28 minute read
The bigger picture
Debbie Lewis
APM chair and director of strategic architecture programmes, BT
Project professionals in a world of technological change
Technology is now woven into almost every aspect of our lives. Communications technology is at the core of this evolution and is itself transforming. We are moving from an era when bandwidth and ubiquity were the drivers of communications technology change to one where reliability, latency, trust and personalisation are the focuses. The customers of technology and its capability are also changing, not just in terms of human demographics, but also because machines are now in the mix.
We now have expectations of instant digital gratification, wherever we are and whatever device we are using. In fact, we are indifferent to the technology and really don’t care if it’s a fixed communications network or a mobile one, or what device we’re using. We want the same capability in all cases and we want to move seamlessly between devices; it’s a world expecting continuous connectivity. And if we’re a machine in the internet of things, we need scale; millions of machines connected in a super reliable, super secure mesh. Machines that sense each other over national distances, orchestrate their activity, are intelligent, and learn and adapt.
How can we succeed in our project practice in this environment?
The opportunities are many: new tools for virtual working, automation, artificial intelligence, data mining and new ways to learn. I have no doubt that our professional practice can benefit greatly from this technologydriven change. What we need to do is adapt in as proactive a manner as possible. APM has a key role in enabling this, helping us identify the ways to adapt, providing the resources for the learning and the forum for mutual support. However, as individuals we also have a responsibility to be open to the new, to want to grasp the opportunities and to work together on realising their benefits. The foundations of ‘traditional’ project practice remain strong, but we must explore and adopt new ones in order to remain effective.
The challenges lie in our professional skills: our ability to see simplicity in complexity and focus others; our ability to lead through times of ambiguity; and our skills in understanding and managing risk. However, if I were to identify the soundbite that draws it all together, I believe it is the project professional’s ability to adapt and to make collaboration happen. Success in any complex context is rarely the result of a lone pursuit. It is enabled by drawing together different and unique perspectives and enabling collaboration, conversations and creativity.
That is at the core of our practice and why I am confident that, with the right support, project professionals are well placed to navigate the challenges successfully. Indeed, our skills are more relevant than ever and they are the skills that society, business and the economy need to recover, change and flourish.
Starting afresh and rediscovering innovation
Darren Dalcher
Professor in strategic project management, Lancaster University Management School; and director, National Centre for Project Management
Over the past 12 months and more, our world has changed dramatically as a result of the pandemic, forcing a recalibration of norms and behaviours. Yet the need to respond urgently and engage with rescue and recovery activities means there has been very little time to think about the changing nature of projects. As humanity seeks to establish a new normal, it becomes important to reflect on what we have learned during this turbulent period.
The responses of different countries across the globe have reshaped civilisation in unprecedented ways and may suggest new opportunities for societal engagement and the delivery of meaningful change. What, then, are the lessons for project management?
We have witnessed the results of exercising disaster management and rapid recovery projects on a global scale, often with spectacular results. At the start of 2020, it would have been unthinkable that most schools would be
closed, billions would be out of work, individuals would be confined to their homes, all children would be home educated, food and toilet paper would disappear from shelves, landlords would not collect rent, banks would suspend mortgage payments, public gatherings would be banned, governments would put together the largest economic stimulus packages seen in a generation in order to maintain national economies, and the homeless would be housed in hotels. Yet it is increasingly clear that crises can rapidly reshape society, the economy and life as we know it.
Many of the urgent projects we have seen around us were borne out of crisis. A crisis is a wake-up call. Crisis situations are extreme because they threaten our very survival, creating an overwhelming urgency to resolve them. The pandemic has shaken many of the foundations and deeply held conventions underpinning society, the economy and government. The unique power of a crisis is in making the familiar shatter almost instantaneously.
The impact of a crisis can be likened to a rogue wave striking a ship in deep seas – sudden, spontaneous and significant. The response to the crisis necessitates a near continuous stream of urgent and unexpected miniprojects characterised by immediate decisions, plans that must be created and enacted in a matter of hours (or minutes), an immediate reversal of our conservative aversion to risk-taking, and the abolition of an excessive reliance on speculative business cases.
Hard-won insights
The results have been nothing less than spectacular. In our haste to respond, we uncovered new abilities to work together, embrace new technologies, collaborate and achieve the impossible. The radical shifts that normally define transformation appear to have been mastered by society: hospitals built in 10 days, new vaccines in circulation within a matter of weeks, education systems moving online and significant changes to all forms of human interaction, communication and collaboration. Indeed, rather than finding new leaders for times of crisis, we instead discovered a new society ready to band together.
