Mind the Mobilisation Gap
This Perspectives Paper explores why we’re still getting mobilisation wrong on major projects, and how we can do better.
Sector: Information & Communication Technology
When we get it right – a spotlight on success Highlight Report
While projects are often perceived as late and over budget, most actually meet intended outcomes and deliver to expectations. By reframing our thinking to focus on the successes, rather than just the failures in infrastructure delivery we can foster a more positive, solution-oriented approach that drives improvement and innovation.
This half day seminar will explore how highlighting successes can build delivery confidence, and encourages excellence, creating a replicable model for future projects. Bringing the public and politicians along on this journey is crucial for sustained support and investment confidence.
This event will help to challenge the perceptions of infrastructure project delivery. It will demonstrate how offering stakeholders a greater understanding of both the challenges and tangible benefits of projects creates a new level of trust that helps professionals navigate complex projects more effectively and secure vital support for future infrastructure.
Useful links mentioned in the ‘Project delivery performance reality check’ presentation by Dr. Paul Chapman OBE:
English Roads Major Schemes
Paper: Chapman, P., (2024) Project delivery performance: Insights from English roads major schemes, Project Leadership and Society Journal
Major Projects Association podcast hosted by Andy Murray with Paul Chapman and Nirmal Kotecha, former Head of Major Projects at National Highways: Project delivery performance: we’re actually quite good! Who knew and what changed? Sep 18, 2024
Public Accounts Committee (2007) Estimating and monitoring the costs of building roads in England
Nichols (2007) Review of Highways Agency’s Major Roads Programme
Swedish Rail and Road Project Performance
Chapman, P. (2024) Revisiting project delivery performance: Evidence from Swedish transport infrastructure, Project Management Journal
Initiating and delivering Major Digital Projects Highlight Report
Many major projects include the realisation of a physical asset and its subsequent benefits, major digital projects are transformational but often do not engender a physical change, though they are “game changers” for the organisations that undertake them. Whether they are driven by a leader’s vision, regulatory constraints or the necessity to adapt, they modify existing business models and behaviours and drive profound transformations within organisations.
Major Digital projects:
• require new skill sets – in delivery and in embedding their outcomes in daily operations
• they must take account of the impacts on their host organisations and the way they interact with their entire ecosystem
• introduce new and more agile delivery approaches that challenge the traditional approaches to the management and governance of projects, in particular from a budget and a risk management perspective
• support the gathering of a massive amount of complex data that requires appropriate insight to enhance organisational planning.
The objective of this seminar is to explore both the initiation and delivery of a variety of Major Digital Projects to identify key lessons that can be applied from the digital world to the more traditional project arena and inform those who have responsibility for major digital projects.
Insight to both challenges and opportunities from clients and suppliers in the public and private sectors will be provided, including: the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, Transport for London Revenue Collection, Smart Metering, Digital Technologies to improve Asset Data, BBC digital services and Automating London Underground.
Initiating and delivering Major Digital Projects Short Report
Many major projects include the realisation of a physical asset and its subsequent benefits, major digital projects are transformational but often do not engender a physical change, though they are “game changers” for the organisations that undertake them. Whether they are driven by a leader’s vision, regulatory constraints or the necessity to adapt, they modify existing business models and behaviours and drive profound transformations within organisations.
Major Digital projects:
• require new skill sets – in delivery and in embedding their outcomes in daily operations
• they must take account of the impacts on their host organisations and the way they interact with their entire ecosystem
• introduce new and more agile delivery approaches that challenge the traditional approaches to the management and governance of projects, in particular from a budget and a risk management perspective
• support the gathering of a massive amount of complex data that requires appropriate insight to enhance organisational planning.
The objective of this seminar is to explore both the initiation and delivery of a variety of Major Digital Projects to identify key lessons that can be applied from the digital world to the more traditional project arena and inform those who have responsibility for major digital projects.
Insight to both challenges and opportunities from clients and suppliers in the public and private sectors will be provided, including: the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, Transport for London Revenue Collection, Smart Metering, Digital Technologies to improve Asset Data, BBC digital services and Automating London Underground.
Initiating and delivering Major Digital Projects Full Report
Many major projects include the realisation of a physical asset and its subsequent benefits, major digital projects are transformational but often do not engender a physical change, though they are “game changers” for the organisations that undertake them. Whether they are driven by a leader’s vision, regulatory constraints or the necessity to adapt, they modify existing business models and behaviours and drive profound transformations within organisations.
Major Digital projects:
• require new skill sets – in delivery and in embedding their outcomes in daily operations
• they must take account of the impacts on their host organisations and the way they interact with their entire ecosystem
• introduce new and more agile delivery approaches that challenge the traditional approaches to the management and governance of projects, in particular from a budget and a risk management perspective
• support the gathering of a massive amount of complex data that requires appropriate insight to enhance organisational planning.
The objective of this seminar is to explore both the initiation and delivery of a variety of Major Digital Projects to identify key lessons that can be applied from the digital world to the more traditional project arena and inform those who have responsibility for major digital projects.
Insight to both challenges and opportunities from clients and suppliers in the public and private sectors will be provided, including: the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, Transport for London Revenue Collection, Smart Metering, Digital Technologies to improve Asset Data, BBC digital services and Automating London Underground.
The Growing influence of IT on major projects Full Report
All major projects now have an IT component, which includes control and monitoring systems for all functions of both the facility itself and the people who operate it. Since IT is usually the most innovative feature, it tends to be the most difficult to manage through to effective and reliable operation. Its installation has also become essential to operating the finished project, yet is the one which is finished
last.
Most project management processes, such as financial modelling, communications, design, scheduling, cost control and document management, use IT, but they tend to have developed in isolation and not be well integrated. Chaired by Sir Michael Latham, this seminar had two objectives: to investigate how best to integrate the design and commissioning of those systems which include IT in the totality of the project work, and to establish how best to utilise IT in the management of projects.
The seminar also looked at why IT project work has a poor reputation for successful outcomes, and what can be done to de-risk the management of the IT component. Speakers presented specific examples across a variety of sectors, talked about the reasons for poor success rates and suggested ways to improve the management of major IT projects
Major Project in a Volatile Environment: Lessons from the Telecoms Sector Full Report
At the end of the 20th Century, cheap, ubiquitous, telecommunications technology were well on the way to transforming the lives of citizens around the world. How did major projects keep up in this environment.
21st Annual Conference – PFI/PPP Projects – are they Working? Full Report
As a starting point for the MPA’s 21st Annual Conference, we commissioned a study on PFI and PPP from Henley Management College, which forms the subject of the first presentation after the keynote address. The aim of the conference is not simply to answer the question of whether PFI/PPP projects are working but to focus on better delivery and more effective performance. Knowing where the weaknesses
lie will help clarify the solutions.
By 1997 PFI was already establishing itself (it had been around as a potential instrument for 15 years) and had become very much part of the culture of the industry, receiving great encouragement from the incoming Labour government. The strengths of PFI are that it can provide a total solution, but if it is to work, the different interests contributing to a major project have to be integrated into a proper partnership. A
holistic approach to total solutions is at the heart of PFI.
The 21st Annual Conference can learn from the present and past in order to help PPI and PPP projects go more positively into the future, benefiting from an exchange of knowledge and experience and taking the best from of existing practices.