APM Project Spring 2021

Cover VERSION

ISSUE 306 SPRING 2021 £14.50

PROJECT

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TH E VO I C E O F TH E PROJ EC T M A N AG E M E NT CO M M U N IT Y

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THE BIG INTERVIEW

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The National Audit Office’s Gareth Davies

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The voice of the project management community

BEHIND THE SCENES

The Grand Egyptian Museum

REMOTE WORKING

Modernising the British Antarctic Survey

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Welcome VERSION

FROM THE EDITOR

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A common purpose

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Putting together Project’s summer 2020 issue during the first lockdown was a lesson in determination, ingenuity and kindness that made it an experience I won’t ever forget (and for all the right reasons). I thought that would be a one-off experience, but then came another lockdown during this issue. Like everyone else getting on with the job, it’s been harder the second time around – but we did it.

The summer 2020 issue focused on the hunt for a vaccine, and unbelievably, less than a year later, our cover story for spring 2021 is the successful vaccine roll-out in the UK. This massive achievement can be put down in part to an unrelenting focus on a clear mission, come what may. Allied to this is a strong sense of common purpose – something that has carried many projects forward during a tough time. And it’s this sense of purpose that this issue of Project has serendipitously ended up exploring. As the world takes stock of what the pandemic has wrought on our work and lives, there’s a palpable feeling that this sense of purpose is a nice thing to keep, and good for business and projects.

As we emerge from the pandemic, the focus will be on rebuilding society and the economy while tackling the problems of climate change and inequality. There are many businesses that want to recognise their wider obligations, and many people who want to do their bit to improve society. “As we have been through the worst of times, we have seen the best of people, including in the world of work,” wrote Ed Miliband in the Financial Times. This is about businesses recognising their role “to produce profitable solutions to the problems of people and planet, and not to profit from producing

As we emerge from the pandemic, the focus will be on rebuilding society and the economy while tackling the problems of climate change and inequality

problems for people or planet”, explains Colin Mayer, who is leading the British Academy project on purposeful business.

The projects we showcase in this issue demonstrate a purpose-driven approach that goes beyond making a profit. It’s what gives Jon Ager his motivation to deal with extreme conditions in Antarctica; and the scientists, NHS staff, manufacturers and project managers behind the vaccine roll-out.

Our feature on grassroots projects, including Rewilding Britain and volunteer-run foodbank NEST, gives an insight into how project teams anywhere can capitalise on the energy and can-do spirit that a strong sense of purpose gives.

And if you’re doing some armchair travel, don’t forget to read my feature on the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is slated to open this summer. Overlooking the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx in Giza, it will hold all of Tutankhamun’s treasures. As project lead Waleed Abdel-Fattah told me, when you work on one of the world’s largest museums, surrounded by colossal statues of pharaohs, you “see just how very small humans are in civilisation”. In the face of this global pandemic, it’s a sentiment some of us might share.

Emma De Vita is editor of Project

Editor Emma De Vita emma.devita @thinkpublishing.co.uk Managing editor Mike Hine Group art director Jes Stanfield Sales director Michael Coulsey 020 3771 7232 michael.coulsey @thinkpublishing.co.uk Account director Kieran Paul

The views expressed in Project are not necessarily those of APM, the publisher or its agents, and they do not accept responsibility for any solicited material, or for the views of contributors, or for actions arising from any claims made in any advertisements or inserts appearing in this journal.

This publication (or any part thereof) may not be reproduced in any form without express and written permission from the editor. © APM 2021 APM, Ibis House, Regent Park, Summerleys Road, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire HP27 9LE, United Kingdom apm.org.uk Tel (UK): 0845 458 1944 Tel (Int): +44 1844 271 640 Cover price: £14.50 Annual subscription fee: £58 (UK); £68.20 (Europe); £79 (international) PROJECT (ISSN 0957-7033) is published by the Association for Project Management in association with Think Publishing, Capital House, 25 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DH Tel: 020 3771 7200 thinkpublishing.co.uk

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CONTENTS

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FROM GRASSROOTS TO GIZA, THIS ISSUE OF PROJECT AT A GLANCE

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6 Women’s literacy in India

How the Gyaan Centre project in Rajasthan is boosting women’s literacy rates

8 Your salary in 2021 ART

The latest findings from the annual APM/YouGov Salary and Market Trends Survey

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Culture and heritage Why the new Lambeth Palace Library should be on your must-visit list post-lockdown

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Aviation projects How the UK government’s Future Flight Challenge is clearing projects for take-off

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Corporate Partner Forum Thirty pearls of wisdom you may have missed from the annual event

PERSPECTIVES

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Embracing the project economy Why ‘the future is projects’, so long as we navigate five key disruptions

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Vinay Panjwani; Will Amlot; PA Images

A real strategy for infrastructure What to look out for in the government’s National Infrastructure Strategy

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Storytelling for project managers Why, when communicating, emotions count for more than logic

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Debbie Dore Reviewing and refreshing APM’s strategy for the future

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FEATURES ■■■■■■■

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Rolling out COVID-19 vaccines Behind the scenes of the most highprofile programme of modern times – mass vaccination against COVID-19

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Truly remote working How the British Antarctic Survey carried out an ambitious modernisation programme in tough conditions

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The big interview We meet Gareth Davies of the National Audit Office to get the expert view on major government projects

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A tomb with a view Burial treasures and national heritage are on display at the new Grand Egyptian Museum

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Projects with purpose How to inject grassroots energy and purpose into a professional project management context

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Award-winning transformation An ambitious project from Allianz recovered from a false start to take home an APM award

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Eddie Obeng A project manifesto fit for the challenges of a post-COVID world

Contents, 1

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24 PEER TO PEER ■■■■

47 How to be a great communicator 60 Chartered Five top tips to boost the effectiveness of your communication strategy

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Tackling unauthorised drones They’re a novel but alarming threat to airport security – so Heathrow’s anti-drone project was critical

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The latest additions to the Register of Chartered Project Professionals

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Rising star Career lessons from APM’s Young Project Professional of the Year

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Major programmes Four problematic areas identified in the National Audit Office’s latest lessons learned report

Q&A with Susanne Madsen How to respond to team members reacting both positively and negatively to remote working

How to boost your career The best advice from seasoned project professionals about how to maximise your career opportunities

Beyond the job A personal project to establish a mentoring circle to boost opportunities for women

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OFFLINE ■■■■■■

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PM meets pop culture Feel like you’re living in Groundhog Day? Richard Young has just the tonic

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Books and podcasts Advice on what to listen to and read to decompress in lockdown

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INDIA’S GOLDEN DESERT SCHOOL

The Gyaan Centre project in Rajasthan is a threebuilding complex that will help to lift girls and women out of illiteracy

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Vinay Panjwani

uilt of local hand-cut sandstone in the ‘Golden City’ of Jaisalmer, the Gyaan Centre will house a school for girls and a women’s craft cooperative, with the aim of tackling stubbornly low female literacy rates.

The project was initiated by US artist and founder of non-profit organisation CITTA, Michael Daube, with New York-based architect Dianna Kellogg, who designed the buildings using local sandstone to recreate the curved walls of Rajasthan’s famous forts.

CITTA programme manager Chahat Jain tells Project that the complex will be ready by the end of 2021. The Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School building is already complete. The biggest challenge of the project, Jain explains, has been coordinating with all the stakeholders. “Jaisalmer is remotely situated, and the local people are not habituated to outsiders coming and telling them what needs to be done and how. At first, everyone doubted our intentions since we’re all foreigners to them. But we’ve been very lucky to have the royal family and city business tycoons support us with our project. Cracking the villagers and garnering the support of local panchayats [village elders] was a big challenge, but now that we have them seeing eye-to-eye with us, it’s a cake walk.”

For Jain, the biggest reward has been seeing the girls come to school with “high hopes and a chirpy demeanour. They love the school building and are very excited to study in the school. It’s an all-girls school, so one of the girls said that she feels free in the school to do whatever she wants and can play wherever she wants, unlike in the community she comes from.”

Daube instigated the project 20 years ago, and India-based Jain updates him daily.

“Since he’s in the US, it has become my duty to supervise the project completely… and being able to do so motivates me to work harder and learn new things,” Jain explains.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

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Project sector continues to buck pandemic gloom

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The key findings from the latest annual Salary and Market Trends Survey from APM, in collaboration with YouGov

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t was inevitable that the COVID-19 pandemic would affect the project profession, and so finds APM’s 2021 Salary and Market Trends Survey (carried out in partnership with YouGov), which surveyed 2,626 project management professionals online in November 2020.

The news is not as negative for the project profession as for other sectors.

The overwhelming majority of project professionals who are in permanent employment said their employment status did not change as a result of the pandemic (85 per cent). In total, six per cent were placed on furlough and then returned to normal working hours, while two per cent worked reduced hours.

A tiny minority (two per cent) were made redundant but have since found alternative employment.

Among contract workers, 70 per cent said their contract continued as normal, 10 per cent reported that their contract was altered and nine per cent found their contract cancelled, but have since secured further employment. Of those who are freelance or self-employed, over a third (35 per cent) reported that their number of clients or volume of work decreased because of the pandemic, but a similar proportion found that it stayed about the same (31 per cent). For 12 per cent, their workload actually increased.

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A robust profession

When it comes to pay, project management remains robust. Almost half (49 per cent) of professionals now earn over £50,000, up from 42 per cent in 2019. Further up the scale, 20 per cent now earn over £70,000, up from 16 per cent. Freelancers and the self-employed (consultants) now command an average salary of £72,500, with 61 per cent of that cohort earning over £50,000.

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Yet, unsurprisingly, professionals are feeling less optimistic about their future pay. While nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) were expecting an increase in 2019, only 48 per cent said the same in 2020.

Instead, significantly more are expecting a decrease (three per cent in 2019; eight per cent in 2020) or for their pay and benefits to stay the same (23 per cent in 2019; 41 per cent in 2020). Of those anticipating a decrease, the pandemic is the most likely cause.

Future prospects

The overall economic picture for project professionals has worsened over the past 12 months. The proportion reporting that their organisation is growing and looking to recruit has decreased significantly from 51 per cent in 2019 to 41 per cent in 2020. This is due to significantly more respondents reporting that their organisation is experiencing a downturn and redundancies (nine per cent in 2019; 17 per cent in 2020).

When asked which significant challenges the profession faces over the next five years, almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of respondents cited the pandemic and its ongoing impact, and for just over one-fifth (22 per cent), it is singled out as the most significant

The news is not as negative for the project profession as for other sectors challenge. Concern is higher among younger respondents, with 72 per cent of those aged 18–24 seeing it as a significant challenge, compared to 55 per cent of those aged 55–64.

Other significant challenges include the impact of Brexit (54 per cent), developing the required skills and talent pipeline for future work (47 per cent) and developing more innovative and digital services (44 per cent), although only a minority see the latter as the most significant challenge.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION: THE LATEST FINDINGS While there have been no significant changes in perceptions since 2019, it remains the case that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) project professionals are more likely to agree that their ethnicity has had a negative impact on their professional development than their white colleagues (27 per cent v four per cent). BAME respondents are also significantly less likely to consider the project profession to be diverse or inclusive than their white counterparts, although results have remained consistent since 2019. When asked how the project management profession could be made more inclusive, mentoring is the most common answer (43 per cent), as was the case in 2019.

Other common answers include revised employment policies (35 per cent) and unconscious bias training (34 per cent).

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PAY HOLDS FIRM

£47,500 average salary for project professionals

EMPLOYMENT STATUS

93% full-time

1% other

6% part-time

WHAT IS THE MOST VALUED SKILL NEEDED TO BE A MODEL PROJECT PROFESSIONAL? Proportion of project professionals who are ‘satisfied’ in their role

82% 83% v

(2019)

(2020)

Proportion of project professionals who are ‘very satisfied’ in their role

24% 28% v

(2019)

(2020)

ON DISABILITY… One in 10 project professionals consider themselves to have a disability or long-standing physical or mental health impairment. Of this group, 38 per cent say it has had a negative impact on their career, while 15 per cent say it has had a positive impact. Men are more likely to believe that the impact has been positive than women (22 per cent v nine per cent).

29% 26% project leadership

people management and stakeholder engagement

16% 11%

communication skills

strategic management

The average value of a project in the North West at

£140,833,453 has now overtaken London at £137,842,580 for the first time, but the most valuable projects remain outside the UK at

£160,673,641 The full findings will be available at apm.org.uk/salarysurvey

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Lambeth Palace Library

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One of the best buildings of 2021, this was a special project to manage

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he purpose-built, nine-storey Lambeth Palace Library by Wright & Wright Architects – one of The Times’ Best Buildings of 2021 – is located in the historic London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Due to open this summer, it provides state-of-theart facilities to conserve the Church of England’s archive.

Project management consultant Stuart Johnson oversaw the building’s practical completion and fit-out, as well as the huge task of installing the collection (the largest of its type after the Vatican’s). The project was delivered successfully to brief, within budget and on time.

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A historic treasure trove

Hufton & Crow

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The new building brings together the historic collection of Lambeth Palace Library, founded in 1610. The items date from the 9th century to the present day, and treasures include the 12th-century Lambeth bible, the prayer book of Queen Elizabeth I, and the only surviving copy of the execution warrant of Mary Queen of Scots.

The project brought unique challenges, not least its position on a busy road in central London on the edge of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s garden, adjacent to a Grade 1 listed palace. Archaeology was also a significant risk, as the Lambeth Palace garden had not been built on in modern times and is an area with Saxon and Roman finds.

“We worked with the Museum of London from the outset to identify and document the ground in a way that took this risk off the critical path. A more traditional approach through a main contractor would have risked delay and extra costs,” Johnson explains.

Together with the library, he compiled a 70-page brief covering everything from details of the

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collection, PD5454 compliant environmental conditions necessary in the archives, fire suppression and the archaeological risk. This provided an unambiguous basis for the team and limited opportunities for scope creep later.

“Projects need a clear brief to succeed. This stage is often neglected to the detriment of the resulting building and indeed disruption of the process, with failure and delays to get sign-off at the end of each design stage,” Johnson says. “It is fascinating for me to apply my project management skills to a historically and culturally significant project like this one,” he reflects.

A lasting legacy

“It is a great sense of achievement to have been part of delivering such an important building. The Church of England’s archive is essential to society’s understanding of faith, history and culture,” says Johnson. “I am pleased to have established such good working relationships with the client, the library and the team.”

But the project’s rewards go beyond the historic and cultural. “I have been speaking and writing about sustainability for decades, and I am delighted to see durable, low-carbon,

ecologically sound buildings like the library becoming mainstream,” explains Johnson. He was keen to stick to the project’s key objective of securing the collection’s 35,000+ boxed items on over 20,000 linear metres of shelving with the lowest environmental impact. The building gained a BREEAM excellent rating and generates about half its energy requirement from onsite renewable sources.

The most important lesson Johnson learned from working on the project?

“It reinforced the importance of finding good people and enabling them to do good work, both individually and as a team. The building is more successful because we collaborated and found solutions that any one of us might have missed,” he says.

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CLEARED FOR TAKE-OFF

The UK government’s Future Flight Challenge gives the green light to ground-breaking aviation projects

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oventry-based Air One, the world’s first airport for electric aircraft, is one of the latest projects to receive funding from UK Research and Innovation’s Future Flight Challenge.

Launched in 2020, the £33.5m fund is aimed at ground-breaking aviation projects tasked with solving major global challenges including the pandemic and climate change.

The first wave of 20 projects, announced in November, shared a pot of £7.35m (see box). This is an exciting development for the UK’s aerospace industry after a tough year and forms part of the government’s plan to ‘build back better’.

Economic and social benefits

In total the Future Flight Challenge will distribute £125m from the Industrial Strategy Challenge. It focuses on the development and demonstration of a novel integrated aviation system that enables the safe operation of new classes of air vehicles, including air taxis, drones and regional

aircraft using electric or autonomous technologies.

Future Flight Challenge director at UK Research and Innovation, Gary Cutts, said: “The breadth, quality and creativity of the bids has been exceptional, and the economic and social benefits offered are very significant.”

Air One has been launched by Urban Air Port in partnership with Hyundai, Coventry City Council and the government. It will be a fully operational hub for future electric vehicle takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. It is planned to open later this year, with the ambition of developing more than 200 sites in the next five years.

The urban air mobility division of Hyundai has chosen Urban Air Port as its priority infrastructure partner to support the global growth of this new sector, with plans to create and commercialise its own eVTOL aircraft by 2028.

“As we advance our eVTOL aircraft programme, development of supporting infrastructure is imperative. Air One is a

Urban Air Port

Future Flight Challenge projects ■ Dock-to-Dock, based in Cardiff, is developing a pilot project to deliver goods between Bristol and Cardiff using a hydrogen-powered electric aircraft.

■ NAPKIN, based in London, focuses on paving the way for low- and zero-carbon short-haul flights for passengers around the UK. ■ APIAN, based in Essex, is creating and building a drone to deliver medical supplies like COVID-19 blood and swab tests between NHS hospitals and labs in response to the pandemic.

■ Windracers Distributed Avionics, based in Southampton and Bristol, will develop swarming technology, an approach to coordinate multiple robots to allow several drones to fly in close formations and work together to provide humanitarian aid or fight fires.

unique project that is set to help lead the way in developing a robust, accessible and intermodal infrastructure network for future mobility,” said Pamela Cohn, chief operating officer for the division.

The physical footprint of an Urban Air Port is 60 per cent smaller than a traditional heliport (the most comparable infrastructure). Using innovative construction, the sites can be installed in a matter of days, have net-zero carbon emissions and can be operated completely off-grid.

The Coventry cluster

Urban Air Port chose Coventry for the first site due to its important location at the heart of the UK and because it is a historic hub for the automobile and aerospace industry, with a pool of people and skills that can support the manufacturing industries of the future.

In February, Coventry City Council said it was seeking pre-emptive planning permission for an electric car battery ‘gigafactory’ beside the city’s current airport, with the hope production will start by 2025 once an experienced manufacturer is attracted. Only one company, start-up BritishVolt, has announced a project to build a UK battery factory – in Blyth, Northumberland.

But with Jaguar Land Rover’s recent announcement that it will switch its Jaguar brand to pure electric technology by 2025, the urgency of developing a UK gigafactory is clear. “If there might one day be a battery plant or several plants, why not in the UK? We would be very glad. It would make a lot of sense in terms of supply chain to be close by any battery plant,” said Jaguar Land Rover’s chief executive Thierry Bolloré.

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30 ideas for better projects

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In case you missed APM’s annual Corporate Partner Forum, Project rounds up some of the excellent advice and ideas that it produced

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he great and the good of the project management world spent two days at this virtual conference in February to discuss and share advice and experience on how to deliver projects better. Contributors included APM’s Debbie Dore, Paul Chapman of Saïd Business School, Alistair Godbold of The Nichols Group, Gillian Magee of AstraZeneca, John McGlynn of Atkins and Naomi Brookes of the University of Warwick, plus many others, including 2020 APM award-winners.

■ To find out more about corporate membership and watch all the sessions, go to apm.org.uk/corporatepartnership-programme/corporate-partner

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Outlook and opportunities to deliver projects better in 2021 1 The pandemic has seemingly got

rid of a culture of presenteeism in projects – now people can do their work at a time that suits their personal preferences. This makes people more productive in their work, so managers need to ensure this flexibility continues.

2 Nobody wants to go back to the daily commute or to unnecessary business travel. Being forced to work from home means that a great deal has been learnt about working well virtually and globally in teams.

3 The collaboration challenge is about developing team relationships. Projects are about people, and therefore, to maximise project success, it is critical that everyone in the project team is able to bring their value to the table.

Bring the brightest talent together to bring about the best outcome.

