Major Projects Association

Collaborative Leadership in Practice

Tony Slater is Managing Director of SMP Alliance, the collaborative organisation set up by National Highways, Jacobs, WSP, BMJV, Balfour Beatty, Costain and Fluor, to deliver the smart motorways programme.

In conversation with Al Simmonite from Advance Consultancy, Tony tells the story of the Alliance and the challenge of creating an integrated, single entity; one that included National Highways and its key design and construction partners.

He covers:

• the value of the Alliance - a delivery model within which every partner wins or they all lose
• the aspects of collaboration that enable the Alliance to deliver its outcomes and how they were agreed on
• the power of common purpose and the new ways of working associated with the Alliance
• how to make it easy for people to navigate across organisational boundaries and work together
• the significance of an outcomes-based approach in identifying and recognising achievements as key progress
• the reality of individual and collective accountability 
• the Alliance learning model for sharing lessons and good practice
• the nature and role of Alliance leadership

Change, Transformation and Working at Pace

In this podcast episode on the topic of change and delivery at pace, Andy Murray interviews project delivery experts from the pharmaceutical industry: Denise Moody of the Pharmaceutical Industry Project Management Group, Fraser MacFarlane from GSK, and Danie Du Plessis of Kyowa Kirin International.

During their conversation, we learn:

• the imperative and the challenge of focus and prioritization
• how a highly innovative industry uses a mix of waterfall and agile against the backdrop of a strict regime of regulation
• why organisations die of indigestion rather than starvation
• how to manage projects in an industry where multiple projects will die, very few projects will get to success and where spending on projects is in the billions
• the challenge of bringing new critical projects into the portfolio and the need to terminate other projects to provide the requisite space and resources
• the opportunity to things faster by doing them concurrently, rather than sequentially
• the five Cs of successful change

What’s Next in Project Data Analytics?

Gareth Parkes, Head of Data and Analytics at Sir Robert MacAlpine, interviews Ed Burns, CCO at Mafic, Luis Lattuf and Yixue Shen, both researchers at WMG, to help us understand where project data analytics is going and what are the practical applications, obstacles and opportunities presented by the fast moving technology.

During their conversation, we learn about Mafic's real world application of data and what they have learned about the problem of trust, the need for both organisation and users to derive value from the tech, and how the power of positive motivation is encouraging uptake along with fundamental changes in management assumptions and style. 

We also hear the evidence of the importance of the technology enablers: ease of use and usefulness and ways of overcoming the barriers to adoption; as well as discover the difference between artificial intelligence and machine learning, and how the latter can be used to predict project performance.

Leadership Through the Lens of Collaboration

Join Andy Murray, Executive Director of the Major Projects Association; Jenni MacKenzie, Commonwealth Games Senior Programme Manager; Mark Russell, Chief Executive of The Children's Society , Dr Simon Addyman, Associate Professor at UCL; and Deirdre Fox, Non-Executive Director at Advance Consultancy as they explore collaboration and leadership in major projects.

During their wide-ranging discussion, they cover:

• How the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games used collaborative leadership to deliver, despite the Covid pandemic, a curtailed schedule and the need to descope parts of the original plan
• Why collaboration is a strategic imperative for The Children's Society and how they deliver 80 different services to 50,000 children with and through others
• The importance of co-creation and co-design 
• The need for a North Star for what (collective) success looks like
• What time and means you have available for teams to come together across organisational boundaries
• The role of the generous and incomplete leader within all of this.

Masterclass on Coaching and Mentoring with David Clutterbuck

Professor David Clutterbuck recently celebrated his 75th birthday (and published his 75th book). In this wide-ranging Masterclass he shares his good humoured and razor sharp insights from nearly 50 years of coaching and mentoring.

• a range of models such as The Diversity Awareness Ladder, the five different levels of interaction we have with other people;
• how, as a coach or a mentor, you can help people have the conversations they need to have;
• the problem , in the context of complexity and collaboration, of organisational reward systems that remain focused on the individual rather than the team;
• the challenge of organisational leaders who are unable to think systematically;
• the ubiquity of HR bling, for example: succession plans (that aren’t worth the paper they are written on); performance reviews (that simply provide managers with a formal structure to hide behind rather than have the conversations they need to have);
• the five levels of coaching which rise to (the fifth level) coaching teams of teams in large projects; where coaching enables the formal and informal conversations between teams (and where the informal conversations are the more important);
• the concept of rapid teaming: enabling temporary teams, which may only be in place for six months, to hit the ground running and perform from Day One;
• ways in which coaches and mentors will need to adapt to respond to changing contexts and technology such as AI and Automation.

