Program & delivery consulting · St. Louis
Delivery leadership for programs that have stopped moving.
We step into stalled, over-committed, or newly critical programs — and get them to a date the business can actually plan around. Then we leave the team able to hold it without us.
What we do
Five ways in. Most engagements start with the assessment and turn into one of the others once we all know what we're looking at.
Program recovery
A program is red, slipping, or quietly un-plannable. We find the real constraint, rebuild the plan around it, and drive it back to a defensible date.
Detail 02Interim delivery leadership
Embedded program or delivery director while you hire, reorganise, or carry a peak. Accountable for the outcome, not just the reporting.
Detail 03Delivery assessment
Three weeks, fixed fee. An evidence-based read on whether the plan is real, what will break it, and what to do in the next 90 days.
Detail 04PMO & operating model
Stand up — or repair — the delivery function: intake, planning cadence, roles, and governance that makes decisions instead of collecting slides.
DetailWhen people call us
Rarely at the start. Usually at the point where the status report and the hallway conversation stopped agreeing with each other.
The date has moved twice and nobody can explain, in one page, what would make the third date different.
Status is green at every level below the one where it's obviously red.
A systems integrator or vendor is running the plan, and you've lost the ability to challenge it.
Delivery leadership left, and the program is being held together by three people who can't take vacation.
Everything is in flight, nothing is finishing, and the portfolio has no room to absorb anything new.
A board, regulator, or acquirer is about to ask a question you don't have an evidenced answer for.
How an engagement runs
Four phases. The first two are usually a matter of weeks — the point is to stop arguing about opinions and start arguing about facts as fast as possible.
Ground truth
Weeks 1–3
Interviews, artefacts, backlog, financials, and the actual delivery record. We establish what is actually done versus reported done, and where the critical path really sits.
One plan, one owner
Weeks 3–6
A single re-baselined plan decomposed into increments small enough to finish, each with a named owner and a demonstrable outcome. Dependencies, assumptions, and the top risks are on the same page — literally.
Run it
Ongoing
We hold the cadence: weekly delivery review that decides rather than reports, escalation that resolves inside 48 hours, and a burn-up the sponsor can read without a translator.
Hand back
Final 4–6 weeks
The engagement is designed to end. We name a successor early, run the cadence with them in the chair, and leave the artefacts, not a dependency on us.
A small practice, on purpose
Gateway Delivery Partners is a senior-only practice based in St. Louis. The person you meet in the first conversation is the person doing the work — there is no bench, no pyramid, and no junior team learning your business on your budget.
That constrains how much we take on at once, which is the point. We would rather run two programs properly than six at arm's length.
Next step
Tell us what's slipping.
A first conversation is 30 minutes and costs nothing. If we're not the right answer, we'll say so and point you at what is.