4 Projects are a collective endeavour, so how do we inspire others to give their

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best and join in across boundaries? How do we collaborate with competitors while maintaining clarity on who does what? Governance and ways of working need a lot of thought at the start of a project. Getting contracts in place early to enable that is key.

5 Communication is vital for all project professionals. Check in with people. Be kind to yourself and others, especially new starters. Look out for everyone.

The adaptive project professional 1 Work is changing from operations

to projects. The business world has to do more projects, because that is how change happens. The rise of projectbased teams, increasingly complex projects and challenging circumstances points to the need for an adaptive project profession.

2 The skills that project managers need to flourish include analytical and critical thinking, technological skills and self-management (like active learning and stress tolerance).

3 Professionals will be defined by

their capacity to adapt. It’s about adaptability in the way projects are delivered in a changing world and how you can adapt your own skills and mindsets over time.

4 Recommendations for action include strengthening lifelong learning through professionalism and shaping strategy as well as delivery by having a seat at the top table. If project management is to deliver to the best of its ability, then it needs to have a voice in decisionmaking meetings.

5 Project professionals need to take ownership of their learning and recognise the gap between what they know now and what they will need to know in the next 10 years. You need to have the ability to develop metacompetencies such as resilience and managing change.

Megaprojects – what impacts performance?

1 Megaproject performance needs to

move beyond final cost to be viewed as a dynamic production system. How do we improve the resilience of the organisation in terms of both what can be controlled and what can’t?

2 There needs to be an effort to bring together practitioners and knowledge from megaprojects across the globe, especially in infrastructure.

3 While there has been some excellent research into better performance of megaprojects, it has been partial, isolated and often focused on optimism bias at the front end. What is really needed is a review of the whole system.

News, 4

4 A megaproject is a system of systems.

It is one of the most complex forms of organisation and thus requires a structure that matches that complexity.

We have seen in the UK the development of the role of the client as the umbrella organisation, working with the delivery partner as a way to manage the megaproject.

5 You need leadership approaches that match these complex organisational forms. You need very strong leaders, but leadership has to cascade down through the project.

Dynamic Conditions for Project Success 1 The research stage of Dynamic

Conditions for Project Success is currently ongoing, and the report is due to launch in June at APM’s Power of Projects conference. It builds on the 2015 Conditions for Project Success study and re-examines project challenges to success, uncovers new factors and will help project professionals to understand them in order to enhance project outcomes.

2 The nine dynamic conditions are divided into three main themes: People (soft skills, training and certification and team ethos); Processes (technology and data, contracts and knowledge management); and Principles (agility, sustainability and diversity).

3 The preliminary findings have revealed key trends within the People theme: empathy and listening to the team (soft skills); mentoring and blended learning (training and

Everyone should be encouraged to become chartered, as it is really establishing itself as a benchmark certification); and leading by example (team ethos).

4 Within Processes, the key trends are: the need to do more with data (technology and data); more collaborative contracts becoming the norm (contracts); and recognising that knowledge sits with people and communities of practice (knowledge management).

5 For Principles, the key trends are: the mix of agile with waterfall (agile); the growing importance of sustainability, with clients demanding it and government pushing for it (sustainability); and organisations actively adopting supportive diversity policies (diversity).

Embracing digital technologies to deliver better projects – use it or lose it!

1 There is a lot of data that we collect

on projects and we really have to get better at using it. There is confusion about what digital technology terms mean – there needs to be some basic understanding of the terminology.

2 This geeks/business divide is crucial to overcome if we are ever going to make use of data. We have to understand the quality of what we put into these systems. If you’re

collecting data, let it be meaningful.

Make sure nobody in your organisation is entering an item of data that never gets used.

3 We have been collecting data within projects for many years but there are basic fundamental issues about how that collection happens. It’s incumbent on organisations to set out ground rules that will help practitioners now and in future.

4 We need to make sure data is being used in a way that is positive, to form decision-making, and not make it difficult for people to do their job in the future. Are we driving complexity into what we are collecting? Having a simple set of guidelines is important.

It is also key to have clarity and a simple system. Knowing who is collecting data, why it is being collected and what it is going to be used for will overcome barriers.

5 Go and start a community of interest in your organisation today and get that simple guide to collecting data made. It is going to be useful in the future, providing the ability to extract information from the masses of data you have today.

How APM is supporting the project profession 1 An online learning qualifications

platform was introduced in June 2020, which allows APM to continue delivering qualifications for members.

2 There is a full range of CPD courses on the APM Hub that members can take at their own pace.

3 APM’s annual events programme is running virtually, including webinars and podcasts. Make the most of the opportunities that are there!

4 Everyone should be encouraged to become chartered, as it is really establishing itself as a benchmark for the profession.

5 APM does a lot of research that it disseminates, like Dynamic Conditions for Project Success and work on what makes great project leaders. It takes the best of academic research and brings it close to project delivery to gain maximum benefit.

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WHY THE FUTURE IS PROJECTS Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez looks forward to the ‘project economy’, but warns of five major disruptions to negotiate first

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The age of hierarchies is over, with organisations looking to remove management layers

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Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez is former chair of the Project Management Institute and co-founder of the Strategy Implementation Institute

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In the next five years, the world will see more projects than ever. The reconstruction of the economy after the devastating global pandemic crisis will be unprecedented. According to McKinsey, governments announced $10 trillion in reconstruction funds in the first two months of the crisis, which is three times more than the response to the 2008–09 financial crisis. We’re talking about millions of projects, which will need millions of project managers.

This is confirmation of the ‘project economy’, a term I conceived in 2018.

Despite this positive outlook, five significant disruptions will put at stake the project management profession that we have come to know over the past 40 years. We should consider these signals as an urgent call for muchneeded changes in our practices and competencies (after all, it’s a small price to pay for the unique opportunity that the project management profession has to lead us into the future):

1 The end of job descriptions; the

start of project roles. The move from a world driven by efficiency to one driven by change will have enormous consequences in terms of strategy, culture, organisational structures, competencies and compensation. More and more work will be carried out through projects. The Richards Group is one of the largest independently owned

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We should consider these signals as an urgent call for much needed changes in our practices and competencies ad agencies in the US. Stan Richards, its founder and CEO, removed almost all of its management layers and job titles, leaving only that of the project manager.

This is not an exception. Today, most employees don’t work on what their job descriptions state; they work on changing priorities, strategic initiatives and delivering value. They’re actually working on projects.

2 From project managers to strategy implementation professionals.

My latest research for the Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook clearly shows that senior leaders see project management as a core competency. However, project managers will need to learn new skills.

For example, they will need to start facilitating ideation and using design thinking techniques to ensure that the

best ideas are chosen and developed into projects that generate value through the right project management approaches. To help project managers, scrum masters and managers to make this step change, we developed the first global online Strategy Implementation Professional certification, together with APMG International.

3 Expanding our toolkit. It is not

waterfall or agile; it is both and more.

Many of us grew up implementing project management methodologies with the idea that one size fits all. This means all projects will need to follow the same methodology, life cycle, templates – first waterfall, then agile methods.

Today, we know that this is wrong; you cannot have just one method to address all the projects in your organisation. You should be able to apply one method or different techniques simultaneously.

4 The project management office:

transform now or game over. PMOs are designed for hierarchies, reporting to the CIO, CFO or CEO. However, hierarchies are structures of the past.

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Today, most organisations look for more agile settings, with fewer management layers, promoting project-based work and self-managed teams. PMOs need to change urgently. First, PMOs must move to cover strategy and transform into strategy implementation offices. Second, we must develop agile PMOs, temporary entities that will assist in traditional and agile projects. Once the project is over, the PMO should transition into running, operating or selling what the project has produced and delivered.

5 Artificial intelligence will disrupt

project management. We have to embrace technology now. According to Gartner, 80 per cent of the project management task will be taken over

by AI by 2030. Most projects are managed with Microsoft Project, software launched in 1987. Project portfolio management tools offer more advanced features but are far from being applications that benefit from the latest technologies. Soon we will start seeing algorithms that can predict the success rates of projects, validate a project’s scope and automatically design a project plan in minutes. Losing a significant part of our current tasks might be scary for many, yet it is a vast opportunity to switch our focus to more value-added activities.

Finally, I want to share a global challenge for our project management community. Today, about 70 per cent of projects fail to deliver their objectives. Considering that every year approximately $48 trillion is invested in projects, we fail to deliver trillions of benefits, value and impact. What if we commit to doing much better? If we increase our success ratio from 30 per cent to 60 per cent, we would be adding to the world approximately the GDP of China in extra benefit, year after year.

Considering that every year approximately $48 trillion is invested in projects, we fail to deliver trillions of benefits, value and impact

FINALLY, A REAL STRATEGY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE

James Heath, CEO of the NIC, on why the UK’s national infrastructure projects will benefit from a joined-up strategy

It is clear that 2021 will see a concerted focus on rebuilding our economy, and infrastructure will play an important part. In November, the UK government published its National Infrastructure Strategy (NIS), which represents a major step towards a fully-fledged strategy and a solid down payment on a long-term fiscal commitment to developing the UK’s economic infrastructure. While it doesn’t contain many fresh announcements, the NIS brings together different policies and charts the big themes with which project managers will need to engage over the coming years.

Though some pieces of the jigsaw are still missing, the NIS responded closely to the National Infrastructure Commission’s (NIC’s) own independent analysis, with government fully or partially endorsing around 80 per cent of our recommendations. These include the 2030 deadline for the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans; a focus on decarbonising heat and placing a strategic bet on hydrogen; the need to bring more renewables on stream; and the creation of a new national infrastructure bank.

Perhaps of greatest interest to Project readers is the news that government has Project managers adopted the NIC’s recommendations will no doubt be on the importance of embedding goodkeen to embrace quality design in infrastructure projects. the valuable Project managers will no doubt be keen perspectives of to embrace the valuable perspectives of board-level design board-level design champions for all national champions for infrastructure projects, to which government all infrastructure has now committed. projects Similarly, the NIC welcomes the commitment for all major infrastructure projects to publish cost and performance data at key stages in their life cycle.

This is a significant step forward both in the transparency of major project costs during the build phase and in impact appraisal after project completion.

The framework of the NIS, alongside the new infrastructure bank, should provide greater confidence to private investors to support a market-led recovery.

There is widespread consensus that recovery should involve ‘building back better’. In addition to decarbonisation, infrastructure investment in areas such as transport and broadband roll-out should contribute to balanced economic growth across regions.

To chart the course for a long-term approach to these investments, the NIC is starting preparations for the next National Infrastructure Assessment, due to be published in 2023. This exercise will take a 20–30 year look at the UK’s economic infrastructure needs and develop a costed plan for addressing them. The first part of this assessment will be a baseline report on the state of infrastructure today. We aim to publish this in the summer, and then begin wider consultation with interested parties, including the project profession.

James Heath is chief executive of the National Infrastructure Commission

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Think about your communication strategy as a big story that needs to be told

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Think about Nelson Mandela using rugby to bring a nation together to overcome apartheid. Think about Steve Jobs talking about 1,000 songs in your pocket. Think about Barack Obama telling his fellow Americans: “Yes you can!” These leaders had a lot of things to say, but they chose a story that everyone could connect to. Before starting to think about what information needs to be delivered and to whom, it’s important to think about how you want to make them feel, and what story they need to tell themselves and others.

Think about Nelson Mandela using rugby to unite a nation in overcoming apartheid

It’s easy to lose perspective.

What seems like a benefit today becomes a burden tomorrow One of the ways of applying ‘story thinking’ for better communication is to start asking why the project is important.

What is it that you really want to achieve as a team? What are the core values?

Why are they important? How are the values and purpose actually related to the people who are going to be involved in the project? How can people feel part of the project? Once you know the answers, your communication and your message should focus only on this.

Wouldn’t it be easier if people could just see the benefits of the project?

Wouldn’t it be enough to talk about what the project will bring, and how we can all benefit from it? Sure – but remember, we’re all irrational, driven by emotions.

It’s easy to lose perspective. What seems like a benefit today becomes a burden tomorrow. You need to create a story that people can hold onto in the bad moments and when emotions are running high.

We all attach meaning to everything we do. When you create the right story, your project becomes not just another project, but the project that made a difference. Something to be remembered, something to be proud of and something that will bring meaning.

Jon Hrusa/EPA/Shutterstock

Our education taught us how to sharpen our arguments, think logically, memorise facts and develop critical thinking. It comes as no surprise, then, that when we need to communicate the elements of a project or present information, we rely on logic, facts and well-rounded arguments. But when was the last time you convinced anybody using logic and perfect arguments?

People are never convinced based only on good reasons. We need something more – motivation to act, engagement, enthusiasm, passion – and that something more is not logical at all.

Understanding has never been enough. I know that if I want to lose weight, I need to start eating healthier food, but I don’t.

Why? Because I understand what needs to be done, but I’m not motivated enough to do it. My logic is on board, but how I feel about it isn’t. We’re all irrational when it comes to making decisions.

We need emotions more than rational thinking to move us forward.

The neurologist Antonio Damasio famously researched the case of a patient called Elliot, who had a damaged frontal lobe, the part of the brain that affects the emotions. Elliot could understand

and function logically, but he did not feel emotions. Although his IQ and mental ability were intact, he couldn’t make decisions. Elliot’s life had become a nightmare. There was no trace of the bright, successful businessman he had once been. He had no job and no family, and he was living in a rented room.

Damasio came to the groundbreaking conclusion that, when emotions are impaired, so is decision-making.

What can we learn from this? That when describing a project or giving information, emotions aren’t just an accessory, because without them, people will have more difficulty acting. And how can we add the emotional edge to our communication? By applying the principles of storytelling to our communication strategy.

Think about your communication strategy as a big story that needs to be told. You know you can’t create engagement and motivation with the wrong story. So for every project that needs stakeholders on board, the right story needs to be crafted from the beginning. And the right story is the one that talks about why you do what you do, why it matters, what it means to you and the stakeholders, the difference it will make, and why people will be proud of it.

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TIME TO SHOW OUR WORTH

Debbie Dore is APM’s chief executive

As the APM board turns its mind to reviewing and refreshing our current strategy to ensure it is fit for the coming recovery, and all the changes it will bring, we are all looking forward to moving on to the next phase. This work to adjust our current activity and plan for the future is well underway.

Our activity builds on an emerging strong evidence base that public and political appreciation of the value of good project delivery and highly competent project professionals has never been more evident.

Think Nightingale hospitals. Think ventilators. And more recently, the development and delivery of the vaccine programme.

and the net-zero carbon challenge, the need for and profile of project professionalism have never been so high.

It is not just in government and its supply chain that we see this, but also across many sectors as organisations adapt to a different future and way of working. Soon we will reach 2,000 Chartered Project Professionals, and applications for membership continue to increase.

An emphasis on success

These developments represent a huge opportunity, but also require the profession to step up to meet this challenge and really show our worth. A higher profile brings with it a greater obligation to demonstrate success. APM is committed to the challenge. We have launched our online qualification programme; are revamping our competence framework and updating the content and relevance of our CPD programme and learning materials; and are investing in project leadership

standards, sustainability content, data and digital capability and much more.

Our spring membership survey will ensure we continue to capture your views on the way ahead and feed that into the strategy.

We want APM to be the focus of discussions, debates and networking to collaborate across a variety sectors for our profession. Two examples of this come to mind. First, the recent virtual Corporate Partner Forum, where over 1,000 contributors from our corporate partners took part in a series of virtual sessions on a variety of topics. Second, the Hub, our new digital interactive forum allowing members to debate peer-to-peer on whatever is important to them. We’ve just passed the 2,000-user barrier, which is great, but we really want the Hub to become the marketplace for members to collaborate, engage and share ideas.

Despite the turmoil of the past year, as professionals we remain resilient and well positioned to show the true value we can add.

Our rocketing profile

The recent comments by Dame Sue Owen, a former top Whitehall mandarin, that a key lesson from COVID-19 is that delivery professionals need to be involved at an earlier and more strategic level in government policy development is surely a lightbulb moment. Such observations come at a key juncture.

We are seeing the importance of project delivery – both in terms of capability and capacity – rising as a priority within the UK government. It is also central to the recommendations of the government’s National Infrastructure Strategy, published just before Christmas. With the launch of the Government Project Academy in February and an increasing focus on key challenges like levelling up

APM strategy review APM’s five-year strategy is nearing its end and is currently being reviewed. Launched in 2017, the current strategy was implemented to reflect APM’s new status as a chartered body and to support members with the challenges faced by a changing and complex world.

The new strategy, launching in 2022, will build on the successes of the past five years with the addition of new enhanced perspectives. It will continue to help us support our charitable objective of advancing the science, theory and practice of project and programme management for the public benefit. APM members have already contributed to our new strategy in many ways, including participation in research activity, such as our Projecting the Future series, The Golden Thread and the Salary and Market Trends Survey.

The discovery phase of the review will also include acquiring fresh input from members and the wider project community via our annual Membership Satisfaction Research survey, which will be sent out via email during March.

We are grateful to everyone who has already contributed and look forward to engaging with others in our ongoing review.

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n a year that optimism seemed to have forgotten, something of a miracle happened at the end of 2020. Not only was the world’s first vaccine against COVID-19 ready for use, but it was ready ahead of schedule – the UK being the first western country to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on 2 December. Suddenly the end of the pandemic felt within grasp.

But while vaccines are cause for celebration, their creation is only the first step in a complex series of operations to lead humankind out of danger. Now, project managers across multiple industries face their biggest challenge: how to get the vaccine out there and into peoples’ arms safely, successfully and at speed.

Right: Nadhim Zahawi visits the first London pharmacy to offer the vaccine.

Below: Chief medical officer Chris Whitty

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While the UK already has a workflow in place for regular vaccines, the COVID-19 programme is on an entirely different scale. And with more than 100,000 deaths recorded, it’s a race against time. The Pfizer vaccine (and those approved since) therefore requires an entirely new plan of action.

“It’s comparable to building a massive factory – it’s of a scale that is quite unusual, which presents the biggest challenge for the roll-out,” says Alex Budzier, co-founder of Oxford Global Projects and a fellow at Saïd Business School. Ordinarily, a project of this size might follow a common set of stages, he explains. “You would begin by asking: what is the policy intent?

Or, in the private sector, what is the strategy we need to realise? It takes an experienced manager to determine what the project actually requires that we do – and you would start from the end user backwards.”

Overseeing the UK’s vaccination strategy is a small group of decisionmakers, with many more managerial coordinators below them. At the top of the chain is the government’s designated vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, who was appointed ahead of the roll-out in December. Zahawi is assisted by experts including the chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, whose job is to communicate the scientific view – which will in turn influence the

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decision-making process regarding who is vaccinated, how and when.

But the day-to-day organisation of the project sits with Dr Emily Lawson, chief commercial officer for NHS England, who helped to coordinate the distribution of masks, gloves, gowns and aprons to hospitals at the height of the pandemic’s first wave. She is now the senior responsible officer for the vaccination programme, in charge of signing off instructions to vaccination centres.

“This programme facilitates a very complex supply chain going from a local level to the other end, where Dr Lawson will likely talk to vaccine manufacturers and even the researchers that feed into this when it comes to answering questions like: do we have to retool the vaccine to deal with new strains of the virus,” says Budzier. “Knowing how the NHS sometimes struggles with the roll-out of these programmes in what is an extremely federated system

“Everybody is learning as they go along... the needs changed quite a lot, and the goalposts were constantly moving”

with centralised decision-making, I’m not sure how much direct control Dr Lawson will have, but it will certainly be her head on the chopping block.”

NHS advantages

That the UK has such a centralised public healthcare system can play to the project’s advantage, too. As of November 2020, the NHS oversees the equivalent of 35,395 full-time GPs working in approximately 8,500 practices. Being able to notify every practice on the latest developments and guidance at the click of a button no doubt expedites delivery and the administration involved in notifying patients for appointments.