Management guru Peter Drucker observed that: “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence, it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” Perhaps our greatest challenge beyond the pandemic will be to retain our rediscovered sense of innovation beyond the immediate scope of the crisis and to embrace the new spirit of inclusivity, cooperation and creativity. To prepare for the challenges of a more turbulent and volatile tomorrow, we therefore need to harvest hard-won insights from our experiences.
The six Ps
The experience of working in more demanding contexts will require new positioning, including increased attention to the following aspects:
1 PURPOSE
Increased primacy of meaning, needs, purpose and value creation.
2 PEOPLE
Greater orientation on self, employees, customers, community and society.
3 PLACE
Proliferation of remote, flexible and home-working modes away from the office.
4 PLATFORM
Adoption of online platforms to compete with face-to-face communication.
5 PRAGMATISM
Experimentation, testing and adaptation will remain essential to flourishing in a fast-changing world.
6 PROFESSIONALISM
Reflection-in-practice and the ability to cope with and make sense of turbulent, volatile, novel and ambiguous conditions.
Underpinning it all is our willingness to continue to initiate, invent and innovate as project management rediscovers its way and its place in supporting, enhancing and sustaining society through meaningful change.
O This article draws on content from Darren’s forthcoming book, The Future of Project Management, to be published by Routledge. He is also co-editor of the 7th edition of the APM Body of Knowledge.
Q&A > FROM THE FRONTLINE
Nick Elliott
Former director general, UK Vaccine Taskforce
QWhat role will programme management play in rebuilding the country?
It has a huge role. We’re going to need to invest in our economic recovery, and that investment must be managed in an effective way to make sure we get the benefits from it. This means that programme and project managers are going to be at the heart of our economic recovery, and not just from COVID-19. We are moving into a new phase where our climate targets are going to be hugely important, as well as the levelling-up agenda of government.
QWhat has been the biggest lesson of the pandemic?
Expect the unexpected. If we’re going to have contingency plans, then they need to be real. We had a pandemic contingency plan for the UK, but actually it wasn’t a real plan, and when it was tested, it didn’t actually hold up. If we are going to plan, then let’s plan properly.
QWhat are the most important skills that project professionals need?
Being inquisitive – look for different ways of solving things and make sure you always seek information and use it to make decisions. Also maintain perspective. One thing that the last year has done for an awful lot of people is give them perspective of what’s really important to them and what’s not. And you’ve got to maintain your sense of humour otherwise we’ll all go mad!
Read Nick’s account of leading the Vaccine Taskforce on page 38
Q&A > FROM THE FRONTLINE
Lizzie Meadows
Project manager, Norwich Research Park Biorepository
Norwich Research Park Biorepository was awarded £2.1m to create a worldclass biobank. This involved implementing an automated lab information management system; creating a website with donor/participant recruitment via online consent; and implementing an AI-driven big data extraction tool.
QWhat projects are you currently working on?
I am currently drafting a sustainable business plan. I also provide project management for Norfolk’s COVID-19 genome sequencing team as part of COG-UK and provide logistical support to international partners.
QWhat innovations are you embracing in your projects?
We brought the Biorepository team to work with COG-UK’s genome sequencing team – originally to provide sample storage, but this soon morphed into providing anonymised metadata management, feeding into weekly SAGE reports and ultimately informing pandemic management on a regional and national level.
QWhat role will project management play in societal recovery?
It provides a consistent approach through structure and frameworks, including a rigorous approach to understanding and responding to risk.
QWhat are the biggest lessons of the pandemic?
Be vigilant, be rigorous in risk and contingency planning and be flexible.
Business as usual is not an option for a sustainable future
Steve Crosskey and Besnike Jaka
United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS)
The world is changing rapidly, and there is a clear recognition that leaders must reshape project management and identify sustainable solutions.
Achieving sustainable outcomes and progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement requires a reassessment of the traditional project success criteria. Of course, a great deal is out of the hands of project managers and requires a national, global, ‘portfolio level’ strategic approach, but project managers need to be a part of the conversation – understanding the goals, ensuring projects are aligned and including activities that can enhance the required outcomes. Business as usual is not an option, and how we link project implementation activities and outputs to long-term outcomes and impact will be crucial.
