Cleft Sentences — Unit 29, Upper-intermediate English

**Aurora Programme — Q3 Steering Committee Priorities Memo** *Confidential · Distribution: Project Leads, Department Heads, Programme Director*

This memo sets out the steering committee's assessment of current programme risks and confirms the strategic priorities for Q4. All project leads are asked to review this document and update their delivery plans before the 20 October deadline.

**Overall status.** The Aurora Programme remains broadly on track for phased delivery, though two critical issues require immediate attention. **It is the talent shortage in the data engineering team** that poses the greatest risk to the Q4 timeline — three vacancies have remained unfilled since July, creating a bottleneck that affects every downstream deliverable. **What we need** is a dedicated recruitment sprint rather than the standard job-posting cycle. HR has been briefed and has committed to shortlisting candidates within ten working days.

**Budget.** **It was the Q2 delivery delay on the Integration Module** that triggered the formal budget review currently under way. The committee has approved a supplementary budget of £180,000, conditional on milestones being met at each stage-gate review.

**Team structure.** **The reason why** the programme is restructuring its core delivery team is to strengthen cross-functional alignment between engineering, product, and client services. **What concerns us most** is not the individual team performance — which remains strong — but the lack of clear ownership at the interface between workstreams. A revised RACI matrix will be published by the end of next week.

**Risk register.** The committee has added three new items to the risk register: recruitment delays, integration testing capacity, and third-party API dependency. **What the data consistently shows** is that risks flagged early are resolved in roughly half the time of those that surface during delivery. All leads are expected to raise concerns proactively at each weekly stand-up, not to wait for formal review cycles.

**Escalation process.** **What we propose** going forward is a shared weekly escalation log, visible to all leads, so that blockers are addressed before they become critical. **It is consistent, structured communication** — not technical expertise alone — that most often determines whether a programme of this complexity succeeds or fails at this stage.

**Next steps.** Revised Q4 plans are due by 20 October. **It is the Programme Director**, not individual project leads, who holds final sign-off authority on any budget amendments. Questions should be raised at the 15 October steering session.

*Aurora Programme Steering Committee · October 2025*

**Dissenting note from the Programme Director, appended at her request**

**What I would question** is the memo's first conclusion. **It is not the talent shortage** that poses the greatest risk to Q4; it is the fact that we have restructured the delivery team in the same quarter in which we are short of three engineers. Either alone is manageable. **What makes the combination dangerous** is that a restructure removes exactly the informal knowledge that a short-staffed team depends on.

**What I would therefore propose** is deferring the RACI publication and the team restructure to January. **It is sequencing, not scope,** that I am asking the committee to reconsider.

**The reason why** I raise this in writing is that I raised it verbally on 2 October and it did not reach the memo. **What I want on record** is the objection and its date.

**One point of agreement.** **It is the recruitment sprint** that is the most useful decision in this memo. **What I would add** is that a shortlist is not a hire: three of our last four sprints produced shortlists and no acceptances, and the constraint was salary band rather than pipeline.