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A touch of geniusJanette Bowes discusses

how TfL is riding the contactless wave

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Project Management

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When talking about pro-ject mana-gement and a ‘changing landscape’ it

is certainly more than just a metap-hor. This is a profession that changes the way the world looks and how we look at it. It embraces the existing and emerging challenges of econo-mic regeneration, globalisation, con-nectivity, security, climate change and sustainability. In short, project management has a significant influ-ence over how we live our lives both now, and in the future.

There was a time when project management was something that happened, to varying degrees of success, while things changed. We might debate whether it real-ly existed at all. Success was mostly

hidden, failure widely broadcast. The national consensus was that we couldn’t manage large projects. It may have been more a case that, in reality, we didn’t manage projects. Some of us have tried and succeeded, but when you haven’t got support from top to bottom, genuine succes-ses are more difficult.

The London Olympics changed these perceptions; they showed that the robust and rigorous application of professional project management could deliver not only world class facilities, but their intended be-nefits, as well as leave a legacy for future generations.

That legacy is evident in the way we view the delivery of pro-jects today. We are upgrading our wonderful but outdated Victorian infrastructure and we expect this work to be successful. Crossrail,

The changing landscape of project managementHow the legacy of London 2012 is transforming perceptions and increasing demands within the profession.

Tom TaylorPresident, Association for

Project Management

“As the recognition of project management grows, so does the demand for skills”

READ MORE ON PROJECTMANAGEMENTADVICE.CO.UK

Driving changeExperts call for a new generation of project managers to help meet strategic business goals and save moneyP4

Ask the panelOur Project Management experts share their views on the top ingredients for successful projects P5

Watch APM contentA smart and simple video that outlines the fundamentals of project management - online and available now

HS2, Thames Tideway Tunnel all apply professional project mana-gement to help ensure successful benefits. In the future we will be considering the challenges of ener-gy supply, airport expansion and the Northern Powerhouse.

As the recognition of project ma-nagement grows, so does the de-mand for skills. We need a larger, mo-re capable, more diverse profession. A diverse profession brings creative solutions to problems and better out-comes. Nearly 40 per cent of respon-dents to APM’s Salary and Market Trends Report in 2015 aged under 35 were women, progress is being made on all fronts.

We are also seeing a greater un-derstanding of the benefits of pro-ject management and commitments to its application from the very top of government. During the General

Election, the new government stated its desire to find significant savings through, amongst other things, ma-naging big projects better.

Have you noticed expectations of what projects can deliver are chan-ging? The tolerance of failure is fal-ling, we expect more, frequently for less and faster. The project mana-gement profession is adaptive and dexterous in dealing with chang-ing circumstances, a wider range of influences and stakeholders and their changing, sometimes conflic-ting, demands.

Projects are all about change. The nature of that change is changing. It’s an exciting, diverse and growing profession which is full of opportunity. Project management is a modern profession for now and for the future.

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IN THIS ISSUE

How the legacy of London 2012 is transforming perceptions and increasing demands within the profession.

If you’re familiar with business methodologies including PRINCE2® and others known as “agile”, you may think they are incompatible.

However, you should reconsider that view: adoption of PRINCE2 – the world’s most widely-used project management framework – and agile methods in business have grown rapidly over the past decade, each with the common purpose of fi nding better ways to deliver value through change. Unfortunately, the two have evolved mainly in parallel universes with PRINCE2 strong in project management and agile strong in product delivery. This diff erent focus has often made it diffi cult for organisations to realise the full benefi ts of each. That is, until now.Launched this year, the PRINCE2 Agile™ best practice guidance and qualifi cation has extended the capabilities of PRINCE2 to provide an even better way to connect agile

methods. In fact, there is no other approach right now off ering such a comprehensive insight into how diff erent agile methods fi t into project management. It can bring clear benefi ts equally to traditional and agile organisations through a framework where both methodolo-gies co-exist and improve the way to run projects. PRINCE2 Agile helps organisations open up to more agile ways of working with the additional control and governance of PRINCE2. This point is crucial to senior executives: adopting agile methods doesn’t mean relinquishing governance, control and accountability and PRINCE2 Agile can support that, while delivering profi table prod-ucts to market faster for an earlier return on investment. I would recommend PRINCE2 Agile as essential reading for current PRINCE2 practitioners working in agile teams and similarly for agile advocates without a background in PRINCE2. As well as helping to de-liver project benefi ts and return on

