Topic: People & capability

By Myrna Rickards
May 20th 2025

Managing change without losing control – Balancing flexibility and discipline in major projects Highlight Report

 

When projects have lifespans that run into years if not decades, some change is inevitable. Technology advances, the regulatory landscape shifts, stakeholder demands evolve and the economic circumstances in which the project was born can alter out of all recognition.

This creates many challenges and opportunities for project professionals. How do we distinguish between necessary adjustment to secure outcomes and undisciplined scope creep inflating costs and extending schedule? What kinds of governance and project controls are most effective in different circumstances or types of projects? What should leaders do to create an environment that supports their chosen approach to risk management?

This half day seminar will explore this topic through case studies of the very different change management challenges of Sizewell C and London’s Stratford Waterfront programmes. This will be complemented by insight from the energy and defence sectors, both of which are experiencing rapid changes to the environment in which their major projects and programmes are being delivered. There will also be an opportunity to hear from two of the contributors to the Association for Project Management’s new guide Project Controls in the 21st Century.

By Myrna Rickards
November 25th 2024

Major Projects Association Strategy 2030

This strategic plan, to take us to 2030, sets our ambition to improve the initiation, delivery and beneficial outcomes of major projects.

By Myrna Rickards
November 6th 2024

Do we have the Capability we need for the new types of Major Projects in the pipeline? Full Report

The demand for major projects is growing rapidly. Over the next 5 years, a significant uptick in activity is expected in many sectors including civil nuclear, energy distribution, housing retrofit, water supply and renewable power.

Against that backdrop the major projects community needs to be proactive and identify the technical, functional and leadership capacity & capability it needs to deliver successfully.

In this seminar we will explore both the scale of demand for people at all levels to work on major projects, and the new skills and capabilities that we will need to be able to deploy. Attendees will learn more about how this challenge is playing out across different sectors and explore common opportunities and challenges such as climate change, AI, global competition, leadership and the ever longer careers of project professionals.

Chaired by Dr Michele Dix CBE and David Goldstone CBE, other speakers include former Crossrail and future HS2 CEO Mark Wild, Keltbray’s Group Sustainability Director Holly Price, and House of Commons Regeneration and Renewal Programme Commercial Director Andy Haynes. The seminar will be highly interactive, offering plenty of opportunities to explore the challenges and solutions, including a workshop session led by the Association’s Early Career Network.

By Myrna Rickards
November 6th 2024

Do we have the Capability we need for the new types of Major Projects in the pipeline? Highlight Report

The demand for major projects is growing rapidly. Over the next 5 years, a significant uptick in activity is expected in many sectors including civil nuclear, energy distribution, housing retrofit, water supply and renewable power.

Against that backdrop the major projects community needs to be proactive and identify the technical, functional and leadership capacity & capability it needs to deliver successfully.

In this seminar we will explore both the scale of demand for people at all levels to work on major projects, and the new skills and capabilities that we will need to be able to deploy. Attendees will learn more about how this challenge is playing out across different sectors and explore common opportunities and challenges such as climate change, AI, global competition, leadership and the ever longer careers of project professionals.

Chaired by Dr Michele Dix CBE and David Goldstone CBE, other speakers include former Crossrail and future HS2 CEO Mark Wild, Keltbray’s Group Sustainability Director Holly Price, and House of Commons Regeneration and Renewal Programme Commercial Director Andy Haynes. The seminar will be highly interactive, offering plenty of opportunities to explore the challenges and solutions, including a workshop session led by the Association’s Early Career Network.

By Sascha Flint
May 17th 2023

Collaborative Leadership: Lessons from the 2022 Games and Beyond

One of the three landmark objectives set out in the Major Projects Association
Strategy 2025 is to move the dial on leadership capability. In 2022, we looked
at leadership from a systems perspective in the ‘Systems thinking, systems
leading’ event.

By Jonathan Norman
November 3rd 2021

Assurance 2030 – Creating a Project Assurance Profession Highlight Report

Assurance in projects has been around for a long time. However, it’s traditionally been fragmented, with specific aspects of a project (e.g. technical, safety and quality) being assured by specialists in those areas somewhat in isolation from each other. Furthermore, those specialists typically do not see themselves as project professionals; they are quality assurers, internal auditors, etc, probably as interested in non-project activities as they are in project ones, and subject to ways of working and reporting lines that lie outside of project management.

Integrated Assurance approaches have been an attempt to bring together these disparate assurance providers into single frameworks, but with only limited success. Who has the responsibility to make an integrated assurance work for a project? And who actually has the required authority? Who ‘owns’ project assurance as a whole?