It has also enabled the 50 NHS trusts to ready themselves for the vaccination programme. Melanie Bagot, project manager at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, explains how her team opted for lean methodologies and in particular the Toyota Way principles as a guideline when planning for their own hospital and healthcare hubs’ vaccine roll-out.

“The most effective way of getting patients through the system without any stops is through what we call ‘one

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Main: The RAF assisted at the Ludlow racecourse vaccination centre.

Left: Margaret Keenan, 90, the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Below left: People queue for the vaccine in Stevenage

PA Images; Getty Images; Alamy

“It’s not a massive shock to our industry, because we’ve been moving medicinal products on dry ice for many years”

piece flow’. So we’ll look at the flow of something and remove as much waste from the system as possible,” she says.

Bagot’s team conducted several dry runs of the vaccination roll-out, and after receiving instruction from Lawson in November, project managers used the staff vaccination days as a wet run to measure exactly how the public vaccinations might go.

Key to making this strategy work is “empowering staff to make the changes, so that we are working with them, not telling them what to do,” says Bagot.

“It’s been difficult, because everybody is learning as they go along – from a modelling perspective, the needs changed quite a lot, and the goalposts were constantly moving. But I think of it as a bit like a wedding in that you can only do so much preparation work before the big day comes. Eventually you’ve just got to go for it.”

In the UK, NHS policy leaders have organised users into 10 priority groups, ensuring the oldest and most vulnerable (care home residents and their carers) are vaccinated first, followed by the over-80s and frontline health workers.

There are several reasons why the UK is following this approach, explains Peter English, a consultant in communicable disease control and former chair of the British Medical Association’s public health medicine committee: “There are broadly two strategies: one is to protect the people who might be seriously ill if they get it, and the other is to vaccinate the people most likely to spread it.”

Supply, supply, supply

Largely, the decision comes down to the supply chain. On paper, quantity should not be an issue: the British government negotiated several months ago to pre-order 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 315 million doses of competing vaccines. But they take time to produce, and pharmaceutical companies are under pressure to distribute products fairly across the globe.

“If we could vaccinate the whole of the population in three or four weeks

and that was going to prevent spread, starting with the workforce would be a good strategy. The reality is, the vaccine is trickling in. The trickle is going to become more of a stream, but never a flood,” says English. While the motivation behind the vaccination programme is to prevent illness and death, there is the hope that it will also slow transmission (as indicated by preliminary research published in February).

With end users prioritised, the next step is to line up resources – that is, the nurses and practitioners who administer the jabs – and determine what they might require. “That is then translated into the next step, which is the physical deliverables,” says Budzier. Supplies must be gathered and distributed across every corner of the country, from syringes to the chairs that people will sit on, to determining and allocating the buildings where the vaccinations will be given.

At the centre is the supply chain, and Amy Shortman, director of product marketing at logistics company Overhaul, is quick to point out that manufacturers are well aware of the challenges involved and well placed to address them. “It’s not a massive shock to our industry, because we’ve been moving medicinal products on dry ice for many years,” she explains. “But the difference here is the value and quantity of the product needed, so risks are elevated; while the clinical trials were happening, they were also planning the massive increase in manufacturing that was going to be required.”

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With clinical testing complete, the biggest burden falls on project managers tasked with planning and preparing the distribution, she explains.

“This means looking at freight capacity and the lanes via which the products are moving.” While other vaccines like seasonal flu drugs can be transported by ocean freight, the COVID-19 vaccine is both fragile and more urgent, and must go by air. “With a reduction in passenger flights, suppliers needed to make sure they could secure cargo space on aircraft,” Shortman says.

It’s common for vaccines to be kept cold – most need to be stored and transported at 2–8°C. But for the Pfizer vaccine to be delivered most effectively, its ingredients need to be kept extremely cold at -70°C. The Moderna vaccine must also be kept frozen at -20°C. To make things trickier, the Pfizer vaccine does not arrive ready for use: it is transported in demi-jugs, several litres in size, ready for UK manufacturers to organise into the individual vials sent out to GP practices – a stage called ‘fill and finish’.

“COVID-19 vaccines have to move from the point of manufacture or the point of harvest all the way to the consumer’s arm in a continuous, seamless chain with temperature control,” explains Toby Peters, a professor at the University of Birmingham and expert on the cold economy. “In countries where it’s not manufactured, it will need to land at an airport at the correct temperature and move to a big warehouse.”

A high-risk endeavour

Tracking and tracing is also used to protect the precious cargo from theft and tampering. “When you think about the relatively small volume being deployed, this is a high-value item,” says Peters.

“That becomes highly complicated and challenging, particularly in rural communities with poor infrastructure.”

The technology available to suppliers to ensure the vaccine is kept safe and trackable is as high-tech as you would expect for a high-risk industry. AI can be used to ensure the product is traceable and temperature controlled.

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A paramedic aboard a holiday coach being used as a mobile vaccination centre. Left: The vaccine arrives at a surgery in the West Midlands

And yet, despite this, the UK’s vaccine roll-out was slow to start, with the government coming under fire.

“The problem is, vaccines are biological products and every batch must be tested,” explains English. “The biosecurity risks are enormous – if you find something that shouldn’t be there, that entire batch has to be discarded.”

When doing things as fast as possible, that is inevitable, he adds: “The alternative is delaying everything and not doing it until you have a stockpile.

The right thing to do when we’re talking about saving lives is to go as fast as possible and accept that there will be glitches from time to time.”

Peters believes that government ministers most likely overlooked or didn’t fully appreciate the scale of the project required to organise a cold chain for the Pfizer vaccine once on UK soil – resulting in the delays seen at the end of 2020. “The day we started designing the vaccine, we should have started to design the cold chains to deliver it, because it was obvious we would need one,” he says.

Given that the Pfizer vaccine is produced in Belgium, many feared

“Vaccines have to move from the point of manufacture all the way to the consumer’s arm in a continuous, seamless chain”

Brexit might have an impact on getting the supplies through the border. And yet, Shortman says, those involved in the vaccine supply chain “haven’t really noticed any issues. My opinion is that’s because distribution… has been very much within the public domain, ie the NHS. It’s been very efficient in their hands because they are used to doing this on a yearly basis with the flu.”

There are also contingency plans in place: vaccines are placed in the same high-priority category as lifedependent medicines and insulin, ensuring that should a hold-up occur as a result of the UK border with Europe, military planes can be deployed to pick up the supplies instead.

Creative thinking needed

Back at home, creative thinking is required to make the physical space available to vaccinate at such a large scale. Alongside GP practices and

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“This is not a one-off… this is not just getting someone to the moon and back, this is establishing a regular tourism to the moon” other healthcare centres, seven NHS Vaccine Centres have been set up in buildings such as Millennium Point in Birmingham and the London Excel Centre. Other local centres approved for use include football stadia, supermarket car parks, empty department stores and even cathedrals.

To help ready some of these centres, the military have been called in. In England, a Vaccine Quick Reaction Force has been set up with the army, made up of medically trained personnel. The force comprises 42 teams, which will support each of the seven regions that the NHS runs.

Trained volunteers from both St John Ambulance and the NHS Volunteer Responder scheme will also be on hand – more than 80,000 of whom had completed the clinical training

by January.

Army personnel helped to assist Bagot’s team set up a large vaccination centre at Navigation Walk in Wakefield, which she says had the added benefit of both teams being able to share information on successful approaches.

“We learned a lot from the army because they had already been working

in some of the other mass vaccination sites in Leeds and Newcastle,” she explains.

What’s increasingly clear is that this is a project that will take several years, not months. The Pfizer vaccine so far does not guarantee long-term immunity, and it’s likely that future rounds of vaccination will be required once the first one is complete. For these reasons, Budzier believes it’s crucial that project managers don’t drop the ball once the initial targets are reached. “One thing we see often in big projects like this is that the big figures – getting to two million vaccines a week for example – can drive very short-term thinking,” he cautions. “Once we’ve achieved mass vaccination, and businesses want their airport or their football stadium back, we have to realise that this is not a one-off event… this is not just getting someone to the moon and back, this is establishing a regular tourism to the moon for the time being.”

Industry observers view this as an opportunity to build a stronger, more resilient vaccination programme that can be utilised in the long term. Cold chains, for example, once designed, can provide a blueprint for future pandemics, and future COVID-19 vaccines could be incorporated into the annual flu jab planning.

“Realistically, we’ve still got another two to three years of this initial rollout from a global point of view, and stability around future planning is really critical,” says Shortman. “But if we’re going to be living with this virus for a long time – and the likelihood is we will be – we’re pretty well set up for it.”

hen the government’s Vaccine Task Force was created in April 2020, it had three objectives: secure access to the most promising vaccines for UK citizens as quickly as possible; make provisions for international distribution for fair access across continents; and establish a longerterm vaccine strategy.

To ensure that we are better prepared for future health crises of this scale, three permanent sites for long-term vaccine manufacturing have been set up across the country. This commitment to funding epidemicpreparedness is a big step, and puts the UK in a stronger position.

But an equally important part of protecting the UK population’s health is to support similar projects in the developing world.

Jenny Ottenhoff, senior programme director for the ONE charity, explains: “Leaders need to understand that their responsibility to their citizens hinges on how the world responds to COVID-19 and not just on how they respond within their borders.”

Ensuring fairer distribution of the available vaccines across lower-income countries is not only ethical, but will also help us overcome the virus faster.

“There’s pretty solid evidence to show the impact of the pandemic will continue so long as the virus is continuing unchecked in less developed corners of the world,” says Ottenhoff.

Fortunately, the UK is leading the way. A ‘vaccine access test’ devised by ONE to measure distribution fairness takes into account financial contributions, policies and multilateral leadership.

The UK and South Africa rank top.

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aving spent most of my life travelling the globe at the request of Her Majesty’s Government, I have experienced some unique locations under some very interesting conditions.

Flying larger aircraft in the RAF, there was little of the world that I did not get to see – yet no place fascinated me more than Antarctica. My curiosity was piqued during several deployments to the Falkland Islands, when I would fly further south into the Antarctic Circle. Yet Antarctica itself seemed tantalisingly out of reach.

After leaving the Armed Forces, it took me several years to remember that what I really enjoyed was the challenge of project management. In the latter part of my Service career, I had become increasingly involved in portfolio, programme and project management.

This culminated in me becoming the senior responsible owner for the RAF’s A400M Atlas airlifter programme at a time when delivery of the first aircraft was imminent.

After a few years out of uniform, serendipity brought me to Cambridge, home of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a small organisation of about 450 people, comprising scientists, operations and engineering personnel,

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corporate services, an innovation team and a capital works project management team. I eventually joined the team as director of the UK Antarctic Infrastructure Modernisation Programme (AIMP), a programme of work to modernise the facilities and equipment used by BAS in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic.

What’s it all about?

The AIMP programme began in 2013 with an announcement that the UK The airstrip at Rothera.

Below: New Bransfield House, one of many buildings within the base.

would replace its existing Royal Research Vessels with a new vessel, the Sir David Attenborough (aka Boaty McBoatface). Almost twice the size of any ship operated by BAS before, it brought a requirement to enlarge and enhance the infrastructure to support it. New wharves were commissioned for the research stations at King Edward Point in South Georgia and Rothera in Antarctica. Subsequently, a further major project was commissioned to re-provide the facilities of six buildings at Rothera in a new science and operations building, along with an ambitious target to reduce fossil fuel usage on-station by over 30 per cent.

As if the challenge was not daunting enough, a further phase of modernisation was proposed that will replace the largest BAS aircraft, enhance the runway at Rothera, construct a new hangar and make an even larger contribution to reaching net zero carbon in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic.

A very special environment

While commercial aviation can get you to the very tip of South America, Africa or Australasia, that last haul to Antarctica over the southern oceans, sea ice and towering mountains brings

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home how far away from civilisation you are.

This remoteness has many implications for programme planning, beside the simple logistical ones. In an environment where temperatures dip to something you might reasonably expect on the edge of space, with winds as strong as anywhere on the planet and with leopard seals and orca thrown in for good measure, we put the safety of the team first. The implications of an accident are magnified by the fact that, at best, the nearest proper hospital is a five-hour flight away. Even then, that supposes that an aircraft is available and the weather good enough to fly in.

Active risk management is key, and while we mitigate to a tolerable and ‘as low as reasonably practicable’ (ALARP) level, we are all human and accidents happen. Post-incident actions are layered from triage of a casualty in our own medical facility through to a multinational response, as was the case when the Australian Antarctic Division evacuated an expeditioner from their base at Davis on Christmas Eve 2020, with Chinese and US support.

It is also a very long way to go for a missing bolt or spare part, or to find someone with a particular skill set. In planning the new wharves, our construction partner BAM Nuttall elected to pre-assemble the steel framework in the UK, before disassembling and transporting the structures to Rothera and King Edward Point. The result was that both wharves were completed to schedule and on budget.

When risks become issues

When COVID-19 arrived, I was just returning from my last review of Rothera and the island stations. BAS took an operational decision to return our Antarctic summer team earlier than planned, which curtailed the activity to lay the floor and foundations for the new science and operations building, the Discovery Building. It was the right decision, but it left an even bigger challenge – to complete the floor and outer structure to a weatherproof state in a single season.

The implications of not completing

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The wharves need to be protected to resist sea ice between build seasons.

Above: The King Edward Point wharf team.

a planned build before winter snow arrives is substantial. Snow will penetrate even the smallest opening and has the potential to destroy a building or vehicle from the inside.

Fortunately, by returning our team to the UK in April 2020 by ship rather than plane, we had proved that this means of transport was feasible. Yes, it is more expensive, takes longer and people costs are higher, but it is an ultimate form of self-isolation, both safe and controllable. By the end of March 2021, against all the odds, we will have completed the groundwork for construction of the new building to start in November 2021, limiting the delay to a single year, minimising the associated risks and bounding costs.

Environmental sensitivities

We are in Antarctica because the continent has been largely untouched by human intervention. We study the

environment to unlock its secrets.

A great example is ice core drilling.

By drilling through accumulations of undisturbed ice, it is possible to analyse the carbon and gases contained in each ice slice to gain an insight into the environment at that point in time.

So far, we have travelled back almost one million years by drilling over 800m, but a new project by the ice dynamics and palaeoclimate team aims to go further still.

The impact of our construction work on the local environment and wildlife is at the heart of our planning.

Site investigations and surveys help me work with our technical advisers to mature concepts and initial designs. This is followed by rigorous environmental approval through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and then the international Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP).

This process is necessary to protect the unique status of Antarctica, but it is lengthy, with some approvals taking two or more years. Only once an environmental permit is issued can work be committed to, making long-term scheduling complex. In any normal project, this would be less of a factor, because the supply chain is close at hand and work could begin in reasonable order; this is clearly not the case in Antarctica.

No ordinary job

As an aside, a little-known point is that, as no one country owns Antarctica, it is essentially unregulated other than by the consensus that COMNAP creates.

While UK laws and regulations do not apply to our claim on the British Antarctic Territory, we strive to ensure that what we do meets UK standards.

A good example is how our safety governance board has challenged us to define a fire strategy for the Discovery Building and to test cladding, to demonstrate that we have learned lessons from Grenfell Tower, and that we are both tolerable and ALARP in our safety case.

At around seven months (at best), the window to build is finite at Rothera, so project management,

Antarctica, 2 © Hugh Broughton Architects

The implications of not completing a planned build before winter snow arrives is substantial. Snow has the potential to destroy a building from the inside

planning, procurement and shipping must be sharp – a delay can cost not just a lost week, but a lost year.

And therein lies the real challenge.

Time taken to achieve approvals can have a disproportionate impact on the programme schedule. Miss the application window in the annual process, and you may not have lost one season, but two or more. So, our work needs to go on in parallel.

For construction projects, we follow the RIBA Plan of Work, which organises the process of briefing, designing, constructing and operating building projects into eight stages. This allows us to continue to progress each project within the programme and also provides the framework for governance sign-off between stages, consistent with the Government Soft Landings approach.

In this area, we are maturing our processes, having learned from earlier projects, and taking this experience into Phase 2 will be key to mitigate risks associated with environmental approvals, government spending plans and operational deployment restrictions. Another interesting aspect of a fixed construction period is that, between build seasons, plant requires ‘winterisation’ and the wharves need

to be protected to resist sea ice and icebergs in the spring. Construction in the Antarctic is no ordinary job.

Everyone is a stakeholder

At BAS, the whole organisation is unified by a common purpose. This is inspiring as a member of the team, because you don’t need to sell what you are trying to do – everyone is committed to the cause. However, everyone also has a view, because they are so passionate about the outcome and benefits from all that we do, not just the construction, equipment or change projects we deliver.

The old adage that you can never communicate enough certainly holds true within BAS and our parent organisations, UK Research and Innovation and the Natural Environment Research Council. A significant part of my role is to try and gain clarity and consensus on the user

Modernisation of Rothera Research Station includes the construction of the Discovery Building. Above: Aurora at the Halley VI Research Station on the Brunt ice shelf

requirement, and there can be tensions between the parent organisations as the capability owner and BAS as the operator. This challenge is made more complex when the requirement for BAS to represent the UK’s interest in Antarctica, rather than just carrying out its role as a science organisation, is overlayed. To overcome these internal challenges, good processes and governance are key, with clear accountability, helping those who want to contribute to projects to do so through key focal points.

In it together

While BAS has a small but maturing project management capability, with its own PMO of around 20 people, it alone cannot deliver the totality of the construction and equipment projects planned over the next decade, so we have established long-term partnering relationships with a polar technical

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advisor, Ramboll, and a construction partner, BAM Nuttall, for Phase 1 projects. Together we have a core team that is completely integrated. There is total transparency in all that we do, and we critique each other through a monthly KPI process. While COVID-19 has caused us to change our ways of working, the core team from all three parties and subcontractors, SWECO and Turner & Townsend, remains totally integrated.

Before we deploy south, each season we undertake structured teambuilding and induct those who have not been to Antarctica before into the challenges of the environment and the culture of BAS. It is this close and collaborative relationship that not only delivers the best team member for the job, but also helps address emerging challenges in the office or on deployment and enables successful project delivery. Our experience of this close and collaborative way of working

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It’s not a good sign when your stakeholders make faces like this

has led us to sign up to the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Project 13, where we are sharing our experience and learning from others.

Lessons from experience

I could wax lyrical about my programme of works, but I would identify three key points from my experience. First, no plan withstands first contact with the enemy. While it is impractical to ‘what if’ every scenario, doing the hard work to identify your vulnerabilities early will at least attune

you so that you are alert to the risks.

Don’t do so in isolation; include the team who will have to work with you to resolve the challenge when it comes – and if you can, practise that ‘fast ball’.

Second, it’s more than stakeholder engagement – it is about true collaboration. Having worked in a military organisation, I thought that I could never find another one that would have such a common purpose.

If you can instil that purpose in your partners and your sponsors, then there is no challenge that cannot be overcome, and there will be no issue with getting support for your project.

And finally, keep it real. One thing that delivering projects in Antarctica has taught me already is that even a pragmatic plan is probably overly optimistic. Being realistic and having contingency (schedule, scope and cost) is essential, but also remember who you are delivering for and be sure that the legacy you leave is fit for the future.

TIPS ON DEALING WITH ISOLATION, ANTARCTICA-STYLE

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Prepare if you can.

While COVID-19 plunged us into self-isolation, preparing for a period of isolation is preferable. We induct all those who deploy into this extreme environment with the skills needed to keep them safe and to prepare them psychologically.

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Build the team before deployment. Your key relationships will always be with those whom you deploy with, your own team and others who will share your remote world. We use specific team-building events, but the military call this ‘pre-deployment training’. ‘Forming, storming, norming, performing’ remains as true today as when Bruce Tuckman identified it in 1965.

