Demand Overload in Westbrook's Nine-Person P3O

The P3O is operating as an order-taker, not as a managed service. That single diagnosis explains most of the symptoms.

• No demand management. Ad-hoc work is 45% of capacity and arrives through multiple informal channels. Without an intake point there is no visibility of demand, no ability to batch or defer it, and no way to protect mandatory services.
• No effective service catalogue. Twelve services are listed, but they are not differentiated into mandatory, value-added and discretionary, and they have no service levels, owners or costs. A catalogue that does not govern what is accepted is a brochure.
• No capacity model. The consequence is a single role at 130% utilisation. That is both a delivery risk and a single point of failure, and it explains the late reports and the absences. Turnover at 25% is the downstream cost.
• No prioritisation or escalation. The P3O head has no criteria and no cover to say no, so the loudest request wins. Mandatory monthly reporting is being crowded out by discretionary board packs - the P3O is failing its core service to serve its loudest customer.
• No chargeback or notional costing. Discretionary demand appears free to the requester, so there is no incentive to self-moderate.
• No performance management or brokerage. Contractors hired to duplicate planning indicate that customers do not see the P3O as a reliable source of that capability. The P3O is not brokering scarce resource across programmes either.

The structural issue sits above the team: without a sponsor-backed mandate and a portfolio board, the P3O head cannot set priorities and is left to absorb pressure personally.

Service catalogue first. Split the 12 services into three tiers: core mandatory services funded centrally (portfolio reporting, assurance, standards, risk and issue, benefits, resource visibility); value-added services (planning support, workshops, analytics); and discretionary services (bespoke board packs, one-off extracts). Each service needs a description, owner, service level and cost.

Single intake. One request channel with a standard form: what is needed, why, by when, for whom, and what decision it supports. Triage weekly by the P3O head against published criteria: regulatory or mandatory status, strategic alignment, risk reduction, effort, and whether another source exists. Requests above a defined effort threshold go to the portfolio board.

Capacity model. Build bottom-up capacity by role and skill. Plan for 80–85% utilisation, with a 10–15% reserve for unplanned demand and contingency. Cross-train at least two people on reporting to remove the single point of failure, and name deputies for critical services. Forecast known peaks such as board cycles and regulatory deadlines.

Prioritisation and escalation. Publish the scoring and the decisions so that refusal is transparent and consistent. When demand exceeds capacity, present options rather than a refusal: defer, reduce scope, contract externally, or displace a named service with the consequence stated.

Charging. Introduce notional costing immediately and recharge for discretionary services once data is reliable. Charging is a demand-management tool, not a revenue objective; it makes the cost of ad-hoc work visible to the requester.

Measures: on-time reporting, service-level attainment, percentage of planned versus unplanned work, utilisation, turnover, and customer satisfaction. Review monthly.

Do not refuse and do not simply comply. Make the trade-off explicit and route it through governance.

First, quantify: 0.8 FTE for three months is a large share of a nine-person team already carrying 45% unplanned work. Identify exactly which core service will slip if the request is accepted - most likely monthly portfolio reporting or assurance coverage - and state the consequence in business terms.

Second, offer options rather than a binary answer: defer a lower-priority discretionary service, reduce the scope of the regulatory request to what is genuinely mandatory, contract temporary capability, or reprioritise through the portfolio board. Give the COO a choice with costs attached.

Third, escalate through the agreed route: the P3O sponsor and portfolio board, not a direct bilateral with the COO. The P3O head's authority comes from the mandate, and bypassing governance to please one executive undermines it permanently. Bring the capacity data to the board so the decision is made on evidence.

Fourth, if the COO still insists, accept only with a documented risk acceptance: the displaced service, the owner of that risk and the review date. Protect the core reporting service as far as possible and use the reserve capacity deliberately rather than silently.

Finally, fix the systemic cause: embed the intake and prioritisation rules in the P3O terms of reference and service catalogue, so the next request is handled by process rather than by escalation. The P3O head's credibility depends on being predictable, not on being endlessly accommodating.