What has been emerging in recent years is a breed of project professionals whose sole job is to provide integrated assurance on a project – or more typically a number of projects. They may originate from more specialised areas of assurance, or from specific delivery roles, but now their perspective is different: it is now the success of the entire project that they’re interested in, not just specific aspects.

Whereas quality assurance, safety assurance, internal audit and other project professionals have their own standards, competency frameworks, communities of practice, etc, wheere does the project assurance professional turn for those things? How can an organisation ensure that its project assurance people have the right skills and experience?

The challenge for this seminar is to identify what is needed to ensure that project assurance is provided efficiently and effectively by competent people following robust and effective processes against robust known standards.

In short, how do we create a project assurance profession?

 

By Jonathan Norman
November 3rd 2021

Assurance 2030 – Creating a Project Assurance Profession Full Report

Assurance in projects has been around for a long time. However, it’s traditionally been fragmented, with specific aspects of a project (e.g. technical, safety and quality) being assured by specialists in those areas somewhat in isolation from each other. Furthermore, those specialists typically do not see themselves as project professionals; they are quality assurers, internal auditors, etc, probably as interested in non-project activities as they are in project ones, and subject to ways of working and reporting lines that lie outside of project management.

Integrated Assurance approaches have been an attempt to bring together these disparate assurance providers into single frameworks, but with only limited success. Who has the responsibility to make an integrated assurance work for a project? And who actually has the required authority? Who ‘owns’ project assurance as a whole?

What has been emerging in recent years is a breed of project professionals whose sole job is to provide integrated assurance on a project – or more typically a number of projects. They may originate from more specialised areas of assurance, or from specific delivery roles, but now their perspective is different: it is now the success of the entire project that they’re interested in, not just specific aspects.

Whereas quality assurance, safety assurance, internal audit and other project professionals have their own standards, competency frameworks, communities of practice, etc, wheere does the project assurance professional turn for those things? How can an organisation ensure that its project assurance people have the right skills and experience?

The challenge for this seminar is to identify what is needed to ensure that project assurance is provided efficiently and effectively by competent people following robust and effective processes against robust known standards.

In short, how do we create a project assurance profession?

 

By Jonathan Norman
July 7th 2021

Building Transferrable Skills – Lessons learned from Nuclear Decommissioning Short Report

Please note that this event will now take place via VIRTUAL means, with revised timings of 09.30 – 12.45. 

The Nuclear Decommissioning sector has gained many lessons learned in the last decade as it has made progress to safely and securely decommissioning the UK’s legacy nuclear infrastructure.

Using case studies from the delivery of a number of projects from across this challenging and highly regulated environment, this seminar will explore the lessons from the past and how they can be built into improving future delivery strategies of all major programmes.

With a focus around the key themes of programme management, collaboration and integration, community engagement and addressing the skills shortage gap, this event will be of interest to those both within and outside the nuclear sector as we hear from a range of stakeholders and encourage attendees to reflect together on how these lessons could be applie within their member organisations.

By Jonathan Norman
July 7th 2021

Building Transferrable Skills – Lessons learned from Nuclear Decommissioning Highlight Report

Please note that this event will now take place via VIRTUAL means, with revised timings of 09.30 – 12.45. 

The Nuclear Decommissioning sector has gained many lessons learned in the last decade as it has made progress to safely and securely decommissioning the UK’s legacy nuclear infrastructure.

Using case studies from the delivery of a number of projects from across this challenging and highly regulated environment, this seminar will explore the lessons from the past and how they can be built into improving future delivery strategies of all major programmes.

With a focus around the key themes of programme management, collaboration and integration, community engagement and addressing the skills shortage gap, this event will be of interest to those both within and outside the nuclear sector as we hear from a range of stakeholders and encourage attendees to reflect together on how these lessons could be applie within their member organisations.

By Jonathan Norman
July 7th 2021

Building Transferrable Skills – Lessons learned from Nuclear Decommissioning Full Report

Please note that this event will now take place via VIRTUAL means, with revised timings of 09.30 – 12.45. 

The Nuclear Decommissioning sector has gained many lessons learned in the last decade as it has made progress to safely and securely decommissioning the UK’s legacy nuclear infrastructure.

Using case studies from the delivery of a number of projects from across this challenging and highly regulated environment, this seminar will explore the lessons from the past and how they can be built into improving future delivery strategies of all major programmes.

With a focus around the key themes of programme management, collaboration and integration, community engagement and addressing the skills shortage gap, this event will be of interest to those both within and outside the nuclear sector as we hear from a range of stakeholders and encourage attendees to reflect together on how these lessons could be applie within their member organisations.