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Cultural and contextual sensitivity. When you join others who have been isolated from

the rest of the world for almost a year, respecting their evolved culture and norms is important.

Equally, the Antarctic environment itself needs to be respected, not just in terms of extremes of weather, but in protecting its pristine status.

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Have a heartbeat. Planned catch-ups and feedback sets the weekly rhythm. It prevents distractions from the challenge of delivery, further empowers the team, and manages expectation about upward reporting.

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Goal clarity. Being clear about what is required of the whole team before work starts brings a focus on what needs to be achieved.

The team can be effective from day one, maximising its effectiveness.

Empower the team. Goal clarity empowers the team to operate dynamically to overcome challenges and deliver in the most appropriate way. No one is better placed to understand the challenge than the team on the ground who face it, but being able to get support when it is needed is also key.

Stay connected. Keep the deployed team included in routine business. Even though they may be at the end of the earth, they are still connected and location is no longer a blocker to team inclusion and participation.

Share in success. We have a local award called the ‘Elephant Seal of Excellence’. It’s corny, and the award itself is an unremarkable model of an elephant seal on a rock, yet it is coveted by all. Everyone knows what it stands for, and it unifies the team, wherever they are, to strive to be the best.

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The National Audit Office is responsible for scrutinising the government’s major projects, from HS2 to Test and Trace.

With billions being spent on programmes to help us through the pandemic and to rebuild the economy afterwards, Andrew Saunders meets the man keeping a close eye on it all

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o major government projects – from long-running epics like HS2 and HMS Queen Elizabeth to unanticipated new arrivals like the government’s furlough scheme and the vaccine roll-out – represent good value for money? Why do some end up late, over budget or beset by operational problems, while others seem to progress with barely a hitch? And ultimately, how can all such projects be better managed in the future?

These are, by any standard, important questions, albeit tricky to answer. However, with 125 major programmes currently underway, representing expenditure of around £450bn of taxpayers’ money, it’s vital that we attempt to do so. So says Gareth Davies, head of the body that does just that, the National Audit Office (NAO).

“Major projects are a big theme of our work, especially on the value-formoney side, simply because of how much public money is involved and the levels of risk over many years in these contracts. In the 18 months I have been here, we have reported on HS2, the

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full-fibre broadband upgrade across the country and major defence projects.”

Davies (whose impressive job title is comptroller and auditor general) explains that the NAO’s work is split into two parts: audit – making sure the government accounts are accurate and coherent – and value for money, the higher-profile analysis work that earns the NAO its oft-applied ‘spending watchdog’ sobriquet.

The audit side is essentially similar to the work done by accountants in the private sector, albeit complicated by the sheer breadth of government activities.

“We audit every government department and some arm’s length bodies like the BBC too. It’s a third of the economy – a very substantial chunk of money.” The only bit the NAO doesn’t directly audit is local government.

But it’s the spending watchdog side that gives the NAO its unique role in helping not only to improve the quality of work done by the government, but also to hold it accountable for expenditure. “We also look at value for money. The reason you have that in

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the public sector is that, in the private sector, if you don’t like the way a company is being run, you can withdraw your investments or stop being a customer. In the public sector, you have to pay your taxes; you can’t withdraw your investment, whatever you think.”

The NAO’s remit is thus wider than major projects alone, covering an eye-watering £1.7 trillion of public expenditure in the year 2019–2020. But the nature of government means that major projects are widely distributed across Whitehall, from the Department of Transport to the Home Office. They inevitably attract a good deal of NAO attention, frequently more than once.

“Because of the length of some projects we will come back repeatedly – so we’ll be reporting again on Crossrail later this year, for instance, which has already had NAO coverage in previous years.”

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t’s a lot of ground to cover – as well as poring over 400 government accounts and producing 42 value-formoney reports in the last complete financial year, the NAO audits the BBC, Welsh language TV broadcaster S4C, the Financial Reporting Council and the multibillion-pound project to restore the Palace of Westminster. It also routinely produces material to service two hearings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) every week.

The PAC, of course, is that famous gladiatorial forum where senior civil servants, and even the occasional big company boss, are put under the spotlight by a cross-party group of MPs alive to any hint of profligacy with the public purse. “We provide the technical scrutiny and the politicians provide the parliamentary scrutiny – that combination is potentially very powerful.”

Davies and his 850-strong team thus enjoy a rare hilltop view across the whole of government and have amassed a substantial body of expertise in their field. “I don’t think anyone is going to put us in charge of delivering a major new railway, but that’s not our job. Our job is to understand how well these things are being put together and I think

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CV: Gareth Davies 2019 Comptroller and auditor general, NAO 2012 Partner and head of public service practice, Mazars 2010 Managing director, audit practice, Audit Commission 2002 Regional director, Audit Commission 1987 Trainee auditor, Audit Commission 1984 MA mathematics, University of Cambridge

people acknowledge that we have real credibility in reviewing projects.”

Davies is hardly lacking in credibility or experience himself. He trained as an accountant and started out as a trainee auditor for the now defunct Audit Commission – formerly the local government equivalent to the NAO – where he spent 25 years, followed by a stint in the private sector. He returned to the public sector in June 2019 when he joined the NAO in his current role.

“I’ve been auditing public money for 33 years. It’s always been a really interesting challenge – how do you achieve these important objectives with limited resources? The NAO has to be independent. You can’t give an independent assessment of how well a project has been run if it has your fingerprints all over it.”

Appropriately enough, the NAO has just produced a short paper pithily entitled Lessons Learned from Major Programmes, which contains some important insights into what makes a good – or bad - programme (see page 54).

“Many of the problems we find have been baked in very early on, in the planning phase. Problems around scope and being realistic about cost and timetable. Quite rightly, there’s a lot of political pressure on civil servants to deliver manifesto promises, but sometimes that butts up against engineering reality or the availability of resources.”

“We’re encouraging greater transparency and honesty here... otherwise you are doomed to always be explaining why you haven’t met the original budget”

■ Read Project’s summary of the NAO’s Lessons Learned from Major Programmes on page 54

What can project managers contribute to the process? Davies highlights the key findings. “Solving that problem of promising everything to everyone and failing is crucial.

So, clarity on scope up front, and also on competing priorities. One of the things that distinguishes publicsector projects is the need to balance competing priorities, so be really clear about what these are and what order they are in. If something has to give, what should it be?”

On the other side of the table, there needs to be more willingness to recognise the contingent nature of early cost and schedule estimates.

“The information you have at the start of these big projects is not going to be perfect. That means that you can’t set a fixed cost and delivery date, or if you need a fixed delivery date, like for London 2012, then it’s going to have implications – you may well have to compromise on cost to get there.”

Consequently, the NAO is taking a leaf from the private sector’s book, in particular the oil industry, where degrees of budget uncertainty are recognised explicitly by providing ranges rather than single-figure estimates. The

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well managed. Also, the jobs retention scheme – it was genuinely impressive that millions of people could have their income supported within weeks of having identified the need to do that.”

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greater the range, the more provisional the estimate and the more imperfect the information used to create it, so the spread should narrow as a programme progresses and better data becomes available. “We’re encouraging greater transparency and honesty here, because otherwise you are doomed to always be explaining why you haven’t met the original budget.”

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n the spirit of trying to put its own work under the same kind of critical spotlight it shines on others, one of the first things Davies did when he took over the top spot was to instigate a strategic review of the NAO’s activities.

The result was a five-year plan centred on three key priorities – first, to improve their ‘bread and butter’ audit work with higher-quality and highertech processes; second, to produce more insightful, practical and timely recommendations on how public services can be improved; and third, to make the NAO’s learning and insight more accessible and easier to digest.

“We know a huge amount about how government operates and what is and isn’t working well. The review told us that we should be sharing more of

“We all have to pay our taxes... so giving some kind of assurance that people are doing their best to use that money well feels like a really important job to do” this knowledge and synthesising it in a way that is more useful and accessible to practitioners.” So, as well as its regular and highly detailed full reports, the NAO is also producing a range of more timely and concise condensed learnings, of which the aforementioned Lesson Learned... series is one example. “There’s more of that coming across things like digital, which are common to all areas of government,” he says.

The role of the NAO has arguably become more important than ever during the pandemic, a crisis which has resulted in unprecedented amounts of public money being spent at equally unprecedented speed. Davies says that, as ever, there have been good and bad outcomes, but that overall the response has been remarkable. “Take the vaccine roll-out; some very good commercial judgments were made there very early on. There was risk, but it was

n the other side, the NAO’s analysis of Test and Trace in November found that it was failing to hit its targets despite huge costs of £22bn.

“The approach was taken to stand that up from scratch. It was a different kind of challenge because we had nothing like that capacity before; you couldn’t scale up existing processes. But we do think some opportunities were missed – how well were local expertise and existing public health capacity built on?”

Passing judgment on such politically sensitive issues inevitably puts Davies in the spotlight, despite the image of auditors as perhaps the quintessential backroom experts. How does he feel about being the public face of the profession? “It’s not why I do my job, but I do enjoy explaining what we do. We all have to pay our taxes and it’s a big chunk of what everyone earns.

So giving some kind of assurance that people are doing their best to use that money well feels like a really important job to do.”

It’s also a vital part of his responsibility to his team. “Motivating people to get the best out of them in the public sector is about impact – people aren’t motivated by bonuses, because they aren’t available. If you ask almost anyone who works for the NAO, they will say they joined because they want to make a difference to something that is important,” he concludes. “That kind of energy in the organisation is really exciting.”

The NAO’s next big step? Gearing up for zero net-carbon emissions, a major hurdle, but one where Davies believes it’s particularly important to set an example. “We are aiming to be net zero by 2029. We’ve got the same challenges as everybody else, but we are planning to do it. We push ourselves pretty hard, because if we can’t demonstrate that we do it to ourselves, then people won’t listen to us when we review them.”

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Clockwise from main: The funerary mask of Tutankhamun; the colossal statue of Ramses II; a bird’s-eye view of the Grand Museum complex; the museum overlooks the iconic Pyramids site

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THE NEW JEWEL IN EGYPT’S CROWN

The planned opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza later this year marks an internationally important event for a country that’s also enjoying a project boom, reports Emma De Vita

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he Grand Egyptian Museum is preparing for its delayed grand opening this summer.

It will cover 3,500 years of ancient Egyptian history and house more than 100,000 artefacts, displaying Tutankhamun’s complete treasure of around 5,600 pieces for the first time since his intact tomb was discovered in 1922. The hope is that the museum, at a cost of roughly $1bn, will become part of the Pyramids tourist experience.

The museum’s opening is symbolic of Egypt’s determination to kick-start its tourist economy. It is also the jewel in the crown of the country’s numerous large-scale projects.

It’s boom time for project management in Egypt, says Muir Smith, country director for Gleeds Construction Consultancy. Usually based in Cairo, the Scot tries to conjure up the excitement of working in the hot and dusty capital while speaking on video call during lockdown from Glasgow. “It’s the land of big projects,” he says. “Over the past 10 years the

level and pace of infrastructure projects has been breathtaking.”

Projects include a programme of 14 new cities that started with New Cairo, with the latest including the likes of the new administrative capital and the new city of El-Alamein on the Mediterranean coast. Egypt also wants to attract international business travellers, opening convention centres including one under construction at Sharm-el-Sheikh. The focus for 2021, however, is the museum, says Smith: “It’s almost impossible for anything to overshadow that.”

World’s first project manager Project management has a long history in Egypt. In 2013, papyrus fragments were discovered in caves on the Red Sea coast, 100km from the plateau of Giza where the Great Pyramid was constructed 4,500 years ago. They contained the logbook of a middleranking official called Inspector Merer, who has since claimed the title of ‘world’s first project manager’.

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(but not one available to every project manager, unfortunately).

Working on an internationally important museum with such an ingenious architectural design means that the project “will take time and cost a lot”. The high-tech galleries, for example, require specialised knowledge from experts drawn from around the globe. Abdel-Fattah says maintaining a balance between managing the technical complexities and keeping workers happy is critical.

There are many things he has learnt working on this project, but the most important is that “the more time you spend on quality and coordination during the very early stages of the project, the easier it makes your life.

Having said this, you cannot control everything!”

He not only logged the details of the construction project, but also referred to the head of works (aka the world’s first programme manager) Ankhhaf, Pharoah Khufu’s half-brother, who was overseeing the entire construction.

Managing construction projects is nothing new, then, for Egyptians, but things have moved swiftly for project management since the 2010s. “Egypt has learnt a lot in the past decade,” says Smith’s Egyptian colleague Sherif Sweillam, also a director at Gleeds.

“When we first started, the idea of project management was limited in Egypt, but nowadays I don’t think that any project we work on at a major scale would not have a project manager on board.”

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Waleed Abdel-Fattah is the senior vice president and Africa managing director at global project management consultancy Hill International. He has more than 20 years’ experience in the construction and management of complex capital projects. As project lead on the Grand Egyptian Museum, he appreciates that this is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime project.

Abdel-Fattah has been involved with the project from 2010. When he speaks to Project in January, he says the construction and fit-out of the museum is 98 per cent complete. While the pandemic meant international subcontractors slowed down early in 2020, work carried on with the local teams on-site. With everyone back in place, the summer 2021 opening date remains a realistic prospect.

“You can see all the statues along the grand stairs… the museum is nearly there,” he says. The state-of-the art conservation centre, connected to the museum by a tunnel, is filled with museum pieces that have been restored and are ready to be moved into the galleries. “When you see a building this good, so well designed and with so

“Everybody feels that projects inevitably go over budget... As we know, with good project management, it is not inevitable”

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Something special

The new museum is a state-of-the-art, glass and concrete display space – some of the galleries have 20m-high ceilings to show off Egypt’s ancient artefacts in grand style

much sophistication, it’s a one-off,” he says.

The aim is that museum will become a tourist destination in its own right. Tourist arrivals in Egypt in 2020 dropped to three million, less than a quarter of the record 13 million who visited the year before. The nearby Sphinx Airport is being expanded in expectation of demand, as is the transport network.

Keeping everything together Key to managing a project like this is good stakeholder engagement, says Abdel-Fattah. This includes everyone from the client, Egypt’s Ministry of Culture, to archaeologists, international engineers and local construction workers. Surrounded by colossal statues in an immense building (the statues of Ramses II was brought into the uncompleted atrium so that construction could be done around it), he says you “see just how very small humans are in civilisation”. It’s a good way to put problems into perspective

Francis Archer is a project director at Arup who began work on the project in 2003 when the open architectural competition was announced for the design of the new museum. When Dublin-based architecture practice Heneghan Peng was shortlisted, they approached Arup and Buro Happold to help them in the next stage of the bid – and won. The three formed a joint venture and found Egyptian partners.

“The design team went on a threeday crash course in Egyptology from the British Museum. I’ve never done that on a project before, where the whole team get to grips with what the museum is all about,” says Archer. “We knew we were doing something special.” The design team had to make the building suitable for objects that were thousands of years old, with some weighing over 70 tonnes.

“The interesting thing about museums,” explains Archer, “is that you have two parties – the design team for the building and the exhibition designers. Who’s top dog? There’s a conflict. It was good during concept to have a proper debate, but I think the right approach was taken.” This meant letting the architects lead once they’d learnt about the exhibition and the context, and then bringing the designers back in to design for the building space.

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Other project management challenges stemmed from the way government business is done in Egypt, where contracts are signed one stage at a time. “You do six months’ work on a concept design and then you spend six months negotiating the next one.

Then you do six months’ work,” says Archer. It was partly this approach that contributed to the decade-long delay, but it was also, Archer says, “a combination of restricted cash-flow and funding, as well as the way the construction contract was set up; it gave the contractor very tight working constraints and little freedom in how they worked.” The Arab Spring uprisings in 2010, the subsequent change in political regime and, most recently, the pandemic have also played their part in stalling the opening.

Regrets about the early years of the project include failing to spot where gaps in expertise might appear, such as in international procurement. “They [the client] tried to procure internationally for the design, construction, running and management of the museum for the first five years. They failed, because nobody wanted to take that on – you can see why,” says Archer.

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The best of both worlds

All international work in Egypt requires a joint venture with a local partner, which is invaluable for international project managers. A local partner is necessary in any country to help negotiate culture, custom and politics, and give a deep understanding of the local stakeholders. “You could do something seemingly innocent that would just cause an outrage because of a cultural issue,” says Sue Kershaw, APM president and a director at Costain, who has worked on numerous international projects. “You need that adviser,” she says. “You need to be empathetic with the people you are working with and also have patience, because a lot of countries don’t work at the rate we do. And respect is the most important, because you have to respect the people and the culture.”

Where international companies coming into Egypt might once have

Clockwise from top: Statue of Anubis from Tutankhamun’s tomb; the pharaoh’s daggers; a scarab bracelet made from gold and lapis lazuli; sandals of gold and leather

thought they would need to bring in their own team to get things done the ‘right’ way, now Sweillam says that they have finally figured out that they can work successfully with Egyptian teams at a much lower cost. The trick is to get the best of both worlds – combining international practices with “how things can be done in an Egyptianised way that is more efficient or quicker”, he says.

Eventually (after a change of team on the client side), the Belgian construction contractor Besix was procured with Egyptian partner Orascom. There were 5,000 people a day on-site. “It was a gigantic force of labour,” says Archer. In 2008, the 83-tonne, 9m tall statue of Ramses II was moved from Bab Al-Hadid Square outside Cairo’s railway station to the new site as a symbolic gesture that work was underway. “There was a procession through the night, because they had to close several roads and they had 25,000 people following the truck carrying the statue for 10 miles,” says Archer.

“It’s a fantastic, powerful building inside. I was surprised how successful it really is, and that’s because of the architecture. Some of the galleries have 20m-high ceilings. Overlooking the Pyramids you’ve got 40m-wide windows without any mullions, so the view is completely clear,” says Archer. He is sure the Grand Egyptian Museum will be a great success, despite it opening 10 years late.

“It’s a pity, because it doesn’t need to be like that. Everybody feels that projects do inevitably go over budget and are delayed, and that is just not the case. As we know, with good project management, it is not inevitable. It happens because people put their heads in the sand,” he says, laughing at his unintentional joke. Now, what would Inspector Merer think about that?

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Charities like Rewilding Britain thrive on the passion of their volunteers to make projects on a shoestring happen.

What can professional project managers learn from them about having a sense of purpose, energy and focus to make their projects a success?

Dave Waller finds out…

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here are thousands of grassroots organisations created to tackle a problem, whether it be representation, the climate or animal welfare. They may face a lack of resources, professional expertise or even office space, but their sense of common purpose makes them a success against all the odds. This motivating force is like gold dust for any project – and easily lost the bigger and more complex it gets.

So, how can these grassroots activists be an inspiration to project professionals?

Rewilding Britain is a charity set up in 2015 to act as a catalyst for rewilding the UK’s landscape.

Rewilding involves stakeholders across society – landowners, farmers, councils, government and individuals – proactively seeding the recovery of ecosystems, whether by planting groves or encouraging bees and butterflies to their backyard.

Richard Bunting, Rewilding Britain

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Keeping focused

Rewilding Britain has big ambitions and a strong public presence. Its Twitter account has 48,000 followers, findings from its research projects have influenced government consultations and it’s pushing for 30 per cent of Britain to be undergoing nature restoration and rewilding by 2030. Yet it’s doing all this with only a dozen, largely part-time, staff.

“The intent has been to remain small and agile, lean and mean, and to punch above our weight,” says Richard

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Bunting, who works on Rewilding Britain’s media outreach. “Some thirdsector organisations find it challenging to be efficient and fast on their feet.

As they become bigger, there are more people to discuss things with, and decisions take longer to happen.”

This choice to remain small presents its challenges when managing projects.

