Category: Career

Download Free Upgrade Project Management Templates

The full toolkit of Mark Whitfield’s Project Management (PM) templates is structured below according to structural focus areas, overview of utility, and native file formats. Free upgrades and additions after purchase.

📅 Project Planning & Roadmapping

  • Focus: Schedule design and milestone visualization for SDLC, PRINCE2, and Agile.
  • Overview: Builds work breakdown structures (WBS), tracks timelines, and presents milestones to stakeholders.
  • Format: Microsoft Project (.mpp), Excel (.xlsx), and PowerPoint (.pptx).
  • Included: Detailed plans, Excel Gantt trackers, over 35 Plan on a Page (POaP) slides, and spreadsheet-based timelines.

⚠️ Risk, Governance & Operational Control

  • Focus: Threat tracking, dependency mitigation, and accountability.
  • Overview: Ensures structural control and compliance, managing risks, issues, and resource ownership.
  • Format: Excel (.xlsx) and Word (.docx).
  • Included: Comprehensive RAIDs log, RACI tracker, stakeholder analysis map, and meeting minutes templates.

💰 Financial Management & Tracking

  • Focus: Cost control, margin maintenance, and expenditure reporting.
  • Overview: Tracks internal/external resources, supplier fees, and expenses with visualized budget usage.
  • Format: Excel (.xlsx) with pivot tables and charts.
  • Included: Project financial tracker, FAV basic tracking template, and client-facing external cost tracker.

🏃 Agile Delivery & Metric Performance

  • Focus: Iterative delivery, velocity tracking, and roadblock visibility.
  • Overview: Used for manual tracking of sprint metrics and third-party dependencies when native tools are unavailable.
  • Format: Excel (.xlsx).
  • Included: Burn down/up charts, and agile story dependency trackers.

📢 Communications & Project Status Reporting

  • Focus: Executive updates and onboarding consistency.
  • Overview: Standardizes project reporting, status updates, and organization charts.
  • Format: PowerPoint (.pptx) and Word (.docx).
  • Included: Project status reports, kick-off decks, organizational charts, and benefits realization plans.

What Project Management Really is…

What Project Management Really is...
What Project Management Really is…

Useful Career links

Recent Experience:

Recent Experience
Recent Experience

All Projects Chronologically:

Mark Whitfield – Senior Project Manager – Projects Chronologically
Projects Chronologically

Engineering Background:

Engineering Background
Engineering Background

Certificates:

Certificates
Certificates

Recommendations:

Recommendations
Recommendations

All Capgemini Projects:

Projects managed since joining Capgemini in early 2016

MuleSoft Augmentation:

MuleSoft : 2018 – 2019

Awards & Highlights:

Awards & Highlights

Training Summary:

Training Summary by focus area

Acceptance Criteria for an Agile User Story

Acceptance Criteria for an Agile User Story
Acceptance Criteria for
an Agile User Story

Acceptance criteria are a set of predefined conditions that define the exact boundaries of a user story. They dictate what must be built for the story to be considered complete and ready for release.

Effective acceptance criteria serve to align the vision of the client and the development team, ensuring everyone knows exactly what behavior the feature must demonstrate. A good set of criteria must be:

  • Verifiable & Testable: Each criterion should yield a binary (pass/fail) result, often allowing for automated or manual testing.
  • Concise & Unambiguous: Written in plain language that avoids subjective terms like “fast” or “user-friendly” in favor of quantifiable metrics.
  • User-Centric: Focus on the outcome delivered to the user rather than the internal technical process to get there.

Common Formats

Criteria are typically documented using standard Agile formats:

  1. Given-When-Then (BDD Format): A structured approach often used for functional scenarios.
    • Given some precondition.
    • When an action occurs.
    • Then the expected outcome happens.
  2. Rule-Oriented List: A simple checklist of constraints, rules, or system reactions.
  3. “It’s done when…”: A declarative list of the specific conditions met once functionality is delivered.