Links between outputs and SDGs
On average, UNOPS implements around 1,000 projects each year across more than 80 countries, with most of these being in low-income or fragile, conflictaffected states, which can ill afford to waste limited financial resources. Our expertise in infrastructure, procurement and project management for sustainable development, and in developing and implementing projects worldwide, has driven UNOPS to look closely at how we plan and implement our projects on behalf of our partners.
An area of focus in UNOPS over the past few years has been to look at how we can better support governments to build capacity, tools and processes to provide the evidence to align national planning to long-term development goals, and thus to ensure projects are both aligned to these goals and also better able, where required, to demonstrate this. Such demonstration is through an evidenced-based approach to attract financing, which is increasingly setting stringent sustainability and resilience requirements.
One example of our work to date in this area is our research and support to governments through our partnership with the Oxford University Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium. Together, we have sought to understand the links between project outputs and the SDG targets for infrastructure. By understanding these links during project planning, and also by ensuring activities that strengthen these links are included in our projects, we can ensure we can support our partners in turning outputs to outcomes and impact.
It is this up-front support, and using the common framework of the SDGs as a reference, that is allowing UNOPS
to better support governments across the world. But, at heart, we remain an implementing agency of the UN, and how we implement our projects has to be more mindful of social and environmental aspects, broadening our view of ‘scope’ in the ‘iron triangle’ and not just focusing on cost and time, however important these are.
UNOPS has recently introduced an updated project management methodology and accompanying tool to improve the way we integrate key
aspects during the UNOPS project lifespan. Improved project success criteria (with a particular focus on the project planning stage, including being clear about the project’s links to the SDGs), and dedicating attention to the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability in the early stages of project development, allow us to better direct and manage activities to enhance sustainability in our projects – and ensure long-term outcomes and impacts.
Case study: Mexico
One significant example is UNOPS’ support to the government of Mexico. To help maximise the efficiency, transparency and effectiveness of the procurement of medicines in Mexico, UNOPS partnered with the government in a landmark $6bn agreement to purchase medicines and medical supplies starting in 2020. Drawing on our expertise in public procurement and a successful track record in the region, UNOPS support will also help to promote transparency and efficient spending in Mexico’s public health sector. A sustainable procurement model is being developed that will increase the resilience of supply chains on behalf of the Institute of Health for Wellbeing, which is responsible for providing health coverage for around 65 million vulnerable people without social security.
We must be prepared, and collectively address, many of the challenges ahead. Projects must have a clear link to the wider, long-term outcomes and impacts intended through a more strategic portfolio management perspective. Through the business case, or project success criteria, activities and outputs generated through projects must be contributing to the intended outcomes and impacts. The SDG framework, in particular, is a way to bring together practitioners to help achieve this through a consistent approach and language, and a broader lens through which to view why and how we implement our projects. I n January 2020, the co-founders of BioNTech were discussing over breakfast a paper about the SARS-CoV-2 virus circulating in Hubei Province. They understood that the situation could potentially become a global pandemic, so they launched a project to develop a vaccine.
The project took the form of an ecosystem, benefiting from unprecedented support from governments and regulatory agencies. Their ecosystem project included competitors like Pfizer, which brought additional funding, but also expertise in late-stage clinical development, medical affairs and regulatory aspects.
Traditional views on ecosystems refer to established and permanent bonds between companies and industries. In most instances, this model is only accessible to large corporations, which decide to establish an ecosystem that they own most of and choose the partners they want to incorporate. But post-pandemic, more organisations of all sizes will look at temporary ecosystems as a way to expand their reach, developing new experiences for their customers while keeping costs low.
For example, creating the new mobility industry will involve automotive companies, infrastructure providers, designers, manufacturers, software and artificial intelligence companies, regulators and municipal governments, to name a few. Hence, a new project-based ecosystem that promotes experimentation and learning between partners, and helps to coordinate their investments, is essential to unlocking the enormous potential.
Projects can be viewed as temporary ecosystems. Besides the three main benefits of ecosystems – access to a broad range of capabilities, the ability to scale quickly, and flexibility and resilience – they bring additional ones. They have a common purpose and a clear deadline that increases focus and pressure; they are cheaper to access because they don’t require a huge investment of capital or resources; and they are more equal, as they don’t need to have a big corporation behind them. A project can be led by a small entity or a joint consortium of small or medium-sized companies.
What’s more, it’s easier to build trust in project-based ecosystems when the purpose is clear and shared, and the benefits and contribution of each party have been defined. Finally, organisational learning is essential. One of the success factors of projects is learning and competency building. The establishment of an efficient learning ecosystem is essential for success. If we look at projects and megaprojects as agile ecosystems, we will understand that there is a new way of improving their efficiency and impact on the global economy and society at large.