The growing interest in rewilding has created a vast stream of enquiries from the public and the media, who, says Bunting, “tend to think we’re bigger than we are. The big challenge is managing expectations”.

The key lies in planning. Rather than jumping straight into “the doing” – something Bunting identifies as a common pitfall for voluntary organisations – the team took a step back and set targets to ensure it was clear on what it was doing and why, in order to tailor its resources accordingly.

For Rewilding Britain, this took the form of a decision to focus its efforts on large-scale sites of 1,000 acres or more.

Not only would this help the team make the most of its resources, but it is also where the largest benefits can be felt in terms of biodiversity.

“There are more opportunities than we can completely take advantage of at the moment, and it is really tempting to get even more involved,” says Bunting.

“But that’s one thing we’re being strict about. Keeping things streamlined and efficient will prevent us being unfocused or overstretched, and allow us to focus our efforts on where we’re going to have the biggest impact.”

A sense of purpose to motivate

Heart n Soul is a Deptford-based charity supporting musicians and artists with learning disabilities. Within a few months of starting there as project manager, Emily Pain found herself standing on a dancefloor at the Beautiful Octopus Club, the organisation’s annual takeover of London’s Royal Festival Hall, awestruck by what her new employer had achieved. Hundreds of people were dancing to live funk, rock and punk bands playing on stages in every corner of the building. No one knew who had learning disabilities and

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who didn’t. No one cared. It was, she says, “a complete baptism”.

As to how the wheels stayed on this sprawling affair, Pain highlights the charity’s large volunteer force who support artists, welcome visitors and manage stages, all for the barest of expenses. Their motivation runs far deeper. “Nobody works in the charity arts sector for the money, that’s for sure,” Pain laughs. “But people really put all of themselves into it.”

Heart n Soul was imbued with a clear purpose right from the start. Back in the 1980s, bass player Mark Williams began assisting at a music workshop for people with learning disabilities.

“Nobody works in the charity arts sector for the money, that’s for sure. But people really put all of themselves into it”

HOW TO INJECT GRASSROOTS PURPOSE IN YOUR PROJECT

1

Examine why you’re doing things in the first place. If the answer is solely profit, you’re going to need a rethink. Even if you’re not interested in the bigger picture, the clever people you’re seeking to recruit will be.

2

Listen to your stakeholders.

If your project is tied closely to the needs of the people it’s affecting, you’ll never stray far from your ‘true north’. And feeling the positive impact you’re having on people will boost the energy at those times when it naturally dips.

3

Consider not just what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it.

If you feel you’ve strayed from your values, that may be because your project management processes create a fundamental contradiction.

If you’re trying to have a positive

impact on customers, for example, do you know how they really feel?

And is your team feeling suitably positive and included too?

4

Be open to the unfamiliar.

If, with all the above, you’re still yearning for purpose, shake things up. NEST was born of visiting someone’s house and being moved by poverty; Heart n Soul by volunteering at a workshop and seeing potential. Put yourself where purpose can find you. It will be worth it.

5

Help your project punch above its weight. With scarce resources, you need to spend your money and energy on the endeavours that will win over the right people to give you the influence and followers you need to help get your project out there.

Purpose, 2

Heart n Soul’s Beautiful Octopus Club at the Royal Festival Hall celebrates learning disability culture. Right: NEST, founded by Les Nicoll, has delivered over 4,000 free meals to elderly and vulnerable people in Harwich

He found that participants’ output was limited less by a lack of ability or imagination than by other people’s expectations. This inspired a fresh approach: simply asking his participants what they wanted to do, and doing his best to make it happen. This presents some unique project management challenges. Not least the fundamental issue of planning. If you’re going to base everything you do on the ideas of people with learning disabilities, you can’t necessarily map out the full scope of the project up front. “We’re always starting a project and not really knowing where it’s going,” says Pain, amid concern that she may be ‘outing’ herself as “a project manager who wings it”.

Managing risk

This can-do spirit may be energising when an outfit is small, but it can become a challenge once the organisation has some clout. Heart n Soul can now call on backing from the Arts Council, the Wellcome Trust and other high-profile partners and funders. Hence it’s able to employ project managers with qualifications.

However, running on a shoestring budget casts doubt over everything a corporate project manager would likely take for granted, from marketing to whether people will even show up to work. Yet while project management training and software tends not to make the list of must-buys for grassroots organisations, even the

smallest are able to achieve remarkable impact anyway, simply through that strong sense of shared purpose.

NEST, a community initiative in Harwich, Essex, is a case in point. Six years ago, ex-firefighter Les Nicoll was on a routine house visit as part of his role as a safeguarding officer. He asked to pop upstairs, and saw that the family there had no beds, pillows or sheets. They couldn’t afford them, the woman he was visiting told him.

The children slept on clothes on the floor. “I was absolutely incensed,” he says. “People shouldn’t be living like this. I saw there was a need and took practical action to stop it. Simple as that.”

Nicoll put a call out on Facebook for free beds and clean bedding and took them to the family the next day.

In the ensuing years, with the help of a £10,000 Lottery grant and JustGiving, NEST grew into a volunteer-driven network that sources and delivers everything from white goods to clothes and Christmas hampers to the local community. At the start of

“The stresses of being a voluntary organisation without support and a firm foundation can clearly take their toll” the pandemic, NEST began a meal service, cooking hot meals twice a week and delivering them to the elderly.

At the height of the pandemic it was cooking over 125 meals a day. It has also completed over 3,000 shops for the community. All drawing from a small pool of dedicated volunteers, managed via Facebook.

Keeping volunteers on board Yet working with volunteers does have its problems. Without the right funding and support, the motivation to continually deliver on those passions can easily dwindle. “The smaller the organisation, and the more volunteerdriven, the higher the risk that the volunteer base will change, and you can lose crucial knowledge from the charity,” says Russel Jamieson, a

project, change and PMO management professional.

Several years ago, Jamieson worked closely with the Christchurch Community Partnership, an independent charity seeking to alleviate social isolation in local adults, as part of a study by APM’s Wessex branch on third-sector organisations. He noted that the six key people within the organisation all changed in a 12-month period. “Some changed jobs and moved away, others were disconsolate with the lack of progress and funding,” he says. “The stresses of being a voluntary organisation without support and a firm foundation can clearly take their toll.”

Back at Heart n Soul, its flexible approach to running projects has proven invaluable. One long-held ambition for many participants has been to run cooking sessions. “We don’t have any ovens,” says Pain. “So that foxed us.”

Then COVID came along. Like many grassroots organisations, the charity had a new purpose: to adapt and stay connected with its people at a time when they needed the organisation’s support the most. They moved the Beautiful Octopus Club online, and Ono Dafedjaiye, the charity’s taking part assistant, found herself running a session from home called Baking with Beyoncé. “We had 80 people on this Zoom call baking along with Ono in their own kitchens,” says Pain. “It took a pandemic to mean we could do that.

And it was amazing.”

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After a few false starts, a project to replace legacy systems at Allianz morphed into something more ambitious. Alexander Garrett meets the team behind APM’s 2020 Transformation Project of the Year to find out how they did it

H

ow many projects achieve a successful outcome having progressed serenely from A to B along their expected trajectory? Probably not many. For the team behind the Allianz Mechanical Engineering Services (MECS) project, winner of APM’s Transformation Project of the Year award for 2020, the match report would more accurately be summed up as ‘a game of two halves’.

What began as an IT-driven project, established primarily to replace a series of legacy systems on a like-for-like basis, and to automate some manual processes, morphed into a much more

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ambitious proposition after a frank and searching half-time conversation.

That led to the participants adopting a united vision for the future of their business, embracing the opportunities of a remote and fully mobile workforce.

The final result was a project that has been truly transformational. “It has shifted our mindset into a new way of working,” says Susan Ferry, senior project manager at Allianz and MECS project lead. “It has future-proofed our way of working, and this has since been put to the test during the pandemic, so that the teams who are using the technology were able to operate almost seamlessly in the COVID-19 world.”

Systems ‘turning toxic’

Allianz Mechanical Engineering Services is a business unit that responds to commercial motor insurance claims, covering repair, inspection and salvage. Its customers may be companies with fleet vehicles, individual tradespeople or brokers who specialise in this segment of the market.

In 2017, when the project was initiated, there had already been several attempts to decommission and replace the legacy systems, which

Allianz, 1

had never quite got off the ground.

Dan McCoach, IT project manager, says: “The systems we were using were ‘turning toxic’ in that they were running out of support externally for their underlying infrastructure. So, it became more imperative as time went on to resolve that legacy issue.”

The overall purpose of the project, says Ferry, was “to replace existing technology with state-of-the-art solutions, combined with futureproofing our ways of working and, equally importantly, capitalising on our data”.

There was a need to integrate five systems in total, which would improve the customer journey, with fewer touchpoints, faster claims processing and timely updates. A manual diary system for engineers’ appointments needed to be replaced, and third parties that provided reporting for engineers’ assessments and managing salvage of written-off cars needed to be closely involved. Allianz also wanted to generate a much richer output of management reports to help drive productivity among the workforce.

At that time, says McCoach, business change and IT “were very

separate from each other” within Allianz, and the project was heavily led

by IT, with minimal support from the claims business. “We got to the point where we were defining requirements, but as we were presenting what we were going to do to the project’s sponsor, it became apparent very quickly that her vision of what we were going to be achieving was very different from the IT view, which was to replace systems that were toxic.”

This was the point at which Ferry joined the project. She says: “The sponsor had a transformative vision, and it was really brave of her to say let’s stop and take a step back; let’s not lose sight of the transformation we really want to achieve.” The decision was taken to change the approach from being IT-led to being a joint IT and business project. This allowed Allianz to restructure, ensure the right people were on board, articulate a shared vision and think about how it could be achieved from both an IT and a business perspective.

“Once you have got trust, you’re not afraid to fail.

And if you’re not afraid to fail, you’re not afraid to try”

A tight bond of trust

Working through that restructure together was key. “We temporarily put aside steering meetings and project boards, which we decided weren’t working for us as a team,” says Ferry.

“Instead, we held twice-weekly working groups. Together with the sponsor, we said: this is what we’re thinking, this is how we think we can restructure, these are the risks and the issues we see. We combined that together to develop an approach that was really going to work.

And by doing that, such a tight bond of trust was established, at all levels, that it really paved the way for innovation in the project moving forward. Once you have got that trust there, you’re not afraid to fail. And if you’re not afraid to fail, you’re not afraid to try.”

That was when the project finally found its feet. “When this development had been tried in the past, as a likefor-like replacement, it hadn’t worked, because it needed that wrapper of transformation,” says Ferry. “Tackling transformation consolidates your benefits; it enables you to capitalise on all the opportunities that the new technology brings. It also inspires people and makes it a much more viable and important offering.”

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Key to being able to make this reset was the Allianz culture. McCoach explains: “Within Allianz we tend to be very good at learning from mistakes and moving forward without blame being attached. It’s in our DNA to be collaborative. In this case, the sponsor was fully on board with that. So we were able to make a reset that everyone was comfortable with.”

Going forward, the two teams managing the systems integration and the data components of the overall project worked in close collaboration with the claims business, driven equally by the business change and IT functions.

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The trust that had now been secured among team members fostered a mindset of innovation, says Ferry.

“Every member of the team was offering up new ways of working.

They were often small things. One of our solutions architects did playback sessions with us in which he would always come up with an amazing nugget. We might have designed a process, and he’d say: ‘You’ve missed a trick. I can enhance this technology for you; I can automate this bit.’”

From the business side, one of the leaders challenged the project team to find new ways of getting the best from technology and proposed new comms techniques such as podcasts and videos.

“We found those to be terrific ways of reinforcing training or enabling people to continue to feel engaged throughout the life cycle of the project,” says Ferry. “It was nuggets of innovation like that which really made the project thrive. When we factored these innovations in at the end, they made significant contributions to our benefits and the fact that we were able to surpass the forecast benefits.”

In terms of methodology, the two main teams involved adopted contrasting styles. On the systems integration side, which involved complex dependencies and collaborating with third parties, a hybrid of waterfall, iterative and agile

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techniques was deployed. McCoach explains: “While we approached it in a waterfall way, a lot of the work overlapped considerably where we could make a critical path work as fast as possible. And that meant we were able to break down the work into lots of small packages, which meant we could quickly move to design, build and test those packages rather than waiting for all of the requirements, all of the design and all of the build to be done. And that meant we could increase the pace of delivery.

We were on top of quality, and that gave a lot more confidence to senior management when we wanted to show progress.”

On the data reporting side of the project, meanwhile, agile was chosen from the outset. Rachel Schofield, who was scrum master on this activity, explains: “We had two agile teams: one was building the platform, where all the data was going to be stored; and the other was building all the data extracts, creating reports at the front end in a new dashboard format. A lot of our team hadn’t worked in an agile way before, and we brought a number of people over from India because the agile ethos is that you should be colocated. Agile was ideal for this because the business didn’t know exactly what reporting they’d want, and if there were new reports that could be delivered. If you set requirements, they are going to change over the two-year duration of the project as you become more familiar with all the data that’s been provided.”

Working to one vision

The project was delivered in September 2019, with the strategic data reporting tools being delivered in June 2020. By the end of 2019, it had delivered organisational benefits 79 per cent higher than forecast.

The biggest lesson learned, says McCoach, is “getting the insight and the understanding of the vision and then agreeing that vision as early as possible in the project. And ensuring that stakeholders and the project team are signed up for that vision. We got a

Allianz, 2

“I think career returners bring a bit of pragmatism and leadership gained in the outside world” fair chunk of the way through before realising that we weren’t aligned with what the sponsor was intending. So that’s been a major lesson for us.”

And Ferry adds: “To get that right, you need to understand the lens people are seeing it through. You could think that you have effectively communicated your vision, without taking into account the different perspectives that different areas will be viewing it from, and the history that they bring with them. Are you really ensuring that everyone has understood the extent of the transformation you are trying to communicate?”

Returners’ fresh approach

The success of the project, meanwhile, was immediately evident when COVID-19 struck and the Allianz claims operation was able to switch to remote working without any serious hitches. As something of a footnote, that success can be seen not just as an endorsement of the Allianz culture, but also as vindication of the career returners programme run by the insurer. Ferry had come back to work after a multi-year break just seven months before this project began, and she believes that career returners can offer a valuable perspective.

“I think I probably brought a fresh approach and I’m seeing this with all the career returners, it’s a hugely successful programme for us now, with a number of participants in project management. I think returners bring a bit of pragmatism and leadership gained in the outside world – and that helps challenge the traditional Allianz way of thinking.”

Project editor Emma De Vita spoke to Susan Ferry for APM’s Project Innovators podcast series, getting her advice on how to create a project culture based on trust and openness. Listen for free at apm.org.uk/ resources/the-apm-podcast

6 1

TRANSFORMATION TIPS FOR PROJECTS

Agree the vision as early as you can in the project, and then make sure that all the stakeholders and the project team members have signed up and can see the wider benefits.

2

from their project team up to senior management.

4

Be prepared to stop and take stock. Don’t press mindlessly ahead when it becomes clear that everyone is not aligned.

Envisage the transformation through the eyes of others, taking into account the historical baggage that other stakeholders and departments bring to it.

5

3

6

Make sure your third parties are on the journey.

Involve them early, make sure they are always aware of the timelines and objectives, and look for support at every level,

5

Don’t look back. Focus relentlessly on moving forward rather than attributing blame for what’s gone wrong.

Focus on what you’re not changing as well as what you are changing. You need to establish a consistent level of expertise across the entire scope of business activity.

TRANSFORMATION PITFALLS TO AVOID

Change expert James Lea, founder of Project Science, gives his advice:

1

Don’t adopt an inwardlooking stance. If the transformation cannot be articulated from customer and external stakeholder perspectives, how can progress against an objective baseline be measured and success claimed?

2

Don’t chase benefits once underway. Strong connections between transformation activities and benefits must be established at the beginning and tested throughout.

3

Don’t underestimate the work required and its impact on the organisation.

Get this wrong and capacity is diverted away from serving the end users, generating frustration and impeding progress.

4

Don’t allow an ‘us-andthem’ culture to develop by not listening or responding to everyone’s voice. Diversity and inclusion makes an organisation and transformation stronger.

5

Don’t declare ‘mission accomplished’ too early.

The visible change is just the beginning; embedding the change requires sustained input and attention to reach a tipping point beyond which the transformation endures.

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Ann Pilkington provides five top tips on how to boost the effectiveness of your communication strategy

W

e all know that effective communication is an important project success factor, but it’s also one of the hardest things to get right. It’s anything but a soft skill; it’s a discipline grounded in theory, with wellresearched models to help us plan, and it should be subject to robust measurement to ensure we’re getting it right. So, how can we boost the effectiveness of communication on our projects?

1

I wouldn’t start from here!

It’s important to know where you are starting from. We can make a good guess about what our stakeholders are thinking and feeling, but they might have concerns that we haven’t thought of. Sometimes, it’s the smallest things that cause the greatest concern.

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A change impact assessment can help here and enable communication to be focused where it’s needed most.

Spend time doing some research. This doesn’t need to be onerous – some short telephone interviews or pulse surveys can tell you a lot. Remember that different stakeholders will have different views and these can change during the life of the project.

The insight you get can be used to inform communication objectives.

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Where do you want to go?

Set some communication objectives for your project. These should be about outcomes – what do you want your stakeholders to think, feel or do? Try to make them SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timed). Having clear objectives helps to focus communication and enables you to measure it.

You may want to measure outputs too, ie what has been done. For example, newsletters sent out, social media engagement (likes, clicks, etc), stakeholders met. These can be thought about as KPIs. For example, if you want a group of stakeholders to understand something about your project, that would be an outcome. You might decide that to make this happen you need to meet with all or some of them; that would be a KPI. Objectives, like stakeholders, will change through the life of the project. Remember that in the early days there may be some resistance to change, depending on what the project is doing, so the aim should be understanding – and there needs to be a focus on listening. A positive view of the project is more likely to result if stakeholders feel listened to, so avoid too much focus on selling the change.

3

Who are you going to take with you?

All good project communication starts with knowing who your stakeholders are.

They may change over time and they may be more interested or important at different stages of the project. Be as specific as you can when drawing up your stakeholder list.

In some cases, it’s fine to capture a group – for example employees who all have the same job. But you will also want to think about naming individuals. Take ‘the board of directors’ – this is too general as different board members will have different levels and types of interest, and you will want to treat members of the board as individuals.

Remember to look internally and externally.

If the impact of your project is largely external

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WHAT DO YOU THINK? Keeping everyone up to speed with developments is crucial, so make sure there is a communication plan in place specifically for the team

Ann Pilkington is the author of Communication Projects (Gower) and co-author of the APM People SIG paper Communication Planning. She is the co-founder and director of PR Academy, the largest centre for PR and communication qualifications accredited by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

to the organisation, you still want to take employees with you. And if it’s an internal business change, remember to look externally too. Job losses or office moves, for example, can all attract media and possibly political attention. Also think about who is helping you to get there. The answer here, of course, is the project team. With all the focus on those whom you are asking to make a change, it can be easy to forget that members of the project team are important stakeholders too.

We can’t expect to get our stakeholders on board if the project team isn’t clear about the direction of travel and doesn’t explain things consistently. Keeping everyone up to speed with developments is crucial, so make sure there is a communication plan in place specifically for the team. The project team can also be the eyes and ears of the project and may spot emerging issues. Make communication an integral part of your project

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meetings. Every time a decision is made, ask the question: what are the implications for communication? Agree the message, which stakeholders need to know, who will tell them and when, then finally how feedback will be captured and fed back.

4

How are you going to get there?