Best Practices

  • Keep it to 3–5 items: If a user story requires more than 8 criteria, it is often too complex and should be split into smaller, more manageable stories.
  • Define positive and negative paths: Ensure criteria cover both successful scenarios and edge cases (e.g., what happens when a user enters invalid data).
  • Include Non-Functional Requirements: Account for aspects like security, accessibility, and performance.

Augmented into MuleSoft as a Delivery Manager 2018 – 2019

During his tenure as a client-facing Engagement Manager for Capgemini UK, Senior IT Project Manager Mark Whitfield was augmented directly into MuleSoft (a Salesforce company) as a Delivery Manager from October 2018 to June 2019.

Operating out of MuleSoft’s London headquarters in the Salesforce Tower, his role mirrored that of a Programme Manager. He aligned client project plans with MuleSoft’s structured delivery frameworks to establish self-sufficient integration capabilities.

MuleSoft's London office is located within the Salesforce Tower (formerly known as Heron Tower) at 110 Bishopsgate.
MuleSoft’s London office is located within the Salesforce Tower at 110 Bishopsgate

The focus areas of his augmentation, the Outcome Based Delivery (OBD) / Centre for Enablement (C4E) framework, and the enterprise clients he managed are detailed below.

📋 Overview of MuleSoft Delivery Manager Augmentation

  • Role Alignment: Linked directly with client-side Project/Programme Managers to align execution timelines with MuleSoft’s implementation standards.
  • Resource Tracking: Monitored MuleSoft partner and consultant efforts, project costs, and timelines against statements of work (SOW).
  • Risk Management: Owned and tracked client-side OBD risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies via specialized OBD RAIDs logs.
  • Agile Integration: Facilitated the prioritization and assignment of integration tasks into Agile Sprints or structured Waterfall milestones.

🏛️ C4E & OBD Focus Areas

MuleSoft’s Outcome Based Delivery (OBD) framework is built across three primary streams—Business Outcomes, Technology Delivery, and Organisational Enablement—specifically engineered to build a functional client-side Centre for Enablement (C4E).

Whitfield’s delivery focus focused heavily on Organisational Enablement:

  1. Operating Model Setup: Establishing the foundational C4E operating model and internal technical support structures.
  2. Asset Architecture: Guiding teams to build, govern, and publish reusable foundational assets and APIs on the Anypoint Platform.
  3. Capability Assessment: Assessing the client’s existing software integration maturities to benchmark project targets.
  4. Staffing & Training: Creating comprehensive training, onboarding, and experiential learning pathways to upskill client IT and business personnel.
  5. C4E Evangelisation: Promoting self-serve materials and governance guidance across the broader enterprise to eliminate reliance on external MuleSoft SMEs.

🏢 MuleSoft Ecosystem & Enterprise Clients Managed

As part of his broader Capgemini UK Consultancy footprint and his direct MuleSoft delivery assignment, Whitfield spearheaded cross-functional integration deployments for multiple blue-chip, public sector, and utility accounts across the UK:

  • MuleSoft Accounts: Managed complex software delivery accounts spanning the UK Utility, Accounting, and Recruitment industries during his direct augmentation.
  • Automotive Integration: Directed the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) iFAB Middleware Project, coordinating multi-vendor supply chain data pipelines.
  • Aviation & Logistics: Managed enterprise architecture environments for major infrastructure clients including Heathrow Airport, Royal Mail Group (RMG), and NATS (National Air Traffic Services).
  • Public Sector & Utilities: Guided digital transformation frameworks for UK Government Agencies, UK Export Finance (UKEF), and water utilities like Welsh Water.
  • Financial Services: Handled integration and core enterprise ecosystems for banking giants such as Barclays, Rabobank, and Lloyds Banking Group (LBG).