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
Co-founder, Strategy Implementation Institute; and former chair, PMI
Project-based ecosystems
O Antonio’s book The Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook will be published in September 2021
Peter Mumford
Executive director, Highways England
Future trends in major projects
There are some key themes that will be important for major projects in the coming years. Investment in infrastructure will be a key component of the post-COVID economic recovery effort and our national ability to deliver will be more important than ever. Yet there remains a skills shortage across our sector and as a whole industry, across both the public and private sector, and we will need to redouble our efforts to attract and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and with a diverse range of skill sets.
The external landscape within which projects are initiated and delivered is changing at pace and we need to adapt quickly. Our focus should be on how investment in infrastructure projects can impact positively on the environment. Projects can enhance biodiversity while also minimising carbon impact both in delivery and across the Technology whole asset life. Project teams need opportunity is greater early understanding of these issues than it has ever and will need to develop project been, and the time plans that really engage with the has now come to opportunities to deliver positive genuinely capitalise environmental outcomes. on this opportunity
Infrastructure projects present and to deliver the an opportunity to deliver important safety, efficiency and social value both locally and environmental benefits nationally. This can take the form available to us of job creation, improving local amenities, improving access to better transport and stimulating economic growth and opportunities for communities impacted by the work we do. We must make sure our project leaders understand the importance of creating and delivering social value across the whole country and locally where we deliver projects. Making the connection between good economic infrastructure and the benefits to people and communities impacted by projects will be vital if we are to maintain support for large-scale investment in infrastructure.
Technology opportunity is greater than it has ever been, and the time has now come to genuinely capitalise on this opportunity and to deliver the safety, efficiency and environmental benefits available to us. We need to harness the power of data and more rapidly move towards off-site and modular forms of construction. This is fundamentally necessary in order to reduce the potential for harm to construction workers while also providing the real-world opportunity to radically increase productivity throughout delivery in a way that is essential if we are to deliver on the national demand for new infrastructure projects.
Delivering cities of the future
Professor Bent Flyvbjerg and Dr Alexander Budzier
University of Oxford
COVID-19 and the 2050 net-zero climate targets force us to rethink how we procure, provide and use urban infrastructure. Cities like London need to find new uses for vacated retail and office spaces. Others aim to shift from car transport to increased cycling and walking. Copenhagen and Eindhoven were pioneers. Manchester, LA and New York are planning new urban green spaces. Venice, Hong Kong and Miami are protecting themselves against flooding. Green electrification is a main trend in mitigating the climate crisis, from cars to homes to industry. Digitisation is everywhere.
Cities of the future have been imagined, from Le Corbusier’s 1925 Plan Voisin for Paris to Bjarke Ingels’s 2020 Masterplanet project. History has not been kind to such attempts, whether for new cities, like the Ordos ghost town in China, or the moving of capitals, eg Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, or recent attempts at creating smart cities, like Google’s Sidewalk Toronto. Cities don’t scale well when the scaling is done top-down and in terms of big, bespoke projects, which tend to be slow, bureaucratic and ill adapted to user needs. For city development to work, it must be small-scale, agile and rapidly replicable. Think Copenhagen’s Street Lab and Amsterdam’s Smart City Hub.
Today, we see a deep contradiction between, on the one hand, slow top-
down developments that end up unfit for purpose and, on the other, innovations that work and are applauded by users, but that struggle to scale. We find this pattern not just for cities, but for major projects in general. Therefore, to succeed in building Cities of the Future, we need projects that scale from the bottom up. We need smart scale-up. The key to smart scale-up is projects that are designed and delivered (see figure): 1. In a modular, replicable fashion. 2. At speed.
First, regarding modularity, successful approaches are frugal and work with just a few high-quality standard designs that can be quickly built and replicated over and over, like LEGOs, at any scale, from the smallest to the largest. Wind turbines and solar cells – that scale from cell to panel to row to field to farm to farms of farms – are exemplary, which explains their success in driving down electricity prices and CO2
emissions. We need to learn from this in building other kinds of infrastructure and in constructing homes, schools, hospitals, offices, hotels, etc. The good news is that it is already happening. The bad news is that it’s happening too slowly, especially when judged against urgent climate targets and the targets for building back after the pandemic.
Modular replicability
Replicability is core to the idea of modularity. Research shows replicability is crucial to effective learning. It creates a feedback loop where you can use the experience from delivering one module to improve the next, ensuring that the quality of delivery improves constantly. The approach was recently used successfully for Hong Kong’s new Infection Control Center.