investment earlier, it enables better communication between people us-ing the diff erent methods through creating a common language while the PRINCE2 guidance gives clear guidelines for injecting agile ways of thinking into your organisation. If you are using agile in a project context you might consider build-ing PRINCE2 and PRINCE2 Agile into your existing practices. As Dimitris Nicolaides, Business Development Director at PEO-PLECERT, noted: “Project Man-agement is changing: Choosing between PRINCE2 and Agile is no longer the case, as organisations require both. PRINCE2 Agile bridges the two disciplines, enabling or-ganisations and project managers to scale work to precise require-ments and, at the same time, to be agile and responsive, limiting escalation of issues and project delay. This combined approach has been designed to meet the needs of organisations of any sector and can be applied to any type of project, de-livering more successful outcomes.

In order to be eff ective, organisa-tions following best practice need qualifi ed personnel who are able to understand, adopt and adapt these practices to ultimately benefi t from them. PEOPLECERT enables profes-sionals around the world to improve their skills through internationally recognised qualifi cations, delivered via award-winning, innovative and effi cient testing solutions in over 150 countries.”Your organisation could be either a company involved in engineering, banking and insurance as much as new, digital economy businesses. Both ends of the spectrum can enjoy the benefi ts of a fl exible project management framework which keeps a constant eye on the business case while employing agile delivery methods. I believe the new approach, blending the governance of PRINCE2 with the fl exibility and responsiveness of agile, will be transformational for many businesses.

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A new wayof thinking

Download chapters 1-3 of the

official PRINCE2 Agile guide for

FREE at peoplecert.org/agile

PRINCE2 AGILE – blending business methodologies to transform successBy Peter Hepworth, CEO, AXELOS and Dimitris Nicolaides, Business Development Director, PEOPLECERT

Valued project managers will drive change

EXPERT INSIGHT

A new generation of project managers is needed to help organi-sations meet their strategic business goals and save money, says the Project Management Institute’s vice president, Organisation Markets, Craig Killough.Strategic change in the UK is driven through public and private sector pro-jects, and financial stakes have never been higher. Organisations globally are wasting £109m for every £1bn they invest in projects and programmes, ac-cording to Project Management Institute (PMI) research.

A trial and error mind-set of project management is no longer affordable as organisations undertake critical new initiatives fully aware of the conse-quences if a project fails to meet its objectives.

To avoid this there is growing pressure to ensure projects are better aligned to business strategy and that the project team is talented enough to deliver on time and on budget.

The ideal project management team will include a combination of skills such as business acumen, leadership and technical proficiency as well as re-al-world experience.

To achieve this perfect blend, project managers must continue to improve their professional development through online learning, networking, men-toring and volunteering.

When project managers pursue supplementary learning opportunities, their organisations will enjoy longer-term benefits while the individuals can command higher salaries.

According to the PMI’s latest Salary Survey, 68 per cent of UK project ma-nagers reported that their salary, bonus and other forms of compensation in-creased in the past year, with 22 per cent reporting a rise of at least 5 per cent.

In an evolving, technology-driven global business climate, the margin for error is razor thin and the only constant is change. This means that the best performing organisations will derive their greatest strengths from the capa-bilities of their project and programme talent.

INSPIRATION

Craig KilloughVice president, Organisation Markets, Project

Management Institute

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Andrew Craddock Product Innovation

Director, DSDM

Steve Wake Chairman,

APM

Ensuring project success today and in the future

Projects will only deliver genuine business va-lue when they are part of a benefits led port-folio – a well-managed one. Benefits are the

key drivers to success, projects themselves do not deliver benefits, only outputs. It is only through the use of project results that real value is delivered.

In short – by putting the business in the driving seat of their projects. This requires active busi-ness ownership of, and proactive business en-

gagement in projects, supported by an iterative and incremental approach focused on delivering busi-ness solutions - not just products that have no value without a business change context.

How can we make sure projects deliver genuine business value?

The first step is to understand what the custo-mer sees as something of ‘value’. Then you need to stay close (and I mean very close)

to the customer to ensure that what is delivered is what the customer really wants. This is carried out with a continuous focus on timely deliveries and measurable feedback.

Project management is evolving and the industry will only prosper if it adapts to economic and demographic changes. Three experts give us their views on how the sector can flourish.

Keith Richards On behalf of AXELOS and

PEOPLECERT

Read more answers online

Photo: Tom Owens

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Ensuring project success today and in the future

No. It never was and never will be. Just like with all the other tools and methods; the right kind of pe-ople are the saviours. Professional people, who can listen, learn and lead. People who are conscientious, competent, curious and qualified.

