Ashforte builds project controls and PMO capability designed for contractor-side commercial defensibility — not just project management aesthetics. Reporting frameworks that inform decisions. Cost-schedule integration that supports claims. Document control that survives audit. Risk and action tracking that closes out.
Project controls exist for two reasons: to inform decisions in real time, and to preserve evidence for when it's needed later. On contractor-side projects, the second reason is often the more valuable — because it's what determines whether claims are recoverable and defences are sustainable.
Report cycles that consume Friday afternoons but change no decisions are worse than useless — they consume capacity and create false comfort. Ashforte designs reporting frameworks that surface exceptions, force decisions, and produce a defensible audit trail as a by-product. Reports that no one reads are cut.
A cost report and a programme are two isolated documents until they're integrated. Earned value, S-curves, cost-loaded programmes, variance analysis — these are not procedural exercises. They are what convert 'we're behind schedule' into 'we're behind schedule and here's the commercial exposure that's being generated by that.'
Every letter, every drawing revision, every transmittal, every RFI, every instruction — when a claim or dispute emerges, these become the evidence base. Document control that isn't structured for evidential retrieval is document control that fails at the point it matters most. Ashforte designs document control with legal defensibility as the primary requirement.
Risk registers that never get updated. Action logs that grow but never shrink. Meeting minutes that repeat the same open items week after week. This is the visible symptom of a broken controls function — and the invisible symptom is uncontrolled commercial leakage. Action discipline is a commercial control.
Ashforte's controls & pmo capability is delivered by one senior team working across the contractor's live projects. You get the same standard applied identically — whether the work covers one live project or fifteen — at materially lower cost than staffing the equivalent capability inside every project team.
Recurring workstreams run to Ashforte's standard operating procedures. Senior review sits over every output. Consistency and defensibility are built in, not left to chance.
Most engagements begin at one of these trigger points. If any of them match your situation, the Initial Commercial Risk Assessment is usually the fastest way to establish scope.
The scope below is illustrative — engagements are shaped around the contractor's specific position, project mix and commercial exposure. Any sub-service can be scoped standalone or bundled.
Every controls & pmo engagement produces a defined set of tangible outputs. Consistency of output is one of the reasons contractors move from single-project support to portfolio-wide retainers.
Project controls and PMO work is often engaged as a fixed-scope setup — designing the controls framework, embedding it, and handing over to the client's team to operate. Ongoing PMO oversight can then run as a lighter-touch retainer. Larger contractor portfolios often engage Ashforte to standardize controls across every project, delivering the consistency benefit that isolated project PMOs cannot achieve.
Engagement models in detailDesign and embed the controls framework — reporting, cost-schedule, document control, risk, action — then hand over.
Independent review of an existing PMO or controls function. Findings, gaps, action plan.
Ongoing controls standardization and PMO oversight across multiple live projects.
Senior controls lead embedded into a project for a defined period — reporting design, cost-schedule integration, document control operational discipline.
We work with what the client has. Ashforte is tool-agnostic — Primavera, MS Project, Aconex, Procore, InEight, in-house ERPs, spreadsheet-based systems, and combinations of all of the above. Our value is in the discipline and design of the controls, not in selling or configuring specific software. Where tool change is genuinely needed to unblock a controls problem, we advise on it but don't resell it.
Contractor-side controls are designed with two audiences in mind: internal decision-making, and external commercial defensibility. That means document control has to hold up under DAB scrutiny. Programme records have to survive expert-witness cross-examination. Risk registers have to substantiate change events. Reporting has to inform commercial recovery, not just describe status. Owner-side or consultant-side PMOs rarely need to design for the second audience.
Yes — this is where Ashforte's model is at its strongest. A shared portfolio PMO built to consistent standards produces material efficiency and reporting quality that project-by-project PMOs cannot match. It's also the natural home for shared services like document control platforms, standardized templates and cross-project risk taxonomy.
For a single medium-complexity project, a functional PMO can be designed and embedded in 6–10 weeks. For a portfolio-wide standardized PMO across multiple projects, expect 3–6 months of design and rollout, plus continuous refinement in the first year of operation. Faster timelines are possible but usually produce PMOs that don't survive the second reporting cycle.
Every engagement starts with a scoping conversation to understand the situation, the contractual position and the commercial pressure. For qualified contractors, an initial commercial risk assessment may be offered at no cost as the entry point.
Start the conversationEach of the sub-services below has its own detailed page — what the service is, when it's called for, scope of work, outputs, and how it fits into the wider Ashforte model.
Weekly and monthly report structures, KPI design, exception reporting, executive dashboards.
Earned value setup, S-curves, cost-loaded programmes, variance analysis.
Document register, transmittal discipline, revision control, correspondence archive built for claims defensibility.
Risk register operation, action log discipline, close-out tracking across the portfolio.
Multi-project PMO design, portfolio reporting, standard operating procedures, tool selection.