside client staff helping them in the process of project management, coaching them. Where agreed, we take on the role of project manager through the various stages from an agreed project brief to project completion, and transferring skills to client staff.

Barry Tuckwood, Managing Consultant

With wide experience of industry gained through over 15 years of management consultancy backed up by over 16 years of engineering management, his experience includes Organisational and Strategic Reviews, Project Management, Project Audits, Marketing Management, Procurement, Relocation, and Training.

Since 1994 Barry has also been a Tutor for the University of Durham Business School, working with Distance Learning MBA students on Strategic Management, Project Management, Management Decision Making and other courses. He has also worked with students on about 100 dissertations which range from customer relationship management, e-commerce, and reintroducing pharmaceutical products to safety, health and the environment, and waste management.

He has been a visiting lecturer at Greenwich University, and was Chief Examiner on the Examinations Panel for the British Computer Society's Consultancy Practice qualification through the Information Systems Examinations Board.

As well as engineering degrees he holds an MBA from Strathclyde Business School. He is a Chartered Engineer and is a Certified Management Consultant.

He has been published by Ambassador, the magazine for The Association of MBAs, and Effective Consulting, as well as London Connects and eGov Monitor, with a series of 14 articles on Change Management.

A member of the Richmond Group, www.rgconsult.com, a consortium of independent consultants, Barry was elected to Council in 2002 and was Chair from May 2012- August 2014.

He is the founder and chairman of the Independent Consultants Group, firstmonday, which began as a special interests group of the Association of MBAs in 1993. He received The Chairman’s Award for his Outstanding Contribution to the Association in November 2001.

Through these relationships he has access to a wide range of consultants to assist you.

Please contact us to arrange a discussion without obligation.

Clients

Directly or through associate relationships, Barry Tuckwood Associates have worked with

• Anglian Water  
• Association of MBAs
• The Borders Agency
• British Computer Society (BCS) and Information Systems Examining Board
• Communities and Local Government (formerly Office of the Deputy Prime Minister)
• Durham University Business School
• Greenwich University
• The Home Office
• Local Authorities
• London Connects
• Oval Projects (Publishers of the Bluffers Guides)
• Pfizer
• Swale Borough Council
• Sound Environments
• Specialist Hardware and Software supplier
• Strathclyde Graduate Business School
• Port Authorities
• The Royal Mail
• Valuation Office Agency

Skills

These assignments included:

• Business Analysis
• Business Continuity
• Change Management
• Data management
• Education and Training
• Marketing
• Negotiation
• Planning
• Process Mapping
• Procurement
• Public Relations
• Presentations and Public Speaking
• Security Programme
• Strategy development
• Workshops

Some examples

As with sheds and garages, full of material which might one day be useful, experience has brought some unexpected extras to client assignments.

Data management

There can be no doubt that data, the basis of everything we do, is vitally important. The core issue of data management applied in particular to the property data programme, Valuebill, which we rolled out nationally. We were looking at 24 million properties and their detailed address data - nothing personal, only all the information necessary for accurate location and identification. The essence of it is useful in other spheres:

• Workshops for GP Practice Managers on the data that they need to be able to use and share, including
  • Patient information
  • Practice management
• Building Information Management (BIM)
  • The general theme for this - but not under the same name - was in a paper I presented in 1989 at an international conference.
  • While there is no clear causal relationship, it is being encouraged by central government now, twenty years later
  • In 2012 I joined the Institution of Civil Engieers' Information Systems Panel and subsequently the BIM Action Group
• Data Strategy and Security
• Customer Relationship Management - or more widely Stakeholder Relationship Management

Many of the issues involved are generic and are not industry dependent.

The main learning point is that when we are faced with problems we should look widely for solutions.

Surface coatings

More than 'just paint', the selection of the right surface coating affects long term: maintenance, repair and replacement all had to be practical.

The many roles I have enjoyed began in construction where the requirement to consider coatings was part of all design and specification associated in particular with structural steelwork, distribution pipework for oil, water and gas, and containers for materials including water, oil, and other commodities. In conjunction in particular with expertise provided by the Arabian American Oil Company’s Corrosion Control department, we considered the complex requirements to ensure satisfactory delivery and construction from global sources to locations in Saudi Arabia. Coatings and related options included galvanising, intumescent paints, baked phenolic lining, and a variety of plastic-based finishes, as well as cathodic and anodic protection.

As a practical example I once had to arrange for the repair of a newly delivered water filter vessel, in the form of an inverted cone above which was a cylinder. The vessel was supported on three legs. On arrival it was apparent that somewhere on its journey it had been dropped causing the inside of the vessel to be sufficiently damaged to have ruined the existing internal coating locally. Sending it back was not an option.

The cone's end was just big enough for access enabling repair of the internal coating.

This brings us to the options offered for another vessel for a similar use. 'Baked phenolic lining' was described as being 'like glass', so dropping the vessel in transit would have been likely to cause serious damage to it, and, unlike the earler vessel, repair would not have been possible on site. Drawing on earlier experience we declined baked phenolic lining. Here our decision had to take into account the risks prior to and during installation as well as during operation and maintenance. But without the earlier experience of what could go wrong, we might easily have made the wrong and costly decision. 

Risk Management

All organisations encounter risks and should have risk managment arrangements in place. We can argue that the example above was an example of risk management - risk was always a consideration although in 1983 we did not have formal risk logs. We have introduced risk management processes and risk logs successfully at project and corporate levels, and advocate the creation of risk and issue logs for all projects. If you need to create or review your own approach to risk management please contact me through the link below.