A great idea led by great people who are great at com-municating. Shall I say that again? A great idea led by great people who are great at communicating. Shall I say that again?

Yes. The values and principles of the Agile move-ment are even more valid today than in 2001. The pace of change in both business and technology re-quire the dynamic collaborative problem solving ap-proach enshrined in all Agile approaches and make the big, detailed, up-front analysis approaches of yesteryear increasingly irrelevant.

Yes and no. First, there is nothing wrong with pro-ject management. Projects need to be managed as they won’t happen by themselves. But a new dawn has arrived and project managers every-where need to keep their skills current and un-derstand what the agile way of working brings to the world today where time is of the essence and responsiveness is a necessity rather than a luxury.

Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration - everyth-ing else is secondary. Real success is driven by col-laborative people with an unrelenting, shared focus on business value where everybody is prepared to do whatever it takes to deliver the required business so-lution regardless of job title, seniority and project role. Role demarcation kills success.

1. Everyone has a clear understanding of why the pro-ject is taking place.2. Everyone has a clear understanding of why the pro-ject is taking place.…and finally,3. Everyone has a clear understanding of why the pro-ject is taking place.

Is agile still the saviour of project mana-gement?

What are the top 3 ingredients of a suc-cessful project?

You put project management on the national curricu-lum by getting the CBI and the Department for Bu-siness Innovation & Skills to scream at the Treasury that it makes perfect sense for UK plc. Project mana-gement is a life skill that helps to make people more organised and productive. This is good for both ends of the tax-bill equation.

Many of the baby-boom generation of the 1960s have resisted the regime that has over-emphasised process compliance and under-emphasised creative, collabo-rative problem solving. Only by educating the next generation to fully embrace Agile values – tried, tested and proven in the past, retried, retested and re-proven in recent times – will our success in the future be as-sured.

First, by planning to fill the void and second by hang-ing on to what you’ve got for as long as possible. Expe-rience is a great teacher and there is no substitute for it. Planning means looking at the trends and seeing what skills are disappearing, how fast this is happe-ning and then creating strategies to address the gap

How do you fill the skills gap the aging workforce leaves behind?

Project management is evolving and the industry will only prosper if it adapts to economic and demographic changes. Three experts give us their views on how the sector can flourish.

Visit projectmanagementadvice.co.uk

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“Today one in seven contactless payments in the UK takes place across London transport on London Underground”

Early in my career I worked with an IT manager who refused to use the term “the business” in conversation.

He said that what people really meant was that the marketing team or the fi-nance team wanted something.

So, all our IT projects, even network upgrades or hardware replacements, we-re framed in business terms. We did them because they supported the company’s overall objectives. This way of thinking is now a necessity.

The latest BCS Digital Leaders survey from the Chartered Institute for IT reve-als that for 55 per cent of respondents, bu-siness transformation and organisational change are top management issues.

Businesses must improve their pro-cesses and products to stay competi-tive. This is about transformation and implementing a strategy that supports the long-term vision by changing an organisation’s culture.

Of course, a strategy without the pro-jects to deliver it is just a plan, so business transformation requires creativity from every team including IT.

Technical experts can suggest how to turn that strategy idea into reality. They know how cutting-edge tech supports, drives and enhances business goals, but they must understand how the organisa-tion works as a complete entity.

This is where the future of project ma-nagement is going. Until more projects have a business change manager role in place project leaders will fill the gap.

Ultimately projects and program-mes that fail to address the business change requirements will struggle to deliver value.

INSIGHT

It’s only 12 months since contactless payment was introduced across London transport but commuters, residents and tourists have embraced the technology.

Effective customer communication was crucial prior to the full introduction of contactless, especially as 80,000 bus passengers had to migrate to the final ver-sion of the technology six weeks before the full rail launch.

An aggressive communications cam-paign was also necessary to warn pe-ople about the dangers of card clash. This is where a reader detects more than one card in a passenger’s wallet and is unsure which one to read.

TfL has always been a data-rich busi-ness and since the launch of the Oyster card the company has used data ana-lysis to adapt to peaks in demand. The introduction of contactless provides additional insight.

TfL knows, for instance, that the top five London Underground stations for contactless payments are Oxford Circus, Kings Cross, London Bridge, Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf.