Once we know what we are trying to achieve and we’re clear about who our stakeholders are, the road to take, ie the communication channel, becomes a lot easier to work out. We need to go where our stakeholders are and tailor our channel to the message. It sounds obvious but it can be easy to get swayed by a shiny bit of technology. The key here is to put ourselves in the shoes of our stakeholders to understand what they read, watch, etc.

Remember the adage ‘the medium is the message’ too. What this essentially means is that the way you communicate becomes part of the message. For example, nothing says disrespect more than dumping your boyfriend/ girlfriend by text! But the same message delivered quietly one-to-one and couched in terms such as “it’s not you, it’s me” is basically the same message, but is more likely to leave the injured party with their dignity intact.

Think about using storytelling to explain what the change is about and why it’s happening. There is lots of evidence to show that we are more likely to retain facts when they are part of a story, and our attention is more likely to be held. Stories need to have a pattern if they are to engage. Check out Paul Smith’s CAR model, comprising Context (the introduction of a villain or challenge), Action (what is done, including a setback or failure along the way) and Result (including a point of learning for the reader or audience). You can often see this technique used in television documentaries to hold viewers’ attention.

5

Are we there yet?

There is no mystery to the measurement of communication and it doesn’t need to be onerous as long as we set well-structured outcome objectives and KPIs to check progress. Make sure that communication is part of any lessons learned exercise. If done as the project progresses it will help to ensure communication improves by building on successes. And it will be a real benefit for future projects too. What worked well? How were stakeholders identified and prioritised?

What didn’t work well and why?

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WAYS TO BE A BETTER LISTENER

1

6

Have an open mind as well as an open door.

Be curious and open to the ideas of others. Avoid going into a conversation having already decided what the outcome will be.

Listen to check understanding.

“The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” This quote, attributed to George Bernard Shaw, reminds us how important it is to check understanding. Build time in communication plans to check stakeholder understanding of what has been communicated.

2

Plan to listen.

Make listening an integral part of any communication plan. Do this by understanding who the stakeholders are and their interests. Then when a decision is being made, it’s easier to know which stakeholders to go to.

7

Qual or quant?

Pick the best research methodology for the task in hand. A survey (quantitative) is good for finding out what people do or don’t do, but if you want to find out why, a qualitative method such as interviews or focus groups may be better.

3

Effective feedback mechanisms.

How will you hear from people? Ensure the mechanism works for the stakeholder. Some may be happy to engage on social media, others may prefer a different approach.

If in doubt, ask them what they prefer.

8

4

Listen to act.

Organisations and projects that listen but don’t act on the feedback will soon lose the confidence of their stakeholders.

5

If you can’t act, explain.

Stakeholders understand that the project won’t always be able to act on their feedback. But what they want to know is that their voice was heard and taken seriously. So, make sure the feedback loop is always closed.

Ask the right question.

Get some specialist help with survey and interview design. It’s a specialist skill.

Asking the wrong question won’t get you the insights you need.

9

Create a supportive environment.

Encourage people to speak up and respect their view. Make sure there are opportunities for confidential feedback too, and always respect that confidentiality.

10

Step out of your bubble.

Walk the floor; talk to people you wouldn’t usually meet. You never know what insights you may gain!

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HEATHROW: AN URGENT AND SECRET PROJECT THAT WOWED THE JUDGES

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Benjamin Hooper led the airport’s anti-drone

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project, winner of APM’s Overall Project of the Year 2020. How did the team do it? And what lessons did they learn about agility under pressure?

T

he objective of the 2019 CounterUnmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) project at Heathrow Airport was to provide an immediate solution to the drone threat in Heathrow’s airspace. It was unknown how that was to be done and who would deliver it, but it had to be delivered at some level within days. To that end, Heathrow deployed a bespoke set of anti-drone systems, designed to block unmanned aerial vehicles from entering its airspace.

Designed by UK-based firm Operational Solutions Limited (OSL), the system detects and tracks drones in the surrounding airspace, with the ability to locate the drone pilot and show their location, using technology from several manufacturers. The fast and accurate detention of drones keeps passengers and staff safe and minimises delays. The system will continually be augmented as part of a new business case to maintain Heathrow’s world-leading advantage in C-UAS technology.

Never done before

Civilian airports typically do not have a drone detection system and are reliant on authorities

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The detection of unauthorised drones in restricted airspace at UK airports became a highly publicised problem following incidents in 2018 and 2019 that ground commercial flights to a halt

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TOP TIPS FOR HIGHLY PRESSURISED PROJECTS

1

Succeeding in adversity is rewarding, so enjoy the experience of a genuine high-pressure project!

2

Don’t expect to get it right first time. If there are no benchmarks available for your project, then you are setting them. Wrong decisions made early can be salvaged, but ‘right’ decisions made late cannot. Have a plan and be prepared to fail well and come back stronger. Ensure the recovery (or next iteration) has enough schedule float as well as cost (or risk) to accommodate.

3 like the police and military to provide capability to mitigate the impact of small unmanned aircraft systems. This is not just a UK phenomenon; it is a global trend for any critical national infrastructure.

Unfortunately, with such a cheap and prolific new technology, it was necessary for Heathrow to engage its own solution while bringing traditional government groups along on the journey.

‘Heathrow Security’, including a team of intelligence specialists adept at working with a multitude of governmental and regulatory organisations, was the business case owner and defined the project. A selection of possible solution architects were engaged and, in the end, the winner was a civilian company with a strong military background and proof of success in various theatres of operation around the world. Once selected, a series of engagement and design workshops were held with all the relevant government, security and airspace bodies to define the threat, assess the current procedures taken by the airport operational managers and outline a roadmap to protecting the airspace.

NASA’s lessons learnt bible on project management says: “A project manager should visit everyone who is building anything for their project at least once, should know all the managers on their project, and know the integration team members.

People like to know that the project manager is interested in their work, and the best proof is for the manager to visit them and see first-hand what they are doing.” By doing this you will garner better engagement from project team members, learn a lot more about what is happening and spot risks and opportunities.

4

Suppliers, engineers, creatives, architects and designers all have the potential to propose wonderful solutions. But keeping them focused on the simplest solution is often the best way to ensure it’s repeatable, scalable and hopefully modular.

5

Comms is key. By conveying the vision, objective and accomplishment of your project to the correct audience, you will not only achieve better outcomes, but also learn about other projects, professionals and business case synergies where efficiencies will be found.

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Traditional Heathrow project life cycle

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Operational

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Benefits realisation Termination

Tailored Heathrow project life cycle adapted for counter-drone project

Concept

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Emergency funding and first design workshop

Definition Implementation Operate and evaluate with steering group

Future implementation programme for augmentation

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Benefits realisation Initial deployment Rapid deployment

Operational using turnkey provider Extended deployment

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Operational steering group established

Adapting the project process, fast!

CLIENT

An operational steering group was set up during the design phase. This brought together all of the key operators and regulatory stakeholders with the project and supplier to ensure the operational feedback of the system (in its initial deployment form) fed into the redesign. The project therefore made effective use of the live operational environment, turning risks into opportunities for stakeholder engagement and more effective delivery.

The operational team, as much as external stakeholder groups who would benefit from the system, had to feed directly into its design. The usual project processes, with design lock and scope change after investment decision and project implementation, could not be followed.

If the project had followed such a structure, it would have failed, as it was necessary to iterate, receive operational feedback, cost control feedback then adapt. This was almost as true near the end of the project as at the start.

The project adaptation diagram, compared against a more standard benchmark project, is shown above. Note the position of the operational steering group, which was able to feed into the ‘define’ stage, as well as the fact that we started implementation as we started design to satisfy the ‘rapid deployment’ criteria.

This was by far the biggest initial challenge and led to a few weeks of exceptionally long days

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Evolution

Capture lessons learned

and sleepless nights, followed by night testing and more long days for the project team.

Other project challenges included: ■ Using an agile tailored approach within a traditional waterfall life cycle. Ultimately, it saved money and prevented design lock.

■ Pressure to deliver initial deployment weeks ahead of schedule in time for summer resulted in alleviating critical path and learning key system lessons.

■ Modular design enabled flexibility.

■ Benchmarking was not available from anywhere to give accurate costs, so when controls started we had to gather data immediately; happily, it was accurate and available.

■ The solution was scalable and also repeatable. It was a challenge to derive this for a multitude of different sensors from different suppliers.

■ Application of new technologies to other projects; redefining Heathrow Airport standards was a challenge and is now a blessing.

Above: The project adaptation diagram, compared against a more standard benchmark project

The exposure to such a deep range of stakeholders, from government to regulatory bodies and tech start-ups, has opened my eyes to the world of R&D and emerging technology

Heathrow, 2

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■ The use of drones in the testing regime liberated many other possibilities and benefits by highlighting new technology.

However, to use drones at all in the airspace has been a challenging learning curve for many parts of the business, particularly aerodrome compliance and safety teams.

■ Some suppliers didn’t work as well as others.

The complex urban environment is very hard to model and predict. Some hardware that tested well in some environments performed very poorly when installed at the airport.

■ Some technologies did not work as well as others in the Heathrow environment. OSL was critical in assessing this to tailor the solution with the use of the test, research and evaluation facility (TREF). Even then, a good performance at the TREF was no guarantee of performance in the airfield.

■ It is difficult to execute a prioritised urgent project when key colleagues can’t be told what it is for.

■ How to test something that has never been tested.

■ How to convince people that such a huge change is a necessity.

BLOW-OUT! HOW MY EXPERIENCE ON DEEPWATER HORIZON HELPED ME

In 2010, I found myself

Deep blue to big blue

Ben spoke to The APM Podcast (www.apm.org.uk/ resources/the-apm-podcast) about his experience of working on this APM award-winning project, as well as his time on Deepwater Horizon

Alamy

The business case was at the extreme, even when compared with my career in offshore oil and gas. The exposure to such a deep range of stakeholders, from government to regulatory bodies and tech start-ups, has opened my eyes to the world of R&D and emerging technology, which I truly believe will transform many aspects of life in the coming decade.

The excitement of the project has redirected my career aspirations onto a whole new path, yet in some way links to my old career working with remote-controlled sub-sea robots, processes and systems. I will be forever grateful to Heathrow and the team there that pulled me into a room that day for that ‘urgent, secret’ project that transitioned me from the deep blue to the big blue.

working on the Deepwater Horizon emergency response team following the oil rig explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I started on the scene during the fire and sinking, a scenario of relative chaos and little control. It was a highly reactionary and nonprocedural string of events where we operated exclusively outside of standards but used them as a baseline guide.

There is no manual for how to approach a 60,000-tonne burning rig connected to the seabed by its riser and spinning out of control. But there are manuals for fires at sea, coordination of effort, launching a remotely operated vehicle and blow-out preventor emergency shut-in. Working in the incident management facility at Westlake Plaza in Houston after being demobilised (when the vessel had settled on the seabed), I was exposed to the largestscale masterclass in iterative agile project management I am ever likely to experience.

At Westlake Plaza, different teams worked 24/7 to engineer and design solutions to shut the oil well in. When a design reached maturity, it would be assessed and presented. If it was not

peer-reviewed to be viable, then the team would start a new idea from scratch.

If viable, it would pass assessment and be handed to the operations team.

Solutions included ‘the cofferdam tower’, ‘the junk shot’, ‘the top hat’, ‘the RIT’ and ‘the sucker’, to name a few. All ultimately failed, but had some level of success; the lessons learned were taken, then reapplied until a better iteration was found.

Everything was done in a remarkably short time, not only by ‘crashing the schedule’, but because there was a true sense of purpose to stop, as soon as possible, the unfolding $65bn catastrophe (depending on what you read).

With Heathrow’s anti-drone project, when my programme colleague and business case architect pulled me into a room with the project managers of our suppliers and told us we had to get this going in two weeks, we had that same sense of urgency and combined purpose. In collaboration with a range of Heathrow’s traditional supplier partners, we were able to engineer the same sort of modular, fail-fast scenario. The true essence of iterative agility.

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GETTING MAJOR PROJECTS RIGHT

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In November, the National Audit Office published its report Lessons Learned From Major Programmes, offering valuable insights into where problems most commonly arise

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CLIENT

Ensuring clear alignment between strategic objectives and scope from the start is vital to good decisionmaking throughout any project

he Government Major Projects Portfolio currently includes 125 major programmes, such as HS2, the Carrier Strike aircraft carrier programme and the Emergency Services Network, at a combined whole-life cost of £448bn.

To secure the best value from the significant amounts of public money the government has committed, it is crucial that government can successfully navigate the challenges of delivering its major programmes. However, government programmes often encounter difficulties, taking longer and costing more than planned, and not delivering the intended aims, with significant and high-profile consequences.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has examined major programmes over many years, including a significant number of transport, defence and energy programmes. Its work has directly supported parliamentary scrutiny of government programmes and provides an independent evidence base to inform the public about how government programmes are performing.

Lessons and insights

The NAO’s Lessons Learned From Major Programmes report examined the causes of the issues it sees most often and why it thinks they occur, in order to identify learning points to improve the performance of major programmes.

It found that many of the problems have their roots in four areas: scope, planning/budgeting, managing interdependencies and oversight.

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1

SCOPE

Ensuring clear alignment between strategic objectives and scope from the start is vital to good decision-making throughout any project.

And yet the NAO often sees bodies struggling to maintain a clear focus on a programme’s objectives and how its scope aligns to them.

Further, changes to scope are highly likely as a programme develops. Without a firm grasp of strategic objectives, it is difficult to prioritise potential trade-offs and how they might alter a programme’s overall value for money.

2

PLANNING/BUDGETING

Understanding the limits of estimated costs for budgeting is critical. Initial estimates should be provisional and clearly recognise potential uncertainties. An estimate produced from early high-level information before industry pricing is available is unlikely to be suitable for setting a long-term programme budget and schedule.

Using ranges rather than single point figures may better reflect risks and uncertainties.

Schedules need to be critically examined and realistic. Political and commercial issues can drive a reluctance to reconsider schedule targets. While it is understandable that government wants to be ambitious in meeting its goals, this too often overrides a frank assessment of the mounting risks and potential negative consequences of overreaching for a deadline, such as service failure and unnecessary costs.

Organisations should consider early in a programme’s life cycle what needs to be in place to meet their schedule targets, and periodically assess the likelihood of these requirements being in place. The assessment should include historical performance and productivity and should feed into an assessment of whether the benefits of meeting a deadline under pressure outweigh the risks.

3

INTERDEPENDENCIES

A programme’s critical path should include all contributing activities required for its completion, including interdependencies

NAO, 1

Organisations should consider early in a programme’s life cycle what needs to be in place to meet their schedule targets, and periodically assess the likelihood of these requirements being in place

Alamy

that are beyond the immediate control of programme managers so that mitigation plans may be prepared.

Successful delivery often depends on integrating multiple interrelated programmes and projects. While arrangements to deliver individual elements may be clear, the NAO has often seen bodies fail to establish how an entire programme will be delivered, what wider government activity might be needed for its success and who is responsible for carrying this out. This leads to the need for additional resources, or instances where one element of the programme being late prevents the entire programme from achieving its objectives.

Operational planning must also be considered from the start. Moving from programme delivery to day-to-day operations is a major challenge. Nonetheless, bodies often underestimate the complexity of bringing a programme into use and may not begin planning for operations until the programme is nearing completion.

4

GOVERNANCE AND OVERSIGHT

Management should change as a programme develops to reflect the changing requirements of each stage. Sponsors should

remain alert to when their current governance arrangements may not be working. The relationship between a programme’s sponsor and delivery bodies is often set out in an initial agreement that delineates roles and responsibilities, reporting arrangements and when the sponsor can intervene if the programme begins to falter.

However, the NAO has found that these governance arrangements tend to remain similar throughout the programme. This is despite the fact that the different stages all have different risk profiles, require different skills to oversee and might require engagement with different stakeholders. The NAO has also found that mechanisms in agreements between sponsor and delivery bodies, which might be useful at an early stage of the programme, become less so as the programme develops, reducing a sponsor body’s options for overseeing or intervening.

Transparency and honesty are critical.

Bodies must ensure that information within their organisation is accurate, consistent and timely.

Decision-makers should consider whether the indicators they are given are the right ones, and how these would alert them to emerging issues.

They should also actively consider whether the types of management information may need refreshing to keep fulfilling this purpose, and if so, when.

Organisations should examine their own and their contractors’ culture and behaviours to ensure that they allow an effective line of sight from the working level up to the decision-makers, as well as to the wider public.

They should also ensure that commercial arrangements incentivise transparency and honesty within the supply chain.

Accurate, timely and relevant information is crucial to guide and monitor the delivery of programmes. Transparency and honesty are also the basis for constructive challenge of delivery bodies by sponsors, parliament and wider society.

The NAO has found issues with both the technical quality of programme information and organisational cultures preventing the right information from emerging. Without good information, the quality of decision-making may suffer from over-optimistic assessments of programme progress, and problems that could have been identified earlier may suddenly emerge.

Read and download the full report at www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2020/09/Lessons-learned-from-Major-Programmes.pdf

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Boost your career, 1

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Think differently (and don’t be afraid to show it)!

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Jerome Evans, group programme director, UK & Europe, Meggitt There is nothing more refreshing than listening to someone who makes you question your own thinking. Whether you’re interviewing for a new role, presenting a project review or chairing a meeting, don’t fall into the trap of routinely following how things have normally been done. Early in your career, you may feel constrained by process or be told ‘we always do it this way’. This is the time to be brave. If you do this right, you’re going to try lots of new things and along the way make lots of mistakes… With every mistake you make, you learn more, gain more confidence and try new things. Pretty soon you’ll start to get a reputation as someone who’s agile, fast-paced and can make things happen.

H OW TO

CLIENT

BO OST YOUR CA R E E R

Ask for feedback

Chelsea Evans, apprentice project manager, HS2

Receive as much feedback as possible from managers or peers on how you complete tasks and what your plan is for your current role. Being ambitious and proactive is always welcomed. Being self-critical and self-aware of the areas of knowledge or skills that need improving is the first step to succeeding, but you need to know where to start.

Setting a goal to work towards will help motivation and keep morale up in what has been a difficult time for everyone. This can provide a timeframe for you to work towards, but make sure it is suited to your needs and ability. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Speak to anyone who is willing to share their experience of how they got to where they are; success is measured differently by everyone.

e best th u o y s g in r b Project roject p e is w m o fr e advic out how b a ls a n io s s fe pro y doing to get ahead b est… ur b (and being) yo

Take responsibility for your career Emeka Okorocha, technical director, WSP Who or what are you waiting for? Start planning where you want to go. Work out how to take your first step – and prioritise your career. If it is important to you, it should be number one on the list. Continuous professional development is a given, just do it! Improve yourself, and don’t spend too long planning – get out there and make your ambitions happen. Set aside time for developing your career every week/month; review your goals and progress. Have a one, three, five and 10-year plan. Have ambitions of grandeur – the crazier the better – but plan baby steps. The time for leaps will come and will be obvious.

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Don’t be afraid to fail, but take responsibility REPRO OP

Richard Tasker, associate director, WSP

It’s a common phrase: ‘we all make mistakes’, but it is true, and I believe it is important to do so. When you do fail, take responsibility for your actions, reflect on what you could have done differently to improve the outcome and take advice from others who have been in similar situations. Don’t make excuses for why something had the outcome it did, because it’s likely, if you do so, that the same end result will occur the next time round.

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Try risky things outside of your usual job ART

Richard Bendall-Jones, risk and value manager, Network Rail

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It feels comfortable to stick to what you’re good at, but the opportunity to grow lies in pastures you might not have tried (or even thought of) yet. Consider a small side project with teams or functions you’ve not worked with much before. You might gain unique experiences and insight.