Replicability is also conducive to experimentation. Instead of going full scale immediately, you experiment with a few modules and use the experience to improve later modules. You repeat this until you master delivery, which is when you go full scale. Labs are the current frontrunner for experiments, like the EU-funded mobility labs in Stockholm, Turku, Madrid, Munich and Ruse. The ability to experiment and learn is the most basic explanation of why a venture that is based on modular replicability is more likely to succeed than a venture that depends on a one-off, bespoke construct that can only be delivered in one go. Think nuclear power and big dams versus wind and solar, and you get the picture.
Second, speed is of the essence. Neither design, negotiations, decisionmaking nor delivery can be allowed to drag on for years, as is typical for large programmes. Sidewalk Toronto failed because concerns over data privacy and governance went unresolved. The UK smart-meter roll-out programme suffered from slow development of the needed infrastructure and interoperable meters. It should be emphasised that, despite the need for speed, projects should not be fast-tracked. With fasttracking, delivery starts before designs and plans are completed. However, fast-tracking is a notoriously high-risk strategy, because the chances of making wrong decisions multiply without a firm design. The motto here is: ‘Think slow, act fast.’ If you skimp on thinking, it will slow you down later and nothing is saved. With replicable modules, once you have thought through the first few, and learned from experimentation and first delivery, there will be less thinking necessary for each additional module, with replicability enabling speed and economy.
A matter of degree
You can make yourself and your organisation hugely more valuable if you first become clear about your current position. Are you delivering a bespoke, one-off solution or a replicable, modular one? Are you delivering slowly or at speed? Then, move your focus and your activities systematically and effectively towards smart scale-up, the upper-righthand quadrant in the figure.
Smart scale-up is not an either-or proposition, but a matter of degree. Your organisation will have elements of each. Your task is to increasingly and tenaciously tip the balance towards smart by introducing smart-scaled ventures and characteristics of smart scale-up into existing ventures. This will be key to meeting climate targets, building back after COVID-19 and delivering the cities of the future.
Fast
Speed
Forced scale-up Bespoke + fast = low quality
Smart scale-up Modular + fast = success
Dumb scale-up
Bespoke + slow = boondoggle
Fumbled scale-up
Modular + slow = missed opportunity
Slow
Bespoke (one-off)
Modularity
Modular (replicable)
The future of projects
Sue Kershaw
APM president, and managing director of transport, Costain Group
Collaboration is built into the DNA of successful programmes. We know that when people work together to realise a common goal, united by shared values and purpose, they can achieve great things. Working in a team that crosses organisational boundaries and provides the right cultural environment for success is a very special thing. By connecting with each other in this way, we can elevate the performance of each individual party so that together we are providing an exceptional quality of service that meets – and surpasses – client expectations.
Faced by the challenges of the pandemic, we have united behind an endeavour that is bigger than us. Our healthcare system, key workers and volunteers have achieved a huge feat, vaccinating the nation, educating our children and making sure there is food on the shelves. And our engineers have kept the country’s arteries, its transport network, moving while also delivering road and rail investment programmes, which will play an important role in our economic recovery.
I am convinced that creating the right environment for teams – and teams of teams – to flourish is central to successfully powering the economic recovery. I also believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the inequalities in our society and the way we measure success. The business case for new infrastructure must now clearly demonstrate social and economic benefits: how will investment leave a positive legacy for communities?
Collaboration builds the trust that we need in order to do things differently. The A14 is a great example of this: more than 14,000 people have worked together as one team over the past five years to transform 21 miles of strategic A-road network connecting the Midlands with ports in the East of England. Jim O’Sullivan, CEO of Highways England, was proud to declare that the A14 is the only £1bn+ project in Europe that has been delivered ahead of schedule (eight months) and on budget. The first phase of the Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme was completed a year ahead of schedule, and the second eight months early with £196m in efficiencies realised against the client target of £108m.
As part of the A14 Integrated Delivery Team, we wanted to set a new standard for major project delivery from the start by fostering a high-performing culture of collaboration, continuous improvement and innovation. We used data and digital tools to help us achieve this and we built trust – in the information and in each other – to
Q&A > FROM THE FRONTLINE
Julie Wood
Lead for major complex projects, Arup
QWhat innovations are you embracing in your projects?