Project Plan vs Project Management Plan

Project Plan vs Project Management Plan
Project Plan versus Project Management Plan

Capgemini Advanced EM Course – November 2017 Class

Course:     Advanced Engagement Management – EM Certification Level 2
(Capgemini – UK)

Capgemini Advanced Engagement Manager Level 2 Exam
Capgemini Advanced
Engagement Manager Level 2 Exam

Key responsibilities for the Engagement Manager (EM) include:

• Deliver against the contract.
• Overall responsibility for project success, achieving project targets e.g. margin (as defined in the Internal View) and delivering to agreed timescales.
• Management of the project through its complete lifecycle and multiple aspects, as described in the UPM phases and streams.
• Author and owner of the Project Governance Plan (PGP) and responsible for compliance to its contents.
• Clear and concise status and project reporting, both internal and external, as defined in the PGP.
• Management of the monthly financial reporting process.
• Work together with the Offshore Project Manager in order to realize the common project targets.
• Management and motivation of the project team, including setting of objectives for direct reports and timely completion of their assignment reviews.
• Communications to stakeholders and teams about all relevant aspects of the project, in line with contract, project baseline, project status and client feedback.
• Ensure compliance with UPM (Group or regional version) and any local quality management system.
• Ensure the group mandated tools are utilised.
• Meet or exceed client expectations (using client satisfaction process).
• Identify and follow-up on opportunities for additional business.
• Achieve the Capgemini EM certification level appropriate to level of experience.


The EM should deliver the project against contracts, meet (or exceed) client expectations, achieve project targets, identify and work on opportunities for additional business, and should ensure that these fundamentals are followed on the project.

Usually the EM will report to the Delivery Manager or a Programme Manager if the project is part of a larger programme.

Campus – Serge Kampf Les Fontaines, Chantilly, France – Advanced EM Course – November 2017 Class – 2nd from left
Campus – Serge Kampf Les Fontaines, Chantilly, France – Advanced EM Course – November 2017 Class – 2nd from left
Campus Serge Kampf Les Fontaines, in Gouvieux-Chantilly near Paris
Campus Serge Kampf Les Fontaines, in Gouvieux-Chantilly near Paris
C&CA UK's Communications & Engagement Award Winner 2022 - Cloud & Custom Applications - Capgemini UK
C&CA UK’s Communications & Engagement Award Winner 2022 –
Cloud & Custom Applications – Capgemini UK

Academic background and Formal training

Mark Whitfield, a senior, SC-cleared IT Project Manager based in Manchester, UK, holds a robust foundational education in computer studies combined with extensive professional methodologies and technical certifications.

Spanning over three decades, his academic background and formal training bridge deep technical software engineering with enterprise-level project delivery.

The comprehensive breakdown of his higher education and professional training is structured below:

🎓 Higher Education & Academic Foundations

Mark Whitfield established his technical roots between 1988 and 1990 at the Bolton Institute of Higher Education (BIHE) (now the University of Bolton). He achieved a Distinction and was ranked first in his cohort for the BTEC Higher National Diploma (HND) in Computer Studies, completing modules in system analysis, programming methodology, data processing, and business information systems.

💼 Professional Delivery & Methodology Training

As an enterprise delivery lead, Whitfield is certified in key frameworks to manage hybrid cloud migrations and digital transformations.

  • PRINCE2 Practitioner: Certified for structured project governance, stage-gate management, and risk frameworks.
  • Agile SCRUM: Trained in managing Scrum ceremonies, sprints, and velocity tracking.
  • ITIL Framework: Certified in IT Service Management (ITSM) for aligning IT with business needs.
  • Capgemini Engagement Management: Completed the advanced program at the Capgemini Campus (Chantilly, France) for managing stakeholder relationships and project finances.

🛠️ Technical & Software Engineering Training

His background includes early-career training in low-level programming and infrastructure management including:

  • HPE NonStop (Tandem Mainframes): Specialized in TAL (Transaction Application Language) programming for high-volume banking systems.
  • Microsoft Technology Stack: Trained in ASP.NET development, SQL Server/T-SQL, and project scheduling tools.
  • Cybersecurity & Infrastructure: Trained in Thales e-SECURITY, cryptographic systems, and C/C++ development.

🛠️ Project Management Toolkit Author

Leveraging this background, he authors PROject Templates, offering over 200 editable resources covering Agile, Waterfall, and PRINCE2 7th Edition methodologies.