Category: methodologies

IT Project Management (PM) toolkits provide over 200 tailored templates spanning Agile, Waterfall, & PRINCE2 methodologies

The IT Project Management (PM) toolkits created by Mark Whitfield provide over 200 tailored templates spanning Agile, Waterfall, and PRINCE2 methodologies. These artifacts are designed to structure, track, and report on software delivery lifecycles (SDLC).

The framework’s core templates are categorized below by operational delivery area, specific template artifact, and native file format:

📅 Schedule, Planning & Timelines

Focuses on structural design, building work breakdown structures (WBS), and visualizing milestones for senior stakeholders.

  • Detailed SDLC / PRINCE2 Project Plan: Microsoft Project (.mpp), Excel (.xlsx)
  • Agile Scrum Sprint Planner & Delivery Plan: Microsoft Project (.mpp), Excel (.xlsx)
  • Plan on a Page (POaP) Milestone Visualizer: PowerPoint (.pptx)—over 35 custom variations
  • Gantt Chart Trackers: Excel (.xlsx)

🔍 Risk, Issue & Change Control (RAID)

Manages constraints, operational hazards, dependencies, and baseline deviations.

  • Simple RAID Log (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies): Excel (.xlsx)
  • Comprehensive Tracking Register (Includes RAIDs, Suppliers, Deliverables, and Out-of-Scope tasks): Excel (.xlsx)
  • Change Request Tracker: Excel (.xlsx)

📊 Governance, Tracking & Status Reporting

Facilitates communication across team tiers and summarizes health indicators for client or internal reviews.

  • Weekly & Monthly Project Status Reports: PowerPoint (.pptx), Word (.docx)
  • RACI Matrix (Roles & Responsibilities Tracker): Excel (.xlsx)
  • Agile Burndown and Burnup Charts: Excel (.xlsx)
  • Meeting Minutes and Action Item Logs: Word (.docx)

💰 Finance, Resources & Benefits

Tracks financial trajectories, internal/external staffing allocation, and post-launch outcomes.

  • Full Project Financial Tracker (Forecasts, Actuals, Variances, Margins, and Expenses): Excel (.xlsx)
  • Simple Monthly Budget Forecast: Excel (.xlsx)
  • Resource Cost & Annual Leave Tracker: Excel (.xlsx)
  • Benefits Realisation Analysis Tracker: Excel (.xlsx)

🏗️ Initiation, Structure & Walkthroughs

Establishes the foundation of the delivery framework and walks team members through how to execute templates.

  • Project Kick-Off Presentation Deck: PowerPoint (.pptx)
  • Project Organisation Charts: PowerPoint (.pptx)
  • Template Walkthrough Documentation Guides: Word (.docx)

Agile Waterfall Scrum Kanban Lean XP for BA & PO

Agile Waterfall Scrum Kanban Lean XP for BA & PO
Agile Waterfall Scrum Kanban Lean XP for BA & PO

What Does a Business Analyst Do in Sprint Planning?

What Does a Business Analyst Do in Agile Sprint Planning?
What Does a BA Do in Sprint Planning?

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.

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.

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

Mark Whitfield @ Capgemini – Timeline of technical focus areas

As a client-facing, SC-cleared Engagement Manager and Senior Project Manager for Capgemini UK (2016–Present), Mark Whitfield’s focus areas and project outputs fall into Phase 5 (Enterprise Cloud, Integration & Public Sector Delivery) of his overall professional trajectory.

His tenure at Capgemini UK is marked by managing complex hybrid migrations, enterprise system integrations, and multi-million-pound public and private sector contracts using hybrid Agile and PRINCE2 methodologies.

🌐 Era 1: Public Sector & Cloud Migration (2019–Present)

This era aligns with the UK government’s “Digital by Default” mandate and a nationwide public sector transition toward highly secure, cost-optimized, and green cloud platforms.

  • Focus Areas:
    • Enterprise hybrid cloud infrastructure infrastructure design.
    • Re-hosting, re-platforming, and refactoring legacy software architectures.
    • Cross-functional alignment with rigid government data privacy guidelines (GDPR).
    • Coordinating large-scale onshore and offshore engineering delivery resources.
  • Project Outputs:
    • Directed a massive £13.5 million programme to migrate over 130 public sector legacy applications onto Microsoft Azure and AWS platforms.
    • Delivered a Proof of Concept (POC) indicator project worth £375k ahead of the wider national public infrastructure cloud framework rollout.

🔌 Era 2: MuleSoft Ecosystem & Enterprise API Integration (2018–2019)

During this phase, Whitfield was augmented as a Delivery Manager into MuleSoft (a Salesforce company) operating out of the London Salesforce Tower.

  • Focus Areas:
    • API-led connectivity frameworks and microservices architecture deployment.
    • Hyper-automation and multi-site enterprise system integrations.
    • API lifecycle design and Anypoint Code Builder configurations.
    • Guiding high-influence blue-chip clients through API connectivity governance.
  • Project Outputs:
    • Successful deployment of production-ready APIs to unlock siloed, legacy back-end system data.
    • Delivered complex data pipelines to support modernized, interconnected digital applications for tier-one global brands.

🛫 Era 3: Major Corporate Infrastructure & Sector Delivery (2016–2018)

Upon joining Capgemini in January 2016, Whitfield initially spearheaded highly secure, custom bespoke solutions across critical commercial and defensive sectors.

  • Focus Areas:
    • High-security, multi-site project tracking, financial forecasting, and stakeholder governance.
    • Automated manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and logistics supply chain data tracking.
    • Complex Agile SCRUM sprint ceremonies with heavy cross-team interdependencies.
  • Project Outputs:
    • Aerospace & Defence (NATS): Oversaw the secure delivery of custom Apple iOS apps providing real-time, public-facing, and military airspace data.
    • Postal Services (Royal Mail Group): Managed an award-winning £4.3 million project utilizing 90 Capgemini engineers to safely migrate over 1,100 system interfaces across dual data centers.
    • Automotive Integration (Jaguar Land Rover): Directed extensive enterprise architecture planning, pipeline resource mapping, and Scrum team management for a major supply chain initiative.