One company, one contract. A team sized to the work.
The Director leads every engagement personally, with only the
specialists the work needs engaged alongside him - often two or three,
not eighteen - as independent subcontractors under Vantage Meridian
master agreements. The client holds one commercial relationship: one
company, one contract, one invoice.
Senior judgement at the top. Right-sized specialists underneath.
Most delivery problems are not caused by a shortage of hands. They are
caused by nobody senior holding the shape of the work, so the team
builds the wrong thing carefully.
The principal sets the delivery approach, directs the practitioners on
the assignment, reviews what they produce and stays accountable to the
sponsor for the result. Practitioners are engaged per assignment
rather than carried as bench, so the team is sized to the work in
front of it instead of the work the supplier wants to sell.
Every practitioner works to the
Vantage Meridian Delivery Framework
and the house artefact standards, so the outputs look the same whoever produced
them: the same status reporting, RAID discipline and decision trail. Where
a tier-one firm gives you a partner at the pitch and a graduate on the work,
this model keeps the senior judgement on the engagement.
The commercial side is deliberately simple. Vantage Meridian contracts
with the client, engages each practitioner under its own master
agreement and issues a single invoice - no agency layering, no margin
stacking. Insurance, contracting and delivery accountability sit with
one company, so the client is not managing a panel of individuals.
Principal
On every engagement.
The principal is not a name on the proposal. He is the delivery lead
on the assignment and the person the steering committee holds to
account.
Sky Lavelle
Director / Principal, Vantage Meridian
20+ years in enterprise technology delivery across three sectors:
media and broadcasting; higher education; cyber security and
government-adjacent research. Recent work spans four concurrent
workstreams under senior governance at a national public
broadcaster, a decade across three Australian public universities
covering CMS replacement, marketing automation and CRM rollout, and
Head of Project Delivery at a federally funded cyber security
research centre.
Recipient of an excellence award in leadership, given for positive
change across individuals, teams and the business after delivery of
an enterprise content management program. He is the author of the
Vantage Meridian Delivery Framework and the artefact library the
team delivers against.
These are the eighteen roles of the Vantage Meridian delivery network,
matching the current salary guide - not a team that arrives together.
Most engagements draw on two or three; a large program might use six.
Each role is described by what it delivers, not the hours it supplies.
Assembled, this is the team behind
program delivery.
Delivery
Program Manager
Runs a program of connected projects to one governance line: the plan, the interdependencies, the RAID log and the reporting the steering committee actually reads. Chairs the working rhythm underneath the committee, so escalations arrive with a recommendation attached rather than as a surprise.
Delivery
Project Manager
Runs a single delivery end to end: schedule, scope, budget, risks and the delivery goals the team commits to at each stage. Reports up through the program layer, or straight to the sponsor on smaller engagements.
Analysis
Business Analyst
Produces the requirements baseline a delivery team can build from: process models, use cases, screen and workflow specifications and a traceability matrix that survives scope change. On a Vantage Meridian engagement the analyst owns the artefact trail from discovery findings through to signed-off requirements.
Advisory
Business Consultant
Works the problem before it becomes a project: current-state analysis, options, benefits logic and the business case an executive can defend. Often the first role onto an engagement and the one that defines what the others deliver.
Advisory
Technical Consultant
Brings senior technical judgement without a build team attached: platform assessments, vendor evaluations, technical due diligence and written advice a decision can rest on.
Adoption
Change Manager
Owns the change discovery assessment, stakeholder map, communications plan and training plan, so the operational side of go-live is planned as tightly as the technical side. Delivers the adoption measures the steering committee will ask about after cutover.
Architecture
Solution Architect
Sets the technical direction the build is delivered against: solution options, integration architecture, non-functional requirements and a decision record that survives staff turnover. The developers build to the architecture; the architect stays accountable for it holding in production.
Build
Developer - App
Builds and ships mobile and cross-platform applications to the agreed design, from store pipeline to release management, under the code standard set for the assignment.
Build
Developer - Backend
Builds the services, APIs and data layers behind the interface: secure, tested and documented to the operational acceptance standard.
Build
Developer - CMS
Configures and extends content management platforms - templates, components, workflow and integrations - so the content model the design defined actually ships.
Build
Developer - Frontend
Builds the interface layer to the agreed design system: accessible, fast and consistent across devices, with the component discipline that keeps later change cheap.
Build
Developer - Fullstack
Carries a feature across the whole stack when the work is better served by one pair of hands than a handover: interface, services and data in a single accountable slice.
Build
Developer - Integration
Connects the systems an enterprise already runs: middleware, APIs, event flows and the error handling and monitoring that keep integrations honest in production.
Data
Data Analyst
Turns platform and program data into the evidence the engagement runs on: baselines, dashboards, measure definitions and the analysis behind every reported benefit.
Design
Service Designer
Maps the service end to end - users, staff, systems and policy - and designs the future state the build is configured against, with the gap analysis that shows why it holds.
Design
UX Researcher
Puts real users in front of the design before the build pays for assumptions: research plans, testing rounds and findings written as decisions rather than observations.
Quality
Test Manager
Owns the test strategy, plan and exit standard, runs the cycles across functional, integration and acceptance testing and produces the test summary report the go / no-go decision rests on.
Quality
Test Analyst
Writes and executes the test scripts, logs and retests the defects and keeps the traceability between requirements and test evidence intact through every cycle.
Only the roles an engagement needs are filled, and they are engaged for
that assignment under Vantage Meridian master agreements, as independent
subcontractors. Work is delivered as defined deliverables under the
principal's direction.