Attend and speak at professional events. This is a good way of furthering your knowledge. But getting more involved, such as by volunteering, can pay you back in spades. Not only will you be able to network with new people and demonstrate your project capabilities by organising an event, but you will also develop your public speaking. There’s also no better way to assure yourself of your knowledge of a subject than by teaching it to a room full of strangers!

APM organises events all year round.

You cannot deliver alone Mark Reeson, director, M R Project Solutions Understanding the people around you and how they can help you to improve your delivery is key to any successful project. By appreciating the knowledge and support around you as a project professional, you can start to recognise when to delegate and empower, alleviating time pressures by encouraging decision-making and buy-in from those around you. By implementing this lesson, you can build trust within your team and make a behavioural change, not only in you, but also in those who have faith in your approach to project professionalism.

Never underestimate how important being visible is Mark Brennan, operational lead, WSP A great way to get noticed and stay noticed is to volunteer for things.

By getting involved and helping others, you can build your career. I have seen promising project managers stall because they don’t step outside the day job and then get forgotten when opportunities come up. Remember, sometimes the best opportunities are disguised as that job no one wants to do. But know your limits; it is easy to take on too much and get noticed for the wrong reasons.

Approach challenges positively. Be the person in the team that brings energy and enthusiasm. Celebrate people’s success and support others when they are struggling. If you lift and motivate those around you, word will get around, and people will want you working with them. I know people who have set themselves apart simply through people liking them and wanting them on their teams.

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Boost your career, 2

Challenge yourself

Build your network Matthew Henry, project manager, Sellafield

Building a strong professional network (LinkedIn and APM Hub are great platforms, as well as conferences, webinars etc) with like-minded professionals and becoming known outside of your immediate project team/ organisation is a great way to boost your career. Through your network, you gain insights into common challenges, which boosts your confidence that you aren’t the only one facing that perennial issue of communication, or how to work with that troublesome stakeholder. Don’t feel constrained to only seek out and connect with people from your industry and area of project specialism. Opening up your network as broadly as possible will give you a richer pool of knowledge and collective experience to draw from.

Pursue accredited training and professional membership. These will establish a strong foundation, as they are transferable to all industries and provide validation from your peers on your knowledge, experience and competence.

APM is a great place to start, but also look at other professional bodies that align to your role and industry.

Understand yourself and set clear goals

Nathan Steele, portfolio director, Cobham As project managers, we’re called on to undertake many different tasks that require an array of skills. The way we talk to our teams, the format of a presentation or report, the best way to facilitate a workshop – these are all skills that can be learned. When we first start out, we might understand the theory, but taking the leap to practical implementation can be daunting.

Watching and participating in your peers’ project reviews, stand-ups and risk sessions can help you pick up different ways of working or engaging with your team.

Keeping ourselves abreast of the latest in project management will be second nature, as it’s our passion and we all read this wonderful magazine (Thanks! – Ed). We also need to keep abreast of our industry. Understanding the latest technologies, political influencers, social impacts etc helps us spot opportunities and threats.

David Dulston, project manager, Atlas Elektronik You need to understand what you want, why and how you are going to achieve it. There is no point starting a journey unless you know where you are going. People often forget that their own goals and targets may not actually fit with the organisation’s wants or needs, so it is important to understand the organisation you are working for and ensure it matches your ambitions or at least provides a good launchpad. If you’re finding it difficult to get what you want, maybe it’s time to find an organisation that better suits your goals. Focus on your own growth and not that of those around you – everyone develops at a different pace.

Believe in yourself Laura Pellington-Woodrow, programme manager, The College of Policing If you have got a job, you deserve to be where you are. You aren’t going to be ‘found out’. Once, after I first joined the civil service on a graduate fast-track scheme and was suffering from imposter syndrome big time, I asked one of our directors how everyone senior was so confident, and she replied: “We aren’t. We just get better at hiding it.” If you believe in yourself, then it is easier for others to. Don’t be over-confident or cocky – but understand your strengths and use them.

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ChPPs VERSION

PEER TO PEER

PUBLIC REGISTER OF ChPPs REPRO OP

The following individuals make up the latest cohort to achieve Chartered Project Professional status with APM. Congratulations to you all, from those based in the UK and the Netherlands to Malaysia and Australia! For details of the criteria for achieving chartered status and the routes to get there, visit apm.org.uk/chartered-standard, where you can also view the full Register of Chartered Project Professionals.

SUBS ART PRODUCTION CLIENT

First name

Surname

Country

John

Gallagher

UK

Natasha

Moore

AUS

Yetunde

Adeshile

UK

Mark

Geraghty

UK

Andrew

Morton

UK

Oluwafunlola

Aduwo

NGA

Stephen

Gibbons

UK

Thomas

Neiens

NLD

Felix

Akoh

NGA

Simon

Gillibrand

UK

Peter

Old

UK

Inas

Al Khatib

JOR

Daniel

Goodheart

UK

Richard

Osbaldestin

UK

David

Appleyard

UK

Melissa

Goodwin

UK

David

Pearson

UK

Ismail

Arafa

NLD

Bakathavachlam

Gopinath

BRN

Jacek

Plezia

UK

Rob

Baldock

UK

Andrew

Gray

UK

Jason

Porter

UK

George

Balm

UK

Alistair John

Griffiths

UK

Elzo

Prenger

NLD

Andrew

Bannister

UK

Jeroen

Groenenboom

NLD

Martin

Probert

UK

Lucinda Ellen

Bannister

AUS

Nathan

Grundill

UK

Michael

Proot

NLD

Mark

Barnes

UK

Ryan

Hagan

UK

Matthew

Risk

UK

Lorraine

Bennetts

UK

Rob

Harris

NLD

Athos

Ritsperis

UK

James

Best

UK

Danny

Harrison

UK

Emma

Roberts

UK

James

Bird

UK

Jason

Harvey

UK

Alun

Robinson

UK

Terence

Blythman

AUS

Rhona

Hawkins

UK

Daniel

Robinson

UK

Paul

Bostock

UK

Craig

Heap

UK

Carla

Sanders

UK

Peter

Bradley-Cloak

UK

Jeff

Hill

UK

Joseph

Scattergood

USA

Adele

Broadhurst

UK

Rens

Hooijkaas

NLD

Arthur

Schraven

UK

Craig

Brough

AUS

George

Howard

UK

Ian

Simpson

UK

James

Browning

UK

Mark

Hughes

UK

Neil

Simpson

UK

Rachael

Bryson

UK

Michael

Hyland

IRL

Adam

Skinner

UK

Daniel

Campbell

UK

Geoffrey

Jane

UK

Jodie

Slade

UK

Leslie

Campbell

UK

Jennifer

Johnston

UK

David

Smith

UK

Richard

Cantwell

UK

Amit

Karnik

NLD

Mireille

Soeters

NLD

James

Clark

UK

Carl

Karshagen

UK

Gary

Speirs

UK

Anne-Marie

Cobb

UK

Laura

Keogh

UK

Paul

Stevens

UK

Andrew

Cole

UK

Daryl

Kirkhope

AUS

Laura

Stovell

UK

Allan

Crawshaw

UK

Suresh

Kumar MS

NGA

Claire

Summers

UK

Callum

Crews

UK

Dean

Lloyd-Roberts

UK

Chin Hong

Tan

SGP

Francis

Davies

UK

Alexander

Darren

Thornton

UK

de Andres Garcia UK Blazquez

Paul

MacfarlaneGrieve Macgregor

UK

Mariano

UK

Nicola

Tierney

UK

UK

UK

UK

Mair

Tuohey

Dennis

James

Elsa

Marsha

UK

UK

NLD

Dove

Marks

van Popele

Matthew

Nicola

Ed

NLD

KWT

IND

du Clou

Mazumder

Venugopal

Aschwin

Samir

Arun

UK

UK

CAN

Eddiford

McDonagh

Vincent

Robert

David

Alain

CAN

UK

UK

Wiwchar

Farokhzad

McGuckin

Tim

Amir

Jacqueline

UK

UK

UK

McKay

Wright

Firbank

Emily

Helen

Gary

UK

UK

AUS

Fowles

Mills

Yates

David

Claire

Ross

UK

UK

MYS

Zavad

Francis

Mohd Noor

Simon

Marion

Norhuda

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R I S I N G STA R VERSION

PEER TO PEER

HOW TO REPRO OP SUBS

BUILD A SWISS ARMY KNIFE SKILL SET (AND KEEP YOUR COOL IN A CONFRONTATION)

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APM Young Project Professional of the Year Emma Simpson tells Charles Orton-Jones about her repertoire of tools, tricks and techniques to get any job done

O

h no – they’ve come armed and ready.” We’ve all had that sinking feeling. For Emma Simpson, it came when local landowners turned up to a meeting to talk about flooding on the new £197m bypass near Knutsford, Cheshire.

The bypass, built by Highways England, runs through low-lying fields, and the local opinion was that the project had triggered flooding.

Simpson’s job was to solve the flooding for Highways England and appease the unhappy locals. In her early twenties, running her first ever project, it was the sort of moment that might make you wonder if you’ve made the right career choice. “They were farmers,” she recalls. “They came with their own presentation, as they thought our fix would make the problem worse. They were very emotive.” Views were exchanged. The temperature rose. “It did get quite heated,” admits Simpson.

Keeping calm under fire

What the farmers didn’t know is that Simpson has developed a superb set of skills for

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moments like these – enough to be named Young Project Professional of the Year at the 2020 APM awards. Composure under fire is just one. “I’ve worked in retail, with confrontational customers,” she says. “That experience came in handy.”

She suggested a short time out. Tempers calmed. She engaged first on an emotional level, saying she understood their concerns.

After all, her employer Highways England had barged in on their turf. Maybe they had a point. Then she got technical. “We talked them through our plans and the CAD model. We said we appreciated they don’t believe it, but it will work. By the end, they understood.”

Simpson’s career is a reminder that project management is about far more than Gantt charts and deadlines. Great project managers need a Swiss army toolset of life skills. “I have a One Team approach,” she says. “In a project, there are contractors and there is a client.

Sometimes it can turn into ‘them and us’. I want one team. We are going to face problems together. We’ll go through the highs and lows as a team. I like to instil it from the start. We begin with a kick-off meeting. I explain how I want us to work together. But ultimately it’s about what you do. It means making calls rather than sending emails. It’s about being there and wanting to be involved. I’m not in construction, but I’m not afraid to go out onsite and ask questions.”

She says a One Team approach changes the entire dynamic of a project. “It makes it so

Rising star, 1

PEER TO PEER

Emma Simpson’s achievements were recognised at the 2020 APM Awards, where she took home Young Project Professional of the Year

Emma Simpson Education: Business and economics, first class, Northumbria University First job: Graduate project manager, Highways England, September 2017 Current job: Assistant project manager, Highways England

much easier to solve problems when you work together. Problems are found early, rather than raised last minute.”

“I’m not in construction, but I’m not afraid to go out on-site and ask questions”

Youth versus complacency

Another strength is her desire to keep standards high, despite potential resistance.

As a young project manager, Simpson is aware her age may be a problem. Let’s be realistic – old pros don’t always appreciate being reprimanded by someone half their age. “My favourite example is addressing a very poor health and safety site visit report,” says Simpson. “There was nothing drastically unsafe about the site, but there were a number of minor issues which, added together, were a cause for concern. The contractors on-site were very experienced and a little taken aback that a young project manager was pulling them up on health and safety, and reminding them of the dangers of the construction site.

“They admitted they were being complacent and letting standards slip, and I was proud to be taken seriously, as I had dreaded that they would mock me and not respect the messages I was delivering. This gave my confidence a real boost and enabled me to build on it throughout this project.”

Rip up the plans

One more virtue. The ability to reflect and revise mid-project. For example, the flooding project at the bypass ran into a hideous snag when the RHS Tatton Park flower show appeared on the calendar just as extra underground cabling was discovered.

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“In a project, there are contractors and there is a client.

Sometimes it can turn into ‘them and us’. I want one team”

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The flower show means a ban on roadworks for three weeks. The original timetable simply wouldn’t work. The solution? “The project was initially funded to £800,000,” says Simpson. “I had to work with finance to build an additional business case for £200,000 for the additional work and time.”

Her frank approach won her the money and support for a delay so that work could start after the show. Anything less radical risked interrupting work mid-stream, and then running out of money. But it takes courage and self-awareness to tear up a plan when it no longer works.

A final lesson courtesy of Simpson. Her stellar career may imply she’s always superconfident. Yet she’s happy to admit that when she took the project management job at the bypass she had the normal gamut of emotions.

“I was excited, as I’d been at Highways England for a year, and wanted to put all I’d learned in the APM Project Management Qualification into

EMMA’S TOP TIPS FOR UP-AND-COMING PROJECT MANAGERS

1

Start with a workshop Begin projects with an initial workshop to sketch out the aims. We map out stakeholders, the budget and how to stay within the timeframe. For the flooding project, we were given a year, but I said, ‘Let’s beat the winter.’ Potential risks are considered.

2

Remember it’s taxpayers money For any government-funded project, it’s always in the

practice. Normally at Highways England you are a small fish in a big pond. Here I was a big fish in a small pond. It was daunting. I said, ‘Oh my god, I’m in charge.’ But the team was great, my line manager was too, and in the end it was stressful at times, but wasn’t that daunting.”

Today she’s flying up the ranks. She’s working on some of the most complex traffic projects in the country. Her latest job is improving the Trans-Pennine Corridor section of roads. She’s looking forward to expanding her repertoire. “It’s really massive in terms of the learning curve,” she says enthusiastically.

“My project manager is stepping out, and I’m moving up.” And then, bursting with delight: “I’ve got the power!”

back of my mind that we are spending taxpayer cash. I have a degree in business and economics, so I know the financial side. I say to stakeholders, ‘This is your money we are spending.

So can we do it cheaper?

Or change the design for a lower cost?’ It’s in contractors’ best interests if there is money left in the pot. Remembering that it’s taxpayer money keeps you realistic. You can get carried away with the most glitzy, exciting plans if you aren’t careful.

3

Study psychology I find it really interesting how people tick and how they work in a team. In one of the projects, we conducted the Insights personality test. Everyone answers 40 questions, and at the end you get a colour – Fiery Red, Sunshine Yellow, Cool Blue or Earth Green – to label your conscious and unconscious mind. I am a Yellow Red. Yellows are sociable and enthusiastic. Greens are patient and caring. It was really helpful to show how people work. The more you

understand about psychology, the less frustrated you’ll be. I’d recommend it to any young project managers.

4

Sharing lessons learned After we finished the bypass flooding project, I presented the lessons learned to Highways England.

I explained everything I’d discovered on the project.

Knowledge is power. Sharing insights can save other teams weeks of pain. I also recommend talking to other project managers. I take time to talk to new graduates, to give them tips and advice on what placements they should do. Be an informal mentor.

I got help to progress, and now I share my knowledge to guide them through.

5

Don’t be afraid to ask questions This might sound simple and obvious, but when you are in a room, and you think you may be about to ask a stupid question, ask it anyway. I do!

I can guarantee there will usually be someone else in the room who will be so glad you asked it. So have courage and ask it!

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Q&A

Q&A VERSION

PEER TO PEER

DEAR SUSANNE REPRO OP SUBS

“During the pandemic the members of my team reacted in many different ways – and in ways I had not expected. Some were OK, even thriving, whereas others were not at all OK. Can you help me make sense of it?”

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Susanne Madsen is an internationally recognised project leadership coach, trainer and consultant. She is the author of The Project Management Coaching Workbook and The Power of Project Leadership (second edition now available). For more information, visit www.susannemadsen.com

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It’s understandable that your team’s reactions took you by surprise.

During times of crisis and uncertainty, our basic human needs come to the fore, and because we are all wired differently, we react in different ways. Psychologists such as Chloé Madanes say that human behaviour is motivated primarily by six fundamental needs: certainty, variety, significance, connection, growth and contribution. Although we all have these needs, their relative priority varies from person to person.

High levels of uncertainty can cause panic

One of the most fundamental needs is certainty. We like to feel secure in our jobs, homes and relationships. When something major happens, such as a pandemic or an organisational restructure, our instinctive survival response gets triggered, which can cause stress and panic. When a person in your team is affected by high levels of uncertainty, they’re unable to concentrate on

work. To help them feel safe, get them to talk about their concerns, give them assurances and help them focus on the things they can control.

You also noticed that some of your team members didn’t get stressed at all. Their need for safety may be relatively low – instead they thrive on change and variety. People with a big need for variety and stimuli may have found the crisis rather stimulating, as long as it didn’t restrict them too much. When things become too predictable and controlled, they feel bored and demotivated, so make sure you keep them stimulated.

Our fundamental need for social interaction

Another major need that we all have is connection. We all want to be loved and cared for, and we want a feeling of closeness with friends, colleagues or an online community. People with a high need for social connection would have felt cut off from friends and colleagues during the pandemic.

Those with a more reclusive nature would have enjoyed it. Having an open conversation with your team can help you meet their needs.

There has to be a sufficient level of meaningful interactions for those who need it while respecting those who prefer the peace and quiet.

In addition, many people have a high need for significance and feeling important. Whereas some team members found a way to shine and feel important during the crisis, others struggled. Perhaps they felt insignificant and had difficulties proving their worth as roles and communication channels changed

and as some were furloughed. Make sure that staff aren’t forgotten. Help them shine in constructive ways and remember that praise goes a long way.

Help your team to grow and contribute

One of the big opportunities that arises during a crisis is to help team members to grow and contribute. We all have a need to grow and expand, and we are usually the happiest when we feel we are making progress.

Amid crisis and uncertainty there are excellent opportunities to adapt and grow. Even if projects are stalling, we can expand our technical, interpersonal and emotional skills.

We also need to feel that we are making a difference and contributing to something of value. When team members are head-down or feeling stressed, it’s easy to forget the bigger picture and the ways in which their contribution matters. Make an effort to connect each of their tasks to a higher purpose. All projects have a purpose, and they all make life easier for someone somewhere. We just need a little help seeing it.

Do you have a question for Susanne?

Email mail@susannemadsen.com

READER OFFER Enjoy a 25 per cent discount on The Power of Project Leadership, second edition, when you order the book from Kogan Page (www.koganpage. com). Quote code: PROJ25

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BEYOND THE JOB VERSION

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PROJECT: ESTABLISH A MENTORING CIRCLE IJ Samuel, an associate director at Turner &

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Townsend, shares her experience of empowering more women to get ahead in their careers

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I

had an ‘a-ha’ moment after returning from maternity leave in 2014 as I struggled to settle back into the ‘usual’ project delivery drumbeat with my previous employer.

Fast-forward to 2019, when I came across some colleagues with similar lived experiences, I discovered several articles all pointing to the lack of women in senior roles.

It was shocking to see that there are still only five female CEOs in the FTSE 100 companies. Even more disturbing is the limited diversity (in other areas besides gender) in management and senior leadership teams across many organisations.

Peer power

Wearing my project controls and PMO hat, I switched on my diagnostic and analytical skills to understand the root cause of limited progression for women. This sparked a burning passion for me to play my part. My intention was to offer a mentoring support group to help women build the confidence to drive their career. This led to the pilot launch of the Female Mentoring Circles initiative, a platform to change the narrative for women in construction and empower women in technical professions keen to transition into leadership positions.

Female Mentoring Circles is a peer-led mentoring and coaching programme in a safe space, where female colleagues are empowered to overcome the challenges that

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limit career progression. The sessions are structured with distinct objectives and each meeting is concluded with a monthly challenge that circle members need to achieve.

One of the sessions explored the personal vision and core values of each circle member as an enabler to keep everyone focused on where their career is going and the exact thing they are trying to achieve. People shared their journeys, and the discussion helped them set clear objectives for their career path.