I’m seeing more frequently that we are using information from data to enable decision-making. Tools such as Power BI are making it easier for me to get an overview, see trends and then get information to understand what needs to be done. Machine learning is becoming more frequently used, particularly for repetitive activities, and projects are investing time in developing such routines to pay back in the relatively short term.
QWhat is the biggest challenge you face in your work?
Making the most of data and turning it into information so that it can be most effective. A good solution to this is having data analysts on the team and getting them working with project leaders and managers to make use of this information.
QHow has project management innovated since the pandemic?
We have maximised the use of flexible approaches to work. In many instances, activities that people thought could only be done face-to-face have developed to be successful remotely – for instance, stakeholder engagement. By using online platforms, it has been possible to reach people who may have otherwise not attended engagement events.
QWhat is the biggest lesson the pandemic has taught you?
Be grounded, be agile and be available to the team, client and collaborator. And, most of all, remain positive. As a major project leader, I am very comfortable working in the VUCA environment – communicating with and training the wider team on how to be successful in such an environment was a brilliant investment in time and energy.
QWhat role will project management play in societal recovery?
As project managers, we are the client’s right-hand person and provide the filter and funnel to the design and construction team. We are in a pivotal position. Being knowledgeable about
deliver on budget, ahead of time and with a strong safety record.
A holistic approach to complex infrastructure programmes will allow us to maximise the potential of investment for everyone. By definition, integrated transport is a collaborative endeavour. It relies on local and devolved authorities, infrastructure owners and operators, and the private sector working together. Facilitating last-mile journeys will transform the journey experience for customers. In doing so, integrated transport has the potential to catalyse modal shift, luring customers out of their cars and onto public transport – helping to meet our ambitious decarbonisation goals.
Integrated transport also reimagines the relationship between local communities and infrastructure, enabling healthy, active and zerocarbon lifestyles and facilitating inclusive economic growth across the UK. Collaboration will be the key to unlocking this potential.
the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and seeking ways to bring these goals into the project environment, is an amazing opportunity and responsibility for all project managers. With respect to business recovery, we can be a catalyst to exploring different uses for existing facilities that may no longer be required in their current form as the mode of office working and commuting shifts. We must learn from other industries – cross-pollination is essential. What can the energy industry learn from rail, aviation, commercial property and manufacturing, for instance? Too often, we see sector-specific approaches and project participants having siloed thinking. The role of the project manager can be as a catalyst to unlock and migrate ideas from other industries, giving them a new injection and perhaps solving some legacy thinking. Q&A > FROM THE FRONTLINE
Richard McWilliams
Director of sustainability business, Turner & Townsend
QWhat projects are you working on right now?
I’m project director for delivery of the Mayor of London’s Retrofit Accelerators. These are major public-sector programmes to support local authority and housing association homes and health and education estates in their transition to a low-carbon future. They achieve this by increasing the scale and pace of ‘retrofit’ projects available, making built assets more sustainable, saving carbon and reducing energy bills.
QWhat innovations are you embracing in your projects?
Our projects use energy performance contracting so that the business case outcomes of energy bill and carbon savings are directly contracted to the supplier, minimising investment risk for the client. We are also supporting supply chains and clients to drive cost and performance improvements for industrialised retrofits using off-site manufacturing solutions. We use an innovation partnership procurement model that contracts increasing scale for the supplier as they show increased performance/cost reductions. Partnership and collaboration are absolutely vital to deliver more impactful project outcomes.
QWhat is the biggest challenge you face in your work?
Senior stakeholder buy-in to a self-funding pathway to net zero. It seems like an obvious thing to support; however, there are many competing priorities, and even where organisations have net-zero targets, they may have challenges around internal resourcing to make the case – and also, sometimes, the risk appetite to take on ambitious programmes.
QWhat role will project management play in societal recovery?
Through our ‘make it happen’ work on the accelerators, we are channelling government stimulus into a green recovery that is driving economic activity and jobs. As well as helping reduce the risk of climate change for future generations, we are also helping to alleviate fuel poverty by upgrading poor-quality housing through energy retrofits.
QWhat is the biggest lesson the pandemic has taught you?
We really are in a knowledge economy that relies on know-how and communication that can be shared remotely. This applies to construction professional services just as much as it does outside the built environment.
QWhat is one innovation project professionals need to make happen?
Adapt to contracting for outcomes that drive significant wider societal benefits. A deliverable is not the end of the story!
QHow rewarding do you find your work?
Helping clients address major challenges in a way that delivers economic and social benefits – while saving the planet – is hugely rewarding. And every time I think of my three young children, it reminds me why that’s important.