There have been other business bene-fits for TfL. The self-service model redu-ces the commission payments on top-ups and tickets, has cut ticket office queues and removed problems with Oyster card balances. This should increase passenger numbers because people do not need to add credit before they travel.

The project management team were re-warded for their efforts when the TfL contactless payment project won an inn-ovation award at October’s National Transport Awards.

More than 200m journeys in Lon-don have been paid for using contact-less payment since Transport for Lon-

don (TfL) rolled out the technology across its entire network in September 2014.

This has been a massive £68m project for TfL to manage, with the first plans for contactless payment drawn up in 2007.

Today one in seven contactless pay-ments in the UK takes place across Lon-don transport on London Underground, trams, the Docklands Light Railway, bu-ses and National Rail services. This figure is likely to grow now Apple Pay is compa-tible with the system.

Buses were the first to accept a version of the technology in 2012 and a pilot sche-me across all modes of London transport began in November 2013.

“We had to test and learn about con-tactless over seven years before the main launch,” says TfL programme manager Ja-nette Bowes. “We needed to work close-ly with the payments industry and learn more about security issues around cards.”

The customer proposition had to be simple so TfL relied heavily on the expe-rience of travel and payments technology business Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) which designed and installed the Oyster Card system in 2003.

CTS spent three years researching and developing ideas for contactless before it

was decided to integrate contactless into the existing Oyster card scheme, the back office systems of TfL and the banks.

The relationship with the payments industry evolved with TfL working colla-boratively with card companies Visa, Mas-terCard and Amex, as well as the banks that issue the cards.

“We had to prove to everyone through intense testing that the concept would work and we identified changes the pay-ments industry needed to make to ensure it was ready for the launch and any fraud could be easily identified,” says Bowes. “We also agreed a risk model with the card issuers so people could travel on trust.”

This has been a large scale agile deve-lopment project for TfL which needed to eliminate the need for ticket processing at the gate, remove data from the card and create a smart billing system. The new system also had to re-construct and price journeys, apply discounts and cap-ping, and make payment requests for each day’s travel.

TfL worked with specialists Storm Con-sulting to break up the different compo-nent parts of the system, integrate servi-ces with existing technology and develop new services including creating a specific customer website.

“As part of the agile approach we con-tinued to test the system as things were integrated so any defects would be detec-ted early to reduce any problems around the live launch,” says Bowes.

Riding the contactless wave

By Steve Hemsley

A touch of brilliance. Contactless payment is revolutionising the way Londoners live their city.

“If my hours are flexible then so am I… it results in better customer service” Stephen Jones. Chairman, Association for Project Management (APM) Planning, Monitoring and Control Specific Interest Group (SIG)

OPINION

PHOTOCREDIT: TfL

NEWS

“Project Managers need to be prepared to adopt the new tools at their disposal in order to become more efficient” Alex Bolton. VP Solutions and Projects T-Systems Ltd

Janette Bowes Programme manager, TfL

IT must think creatively to drive business change

Elizabeth Harrin Author and blogger

It’s only 12 months since contactless payment was introduced across London transport but commuters, residents and tourists have embraced the technology.

MEDIAPLANET 7

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

techniques to make sure that the pro-ject stays on track. They are overseen by a sponsor, who is ultimately accountable and responsible for the project’s success.

The problem is that all this can be re-ally difficult. So many moving parts, so many risks, so much can go wrong. That’s why it is important to have qualified, ex-perienced project professionals on board.

It is not just the technical complexity of the project task. Competing agendas and political indifference or interference also interfere with projects. Perhaps the most extreme example was Heathrow’s Terminal 5, where the planning inquiry cost £80m, generated 100,000 pages of transcripts, and it took eight years from first application to government approval.

In recent years, the UK has developed a world-beating reputation for successfully delivering large scale projects. In London, the Olympic Games and Crossrail are the two huge examples of projects done ex-ceptionally well. The UK’s outstanding pharmaceutical sector and our digital and telecommunications companies also use project management to develop new products and networks.

But if London is going to keep its place at the top table of world cities, it is going to have to continue to renew and build housing and its physical and digital in-frastructure on an unrelenting scale.

In October 2015, Arcadis published its annual Global Built Asset Wealth Index with the Centre for Economics and Busi-ness Research which calculated the value of the built environments of 32 countries which make up 87 per cent of global GDP. “As a mature economy, the UK relies too heavily on its existing infrastructure,” said Greg Bradley of Arcadis. “Investment

is crucial if the UK is to meet its wider in-frastructural needs and deliver growth. The onus now is on the government to implement policy that will provide grea-ter certainty on timing and sale for major programmes, allowing businesses to plan effectively and, vitally, creating the right environment for investors to fund them."

