Interim and embedded delivery leadership, when fractional isn't enough.
Some situations need someone daily, not 8–10 hours a week. Active escalations, a missing Head of Delivery, or a portfolio in recovery — these need hands-on involvement across your projects and your PM team, not a weekly review.
Fractional works at 8–10 hours. Some situations need more.
Active escalations with no clear owner
A client relationship is at risk and nobody with the authority to fix it is in the picture day-to-day. This needs someone inside the situation, not reviewing it from the outside once a week.
No Head of Delivery in seat
Your delivery lead left, was let go, or was never hired. Projects are running without senior oversight. Hiring takes three to six months. The gap is now.
Portfolio in recovery after a difficult quarter
Multiple projects went sideways around the same time and you need someone to work through them systematically — triage, stabilization, and a cleaner process on the other side.
Delivery complexity outgrew the current setup
The company grew fast. The PM team didn't get senior delivery leadership to match. What worked at 40 people doesn't hold at 150 — and the gaps are showing in client relationships and margin.
Same role, different depth of involvement.
Fractional (8–10 hrs/week)
- — Weekly project health reviews
- — Risk log ownership and PM check-ins
- — Scope and budget watch across active projects
- — Monthly leadership summary
- — Best for stable-but-improving delivery setups
Embedded (2–5 days/week)
- Daily visibility into delivery across projects
- Active escalation management, not just monitoring
- Interim Head of Delivery function
- Project recovery and client relationship repair
- Best for active gaps, escalations, or interim cover
Seven areas of work in an embedded engagement.
Delivery reviews
Regular review of all active projects — health, timeline confidence, budget pressure, and risk exposure. Consistent format so leadership can compare across the portfolio.
PM support
Working directly with your PMs on reporting consistency, escalation timing, and risk ownership. Not a performance review — a working relationship.
Escalation management
Handling active escalations from clients or within the delivery team. Structuring responses, managing client communication, and making sure the right people are involved at the right time.
Client communication improvement
Reviewing what clients are being told on high-risk projects and fixing gaps before they become problems. Helping PMs communicate proactively instead of reactively.
Project recovery
Triage and stabilization of projects that have gone off-track. Scope reset, re-baselining, and a realistic recovery plan — not an optimistic one.
Reporting cadence
Setting up or fixing the reporting rhythm that leadership actually needs — without creating PM overhead that burns time without producing clarity.
Presales-to-delivery handoff review
Looking at how projects transfer from sales to delivery. Identifying where estimates and delivery reality diverge early — and tightening the handoff discipline that causes surprises at kickoff.
Three ways to structure this, depending on what you need.
2–3 days per week
Ongoing embedded involvement without filling a full-time seat. The right option when the situation needs daily presence but a full-time hire isn't warranted yet — or while you're still figuring out whether it is.
Interim Head of Delivery (3–6 months)
Full interim cover while you recruit. I step into the Head of Delivery function — running delivery reviews, owning the risk process, covering leadership reporting, and managing the PM team — until your permanent hire is in place.
Contract Delivery Lead on a specific project
One high-stakes project that needs senior delivery oversight. Scoped per engagement — covering kickoff, delivery management, risk ownership, and client communication through to completion or stabilization.
A few things to rule out before we talk.
Not PM recruitment or team building.
I work with the PM team you have. If the problem is that you need to hire PMs, that's a different engagement.
Not an Agile transformation.
No methodology rollout, no certification program. I work inside your existing process and fix what's breaking.
Not a one-off audit.
If you want a report and a set of recommendations with no follow-through, the fractional engagement or the diagnostic
is the right starting point — not this.
Not ongoing if the situation doesn't warrant it.
Most embedded engagements have a natural endpoint — a project closes, a hire lands, a portfolio stabilizes.
I'll tell you when the situation has changed enough that fractional makes more sense.
Every embedded engagement starts with a conversation about the actual situation.
No fixed price until we've talked through scope. Tell me what's happening — the project load, the gaps, the timeline pressure. I'll give you a direct read on whether this is the right fit and what the engagement would look like.