 

Tackling the Not Invented Here Syndrome

In the second part of our Annual Conference podcast, Andy Murray interviews Nick Smallwood, CEO of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, on how to change the way people think about delivery to make what you do 'nothing less than world class'.

In a wide-ranging interview, they discuss topics such as benchmarking, project and programme leadership, risk versus reward, and what project organisations look like when 'curious leaders enable communities of curiosity'; facilitating new thinking and the adoption of innovative tools, processes and approaches.

Escaping the Major Projects Echo Chamber

Every major project encourages an unwavering focus on successful delivery. Whilst this has the advantage of generating continual forward momentum and progress, it carries with it a real risk: the creation of an echo chamber.

In an echo chamber we remain fixed in our own limited bubble, unhearing or sceptical of any voices from 'outside our group' who may be advocating a different approach, questioning elements of our model or our delivery plan and playing the critical role of Devil's Advocate.

The Major Projects Association annual conference in January 2023 explored the phenomenon of the 'echo chamber':

• defining the concept and its impact on project delivery organisations
• exploring how the echo chamber manifests itself and the behaviours it engenders
• looking at the antidote to echo chambers - encouraging diversity and inclusion, making time for reflection, listening to sceptical voices, tackling confirmation bias and 'not invented here' syndrome
• discussing the skills and new behaviours needed by everyone from the lowliest member of the team to the leader
• reflecting on the case example of Sellafield and how a historically risk-averse organisation worked to build a new model and a new culture to embrace change and innovation.

The podcast episode, the first of two, features Andy Murray, Executive Director of the Association, interviewing Professor Harvey Maylor of Oxford Said Business School; Andrea Powell of EY; Lauralee Doughty of Sellafield; and Richard Corderoy of the Oakland Group.

In the second episode, Andy interviews our keynote speaker from the conference to pick up and explore the ideas of the echo chamber  in the context of the work of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.

Making Major Projects Investable

In the latest episode from our podcast series spun out of the Association events programme, Andy Murray interviews James Stewart from Agilia Infrastructure Partners, Paul Innes from Grant Thornton, and Stewart Westgate of Boston Consulting Group.

In their discussion of how to make major projects investable they explore the wide range of contractual models that have emerged over the last 30 years and explain:

• The underlying theme of confidence and some of the things that underpin it which you can't put on a simple scorecard
• The importance of 'the right people/right team in improving confidence
• The role of the sponsor and the dealmaker and some of the capabilities they need

In an environment in which investor confidence has taken a battering over recent years and where risk appetite is at an all-time low, finding ways to demonstrate the appeal and affordability of your project and crafting the right story to engage investors is a fundamental capability.

Systems Thinking Systems Leading PART TWO THE HYNET CASE STUDY

In the second of this Two-Part podcast, based on the Major Project Association seminar "Systems Thinking, Systems Leading", Andy Murray interviews David Parkin, Project Director of Hynet North West who gives an insight into how one enterprise has sought to manage the system complexity that comes with the challenge of decarbonisation. HyNet is not a legal entity, but rather a collaboration through which the partners are seeking to break the link between wealth generation and carbon emissions in the UK’s industrial hub of North West England.

The task faced by HyNet can be broken down into four key elements: Technical Integration, Commercial Structures, Planning and Consenting, Policy & Regulation. The programme needs to integrate two complex technical systems, one for hydrogen production, storage and distribution, the other for carbon capture and storage. Both systems involve new or rapidly evolving technology. Multiple consents also need to be secured, including several which are first Systems Thinking, Systems Leading of a kind for the UK.

Similarly, a series of commercial models need to be designed, sometimes from scratch, and their bankability established. Finally, the programme has to navigate multiple regulatory regimes not all of which currently exist. David has drawn four overarching lessons from his work to date: purpose, integration, relationships, and leadership. He touches on all of these elements in the podcast.

Systems Thinking Systems Leading PART ONE

"As projects become more complex, their success or failure is increasingly determined by the interactions between new and pre-existing natural, built and digital systems, and the critical role of people in making these interactions work. As such, project outputs should not be viewed in isolation but as part of a system of systems". 

In the first of this Two-Part podcast, based on the Major Project Association seminar "Systems Thinking, Systems Leading", Andy Murray interviews Mark Wild, ex-CEO of Crossrail and now Chief Executive at SGN and Michele Dix, previously Head of Crossrail 2, and now a Non-Executive Director at the Association.

In a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss

• the role of the 'systems leader'; someone who needs to build a relationship with the ecosystem of major project
• the value of systems thinking in complex projects and programmes
• systems leading at Crossrail
• the need to balance curiosity and reflection with speed of delivery
• the nature of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.