The Government has an important role because so many projects depend on pu-blic money and/or permission from elec-ted bodies. It set up the Major Projects Authority to oversee taxpayers’ money and to improve project delivery across 188 projects with a combined life cost of £489 billion. The MPA also established the Major Projects Leadership Academy to train senior project leaders in the ci-vil service, which is essential. It set up the first Project Delivery Fast Stream graduate entry programme. Notoriously difficult to get through, Fast Stream pro-vides many of the ultimate leaders of the Civil Service. That some of those should begin as Project Deliverers is an im-portant step forward.

Increasingly, professional bodies like APM have become concerned about the country’s skills shortages, particularly in construction trades and management. It is estimated 180,000 new skilled entrants will be needed to deliver construction projects in the capital and the South East by 2019.

In August 2015, the Local Government Association said: “While the construc-tion industry's forecasted annual recru-itment need is up 54 per cent from 2013, there are 10,000 fewer construction qua-lifications being awarded by colleges, apprenticeships and universities. The number of people gaining construction

skills has been falling for some time. The-re were 58 per cent fewer completed con-struction apprenticeships last year than in 2009. Meanwhile, industry has incre-asingly struggled to fill vacancies. Over half (56 per cent) of skilled trade construc-tion vacancies are hard to fill, up from 46 per cent in 2011 and almost triple the proportion of skilled hard to fill vacancies across the economy as a whole.”

In October 2015, the Royal Institu-tion of Chartered Surveyors commented: “The country’s skills shortage has reached its highest levels since our survey was launched 18 years ago, with brick-layers and quantity surveyors in shor-test supply. 53 per cent of respondents re-ported difficulty sourcing labour, with 71 per cent saying they had particular dif-ficulty sourcing bricklayers and 64 per cent highlighting a shortage of quantity surveyors.”

Project management is instrumental to the delivery of new features of modern life. It will continue to be a growing, att-ractive career for people with the skills to keep their heads and deliver in the con-text of complexity and change. There are major world-beating companies and organisations in this country who do project management and do it very well. What they need is a pipeline of talent, both in project management itself and in the skills and trades which deliver for them.

Writing in a personal capacity is Julian Smith, Head of External Affairs at the Association for Pro-ject Management (APM), the lar-gest professional body of its kind in Europe. www.apm.org.uk

Project managers make the modern world hap-pen for virtually everyo-ne who lives and works in London. The upgra-des to the Tube are pro-ject managed. Cross-

rail – project managed. The sewers that serve you, the water that flows through your taps – they are project managed too. The medicine you take. That softwa-re you are using on your PC, tablet or mo-bile was probably project managed. HS2 will be too. It’s a huge, unsung part of modern life.

Project managers, put simply, lead teams which solve specific challenges. A project has a beginning, a middle and an end. It starts with the ambition to build or change something – whether a bridge or a digital network – and it applies well-used methods in order to make sure that everything needed to complete that task happens as scoped, on time and within budget.

To work effectively, projects need the right leadership and structures so that everyone involved is committed to the goals of the project and will play their part at the right time. Projects need clear ob-jectives from the outset – what needs to be done, in sufficient detail – and need to be properly funded and accounted for. Project objectives need to be informed by what the end user wants and expects – otherwise the wrong product might be delivered. Anyone supplying mate-rials or expertise to the project needs to understand what needs to be delivered when, to what quality. To hold all this together, a competent professional pro-ject team needs to use proven tools and

Is now the era of the Project Manager?

Julian Smith Head of External

Affairs, Association for Project

Management (APM)

“In recent years, the UK has developed a world-beating reputation for successfully delivering large scale projects”

The art of organisation. Skillful project management can transform the way leading businesses and industries operate

PHOTOCREDIT: JULIEF514

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Class-leading Project Management Higher Apprenticeships with our examination pass rates nearly double the national average.

“As Chief Examiner for Body of Knowledge 6 Knowledge Examinations, I wanted to write personally and congratulate you on your recent Higher Apprenticeship Candidates for the

Applying Knowledge Examination. In reviewing the scripts, I am absolutely delighted by the quality of responses. These are by far the best we have seen in relation to this qualification. Whilst your students may themselves be very high calibre, the quality of response must be

attributed to you as their Tutor. Congratulations!”

Sheilina Somani, Chief Examiner APM

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