Feel the fear

In another session, participants were set the challenge to contact three people who are seemingly impossible to reach. The idea was to explore how women can stretch themselves outside of their comfort zone. The question remains: what would you do if you were not afraid to fail? One participant emailed three CEOs and received a reply from the CEO of a FTSE 100 company. This challenge allowed the group to build connections. Some said that this challenge was daunting but made them feel they had achieved the impossible.

The idea was to explore how women can stretch themselves outside of their comfort zone. The question remains: what would you do if you were not afraid to fail?

Pivot and adapt

Whether it was a challenge about building their personal brand or presenting ‘elevator pitches’ to guest speakers, most participants agreed that there’s nothing more nervewracking than having to talk about yourself in front of your peers. Indeed, effective communication is a crucial skill for success.

The six-month pilot ended with so much positive feedback from the 18 circle participants; some said they leave each session feeling more empowered to succeed.

They reported increased confidence and motivation that led to greater outcomes, more innovation from knowledge sharing, better ideas and support from a diverse group of women.

In March 2020, when the first COVID-19 lockdown hit, I recognised the uncertainties faced by many. I felt it was even more compelling for me to continue to play my part to support the women who were in my mentoring circles.

Together we will continue to build a truly diverse and inclusive industry and change the narrative in leadership

I decided to take the mentoring circle online, continuing to invite guest speakers to virtual weekly events and organising lively fire-side socials. Lockdown led to the mentoring circles having a wider reach, with women dialling in from all over the UK. Running weekly virtual mentoring sessions inevitably required additional coordination.

This time I had to build a small support team to share the planning and delivery workload, and to ensure the vision was maintained.

Delegation is one of the core skills in leadership and I applied this by building a team of trusted women who were part of the pilot circle.

Did you know that raising awareness to eliminate some of the obstacles that limit career progression can help to increase diversity and inclusion? The Female Mentoring Circles initiative has been a massive success for two consecutive years, with a growing number of participants sharing amazing stories of greater confidence and clarity to pursue their dreams and realise their ambitions.

Alongside the mentoring initiative, I invest my out-of-office hours equally in leading a Public Speaking and Leadership Development initiative, as well as supporting Black Professionals in Construction to diversify the talent pipeline within the built environment.

All of these initiatives are linked by a common passion to drive inclusion in leadership.

So, have I met my objective of supporting women to break the glass ceiling and ambitious professionals to transition into leadership? I can confidently say yes to playing my part to change the narrative, based on feedback from participants of these amazing initiatives.

Lessons learned

One of my biggest lessons learned from leading these initiatives has been the agility and resilience to balance my day job with the time and effort I invest into developing others.

As someone who is fuelled by a passion to empower others to succeed, I draw inner strength from making a positive impact on those careers that depend on the mentoring and leadership development support I provide.

In 2021, in spite of the uncertainties, the plan is to continue to play my part to inspire and empower professionals who need the opportunity to step into management and thrive in leadership. Together we will continue to build a truly diverse and inclusive industry and change the narrative in leadership.

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Beyond the job, 1

Cae

Offline, 1 VERSION REPRO OP

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Where project management meets popular culture

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Every day is the same. You’re trapped in an eternal loop, doomed to repeat the same mistakes on your project over and over. Sound familiar? Well, Groundhog Day may provide some tips, writes Richard Young

O Alamy

Groundhog Day. Again.

ne of the richest seams in project management theory and practice is how to capture experiences and embed ‘lessons learned’ about your personal or organisational approach. Time and again, we hear how exhaustive postmortems generate documents that are never read; or how organisations fail to capture individual lessons and repeat mistakes.

Which makes the 1993 movie Groundhog Day – for project managers, anyway – not just a morality tale about

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the search for searing honesty and pure intentions, but also a fantasy world where project failures can be reviewed, replayed and ironed out to perfection.

It’s an iconic film, but for the uninitiated… our (anti)hero is Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a cynical and sleazy TV weatherman who’s sent to small-town Pennsylvania – Punxsutawney, to be precise – to cover the annual Groundhog Day ceremony.

The myth states that if the large rodent (also called Phil) emerges from its hide and sees its own shadow on the morning of 2 February, there will be six more weeks of winter.

But when bad weather closes in and forces him and his crew – producer Rita Hanson (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) – to return to the town for the night, Phil becomes trapped in a time loop, forcing him to relive the same day over and over again. Nightmarish hellscape or, as the film eventually reveals, heaven-sent opportunity for personal growth?

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Haven’t we been here before?

There are really three projects for Phil to manage. The first is the most straightforward: get the piece to camera covering the groundhog recorded and filed. And it offers us a couple of lessons about project management. First, the experienced project manager develops a kind of muscle memory around familiar tasks – which can be both positive and negative. Phil has done the Groundhog Day report before; he knows how to deliver a piece to camera and he’s able to execute it perfectly well with minimal fuss. He delegates – letting his cameraman set up – and gets the report done.

So, a good project manager, then?

Not so fast. To begin with, there’s the way he treats his project sponsor. Let us assign that role to Rita. A producer ought to be a project manager, of course, but in this case she’s the one expecting an outcome from Phil’s work – and she’ll be the one to judge how well he’s performed. He’s dismissive of her talent – not least because she’s a woman; at the start of the movie Phil is very much at the wrong end of

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NED? NED RYERSON?!

The real star of Groundhog Day is Stephen Tobolowsky playing insurance salesman and all-round dork Ned Ryerson. Ned greets Phil on his way to Gobbler’s Knob to film his piece, and reveals himself to be an old school ‘friend’ of Phil’s – whom the weatherman can barely remember and treats disdainfully.

Through our project management lens, Ned is that project team member you really don’t like. They

might be a long-term fixture in the organisation or a functional expert assigned to ‘help’ you – but they’re impossible to engage with and far too easy to hate.

But mature project leadership is all about accommodating the team in a way that helps everyone be productive. Cynical Phil starts out by brushing Ned off – the equivalent of ignoring him in meetings, or muting his Zoom feed. Desperate Phil punches Ned in the face – needless to say,

Phil’s experience and confidence result in him becoming cavalier, cutting everything fine

trying. When you start to feel stuck in a rut, it’s time for a change. That might be automating dull tasks or going out of your comfort zone in a new field or industry.

the sexism spectrum. He more or less ignores her requests to provide input on the project scope. And he considers his work done when he decides, not when she’s happy.

That’s the second lesson: project familiarity can breed contempt. Phil’s experience and confidence result in him becoming cavalier, cutting everything fine because he thinks he knows exactly what needs to be done without really

Haven’t we been here before?

The second big project dawns on Phil after he wakes up to repeat the same day all over again. The first time it happens, he feels like he’s suffered some kind of extended bout of déjà vu – it’s disorientating and other-worldly, and he can barely make sense of it. But after the second and third times, he begins to glimpse the freedom from responsibility

Offline, 2

OFFLINE

Learn to engage the Ned Ryersons on your team, even if they set your teeth on edge.

Inset: Phil learns to see his project team members in a new, less cynical light

Alamy

open hostility to a project team member is never acceptable.

But enlightened Phil does what every great project leader can: embrace the contribution of team members even when they feel inconvenient. Phil’s redemption might not be secured just because he learns to engage with Ned – but being open and even welcoming to someone who grates is the surest sign of the personal growth that does bring his project to a close.

offered by the resetting of his life after every day. This project, then, is how to exploit the environment he’s in. And it’s a lesson in agile.

Unlike most agile projects, there isn’t a meeting every morning to review progress and hammer through the tasks for the day. Phil already knows, in increasingly precise detail, what his project environment is like; he becomes familiar not just with the foibles of his user base and the way his organisation runs – he can predict with absolutely certainty what everyone is going to say.

Phil does lack one key element of a good agile team: documentation.

There’s no wall-planner, status update

or chart covered in Post-It notes to clarify who’s done what and which tasks are next. He has to memorise everything in order to make ‘progress’.

Why the quotes? Well, in this project, ‘progress’ is purely procedural. There’s no sense of the project having a grand objective or purpose. For example, Phil learns beat-by-beat how the cash delivery to the bank works, exploiting a lapse in attention by a guard to steal a bagful of money. But how much can he spend in one day?

Even more cynically, he memorises the personality traits of a woman in the town diner in order to seduce her.

He can be horrible to people, beat them up even, and never faces any consequences. In time, this also gets boring. Project-without-a-purpose ennui sets in. How do you stay motivated when the answers become obvious but the mission remains worthless or the objective never seems to get closer? Phil’s solution is to try to end his life. But even this act is empty and purposeless – and it fails every time, leaving him waking up after each attempt to the same terrible radio jingle.

Haven’t we been here before?

Is there anything intrinsically wrong with exploiting your expertise in project disciplines or familiarity with an organisation or industry? Of course not.

But staying motivated is much easier when you feel the project has a bigger meaning. Phil’s third project comes to life when he wakes up to that fact. And the higher purpose he uncovers is using his unique situation to give the town of Punxsutawney a perfect day.

It doesn’t start out quite like that.

Realising that he is attracted to Rita, he initially attempts to use his sleazy techniques to seduce her. But he consistently fails. After his epiphany, he realises that this is an unworthy project. She is pure of heart, and only by becoming altruistic himself can he hope to win her love.

That altruism is all-pervading: from completely re-imagining the report he films for Groundhog Day as an inspirational speech, to saving

Staying motivated is much easier when you feel the project has a bigger meaning

townspeople’s lives, regaling them with piano recitals and making ice sculptures – skills he’s learned during his loops. When his positive behaviour and selflessness become instinctive and sincere – and he can honestly win Rita’s love – the spell is broken.

It’s a rare project manager who doesn’t replay the project scope or rue the missed opportunities when they reach each stage gate. Even when a ‘lessons learned’ process reveals some blinding truth or actionable insight, it’s always too late to fix what happened.

But although Phil is afforded that luxury, it’s not the ability to make every task just-so in his project that makes it so perfect. It’s the honesty and purpose in his project management that ultimately saves Phil.

So is the message that we should only do projects with some kind of moral objective? Not exactly. For project managers, Groundhog Day is more of a lesson in purity of heart.

We’re always going to have to deal with project politics and expedient decisions, resource constraints and truculent team members. But tackling each part of the project openly, honestly and with clear intent can only yield positive results.

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New and recommended favourite books and podcasts to keep you entertained

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The necessity of keeping a notebook, why project managers are like artists, and what it takes to develop your grit

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The Grit Factor

Shannon Huffman Polson (HBR Press)

The Grit Factor focuses on what it takes to succeed as a woman in the most male-dominated workplace on earth, the United States armed forces.

So what is grit and how can you develop it and then use it to take flight as a leader? “Those who are first in their fields… are leaders by virtue of circumstances, and the challenges ahead of them require grit.

Their success shows others what is possible,” writes Polson.

This is also a book full of stories about incredible women and how they rose in the armed forces when many of the men they worked with did not want them to be there. These stories have come from decorated leaders who in many cases were the first women in their field, including the first female four-star general. They all demonstrate clearly the grit and resilience that

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these ground-breaking women needed to succeed.

When Polson became the first female attack helicopter pilot, there were very few female role models, and she describes the loneliness of that position. This inspired her to reach out to other women in the armed forces for their stories and led to the writing of this book. She hopes their voices will inspire others and become part of a ‘sisterhood’ support network.

The need for female role models has not gone away, in fact it has probably increased following #MeToo. Polson also describes the need for these bright stars to act as role models in your own personal solar system of support.

Polson weaves these stories with her own experience and current research to provide a framework that any aspiring leader, male or female, can use to commit, learn and launch themselves as a leader. There are exercises in each of the chapters giving practical advice to the modern leader, including understanding your own story and drivers, how to listen more

Shannon Huffman Polson was one of the first women to fly the Apache attack helicopter in the US army

effectively, and being an authentic and adaptable leader.

You don’t have to be in the armed forces to get a lot out of this book.

The principles apply through to the boardroom and can help you develop your own sense of grit.

✶✶✶✶

Review by Vicki Griffiths, senior project manager, Fugro, and chair of APM’s Women in Project Management SIG

Work Together Anywhere

Lisette Sutherland and K Janene-Nelson (Wiley)

This book was published in mid-2020 but was clearly written preCOVID because it does not mention the pandemic or its possible impacts on remote working. This makes it seem a little disconnected, considering its topicality.

Books, 1

I would emphasise that ideal remote working is not the same as current working from home. Remote working brings aspects of freedom of choice, lifestyle and mobility. This book enthuses about such features – and generally encourages the progressive transfer to such goals – with a following wind. The pandemic provided a galeforce necessity to working from home, effectively overnight – with restrictions rather than freedoms – frequently in sub-optimal environments and circumstances.

I particularly liked the ‘toolset, skillset and mindset’ approach, focusing on reliable tools, skills to optimise their use and a mindset to make the very best of both tools and skills. It reflected my experiences with remote working over the last 50 years. Similarly, the advice on team agreements is thorough and helpful.

This is a long book at just shy of 400 pages. It takes about 60 pages to get going, and there is plenty of repetition within chapters – in their introductions, explanations and summaries – for reinforcement, probably.

Those undertaking reviews of business continuity, disaster recovery or crisis management may find some ideas and stimulation within this book.

Clearly total or even partial remote working does not work for everyone.

The project management community does have opportunities to undertake remote working and collaboration on commissions – as individuals, teams and mangers – and to devise and deliver optimal arrangements for combined remote and on-site activities, which will be required again in a post-COVID world. By then I expect there may be another edition of this book to reflect the prevailing circumstances and to include the authors’ interviews and podcasts, which have been continuing at pace since the first edition was assembled.

✶✶✶

Review by Tom Taylor, author of Pandemics, Crisis Impacts and Responses – for businesses of all sizes, and a past chair and president of APM

My Bedside Books

Debbie Lewis, chair of APM and director of strategic programmes, BT Group THINK LIKE AN ARTIST AND LEAD A MORE CREATIVE, PRODUCTIVE LIFE Will Gompertz

As I try to achieve balance between my scientific brain and my creative brain, giving vent to my artistic side is not without its challenges.

This book seemed to talk to those challenges directly. It instantly made me feel more comfortable with the artistic process and its frustrations. Gompertz describes some of the traits that he sees as common to great creative thinkers, and practices that allowed them to achieve ground-breaking art.

MANAGING SUCCESSFUL PROGRAMMES Office of Government Commerce

This book, which describes the OGC approach to managing programmes, is one I return to on a regular basis. It is easy

to dip into for an answer to a specific question, but it is also equally digestible if you want to take an end-to-end approach to wrangling the complexity of a major programme into a coherent structure. It also describes in detail a useful portfolio of artefacts that I strongly believe can underpin robust stakeholder management.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE NOTEBOOK Me

This one is not yet published! It’s my own scribblings on my ongoing learning as a project practitioner.

Reflective practice is something I was introduced to as part of my master’s. It has become a valuable reminder of what has worked for me, as well as what has not.

Reflecting on your learnings on an ongoing basis is something I highly recommend.

We’re all ears – podcasts to listen to

Send your own recommendations to emma.devita@thinkpublishing.co.uk HOW TO BE A GREAT PROJECT LEADER The APM Podcast We pin down exactly what it means to lead a project and how this role is evolving to reflect the changing nature of projects and the pressures of the pandemic. Host Emma De Vita, editor of Project, asks a panel of project experts how a project leader needs to behave to be highly effective, and what mindset you need to thrive in this role amid change and uncertainty.

THE BIG INTERVIEW Monocle Podcasts from business and culture magazine Monocle are long-form conversations about the lives and careers of the world’s leading names from art, design, literature, politics, business and food. Included are oneto-ones with David Miliband, CEO of

the International Rescue Committee and former UK foreign secretary; Emma Tucker, editor of The Sunday Times; and Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis.

For inspiration, listen to the episode with Samantha Power, who served in Barack Obama’s cabinet.

THE REUNION BBC Radio 4 This long-running series reunites the people who were involved in a project or event that made the headlines. Of interest to project professionals will be the episode that reunites the team behind London’s bid for the 2012 Olympics. Another brings together the founders and artists of the Tate Modern, who turned a derelict power station into a landmark. Meanwhile, the ‘COVID-19 Ward’ episode reunites poet Michael Rosen and the medical staff who cared for him.

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Obeng, 1 VERSION

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A PROJECT MANIFESTO FOR OUR POST-COVID WORLD

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Eddie Obeng asks: what will it take to move from a BC (before COVID-19) world to an AD (accelerated development) world?

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In January, I attended an accreditation fair. The exhibition hall was laid out with all the top providers of project practitioner skills and assessment, including a large APM stand. I joined one group of avatars at a virtual café table for a chat before I gave my keynote.

Remote working guru Chris Herd believes that 30 per cent of companies are planning to get rid of their offices and go ‘remote first’. If he is correct, we’re going to need better ways than video conferences and document sharing to keep us engaged. We’re going to need to be able to lead and not just coordinate projects. Jeremy Dalton in his new book Reality Check suggests that avatar-based events and work are the future.

The future of work?

I’m only partially sure of this. In 2020 I wrote an article on the five possible futures we faced:

1 ‘Back to normal’, where we are

all dressed head-to-toe in stylish lightweight spaceman-style suits or vaccinated like Swiss cheese and go back to BC (before COVID-19).

2 ‘Partially locked’, where we yo-yo

between old freedoms and restrictions.

3 ‘Accidental rut’, where the habits built up in periods of lockdown persist, and your ‘Zoombie’ eyes keep swivelling.

4 ‘Another phoenix’, where your

organisation (that has been rubbish at innovation) now tries to reinvent itself for new customers and markets

5 And the one I believe will be our real

future – ‘The meld’ – a mixture of all the above in no organised fashion.

Either way, our past is now as unfamiliar as our future. When faced with a completely new challenge, the safest way to succeed is not to set goals about something you don’t understand, but instead to take a step review and learn. You need to be systematic and disciplined. Post-pandemic, having a system for success will trump any audacious but ungrounded goals.

The journey is just beginning

You responded so well to the crisis. It is easy to believe our new status quo is also our best future. It is not! What must you now unlearn to be able to progress?

Comfortable pyjama bottoms on Teams calls need to be replaced with proactive engagement of stakeholders. Document sharing needs to be replaced with synchronous collaborative workshops.

Technology can enhance and empower people or it can enslave them and crush their dreams Learn to transform

Change is not enough – to reinvent you must transform. Your BC project management and best practice need upgrading. Now we must learn in advance from what has not yet happened and avoid the bad bits. The system I use is where project stakeholders meet periodically to dream about what could happen in the future. They begin with the problems we know affect project types, and focus on zero defects.

Relax and find a guide

There are two ways to reinvent – one is to copy everyone else, find the trendy buzzwords and push a bunch of ideas

Professor Eddie Obeng is an educator, TED speaker and the author of Perfect Projects and All Change! The Project Leader’s Secret Handbook. Read his white paper at eddieobeng.com/howdigitalwillsave theworld. Tweet him @EddieObeng or read his blog at imagineafish.com

for working better and see what works.

The safer route is to find the most demanding stakeholder, and use them as a guide to the future. Reinvent to meet their outrageous demands. Often the rest of the world will want what this person demands six months after they have spelled it out, so you will be ahead.

Technology to empower

Technology can enhance and empower people or it can enslave people, delete their sense of purpose and crush their dreams. Speaking with one training organisation, they were proud of how the syllabus content was constrained, the process systematised and the training tutors assessed. I asked how, with the lack of face-to-face classrooms, they were delivering the nuance and emotional connection needed to grow superb managers and not technicians.

They answered that they used e-learning and webinars. I replied, “Can’t those just be recorded and AI used to create a database of responses? How is the technology empowering the tutors?

Enhancing the learners?” I was their most demanding stakeholder.

If 2020 has been our ‘crisis’, then 2021 marks our first year post-disaster.

It is the year our energy and creativity emerge from lockdown to build, knowing that the best is yet to come.

I hope you have begun already.

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