Topic: Handover & operations

By Myrna Rickards
September 16th 2025

Enhancing value through project closure Full Report

 

Effective closure is about much more than just wrapping up a project’s activities and moving on to the next job. It is a critical phase in the project lifecycle where lasting value can be secured, lessons crystallised, and insights harvested to shape the next wave of projects within a programme.

This virtual seminar brings together leading voices from government and industry to explore how to extract more value from project closure. With a dynamic mix of project case studies, programme over views and expert analysis, this is an opportunity to:

  • Explore what “good closure” looks like across a broad range of major projects.
  • Learn how to turn closure into a value creating step in the project lifecycle.
  • Understanding common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
By Myrna Rickards
September 16th 2025

Enhancing value through project closure Highlight Report

 

Effective closure is about much more than just wrapping up a project’s activities and moving on to the next job. It is a critical phase in the project lifecycle where lasting value can be secured, lessons crystallised, and insights harvested to shape the next wave of projects within a programme.

This virtual seminar brings together leading voices from government and industry to explore how to extract more value from project closure. With a dynamic mix of project case studies, programme over views and expert analysis, this is an opportunity to:

  • Explore what “good closure” looks like across a broad range of major projects.
  • Learn how to turn closure into a value creating step in the project lifecycle.
  • Understanding common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Mind the Mobilisation Gap
By Myrna Rickards
March 5th 2025

Mind the Mobilisation Gap

This Perspectives Paper explores why we’re still getting mobilisation wrong on major projects, and how we can do better.

By Jonathan Norman
February 23rd 2023

The Great Reshuffle

Through analysis of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) data of protected characteristic groups one Major Projects Association member observed a higher female employee ‘churn’ rate in 2021 compared to previous years. The global pandemic (Covid-19) may have contributed to this, and we were keen to explore the data across the membership to see if any trends emerged.

 

By Jonathan Norman
May 12th 2021

Wellbeing – The Major Projects Performance Accelerator Highlight Report

As the world recovers from the impact of COVID-19, our ability to deliver high quality Major Projects will be central to how countries bounce back. We must rise to this challenge and consider how to create and maintain high performing teams that can deliver when it matters most. Wellbeing has been brought into sharp focus in recent times – what have we learnt from this, and can the wellbeing of our people be the project performance accelerator that we need?

There are numerous external factors which influence peoples’ productivity and performance. Wellbeing is an aspect companies can positively influence. Though often seen as ‘soft and fluffy’ or a nice to have, rather than an investment in peoples’ future performance, organisations are starting to place a greater emphasis on employee mental health and wellbeing, previously overlooked, and largely encouraged by events of the past year. Westfield Health (2020) state that if wellbeing strategies reach their full potential, subsequent increased productivity could add £61bn to the English economy by 2025. To achieve this change and realise the benefits, there needs to be an organisational shift in culture, approach, time and effort.

Developing and embedding wellbeing throughout an organisation, encompassing both behaviours (adaptability, proactivity, and participation) and leadership can help people to feel motivated and empowered to do their job better. Reducing factors that negatively impact, such as stress and high job demands can have a positive impact upon performance.

How can we develop and embed wellbeing and potentially lead to improved performance in Major Projects?

By Manon Bradley
April 25th 2019

The Urgent and Unforeseen Projects Handbook

These ‘Ten Tenets’, tailored for crisis and emergency scenarios, are designed to act as a guide to successful project initiation and execution for hard-pressed professionals on these exceptionally challenging projects. The  handbook also signposts readers to further information and case studies.

By Jonathan Norman
March 7th 2019

Evening Discussion Dinner: Lessons from Decommissioning Highlight Report

The World faces an unprecedented challenge: much of its infrastructure is reaching the end of its life. The combined effects of the move to decarbonisation and aging investment means that trillions of dollars of infrastructure decommissioning will need to take place.

Decommissioning of infrastructure refers to the suite of processes involved in withdrawing a facility from service at the end of its life, deconstructing and dismantling it, and removing the components for reuse, recycling or disposal. Until very recently, decommissioning has been widely overlooked: focus has historically been on high-status ‘new build’ projects. However, a plethora of technical, economic, social and environmental challenges, of large magnitude and deep urgency, have emerged as the decommissioning of infrastructure begins in earnest.
The scale of the global decommissioning task is gargantuan and defies accurate estimation. Not only is it impossible to know how much infrastructure is being decommissioned, it is impossible to know whether the decision taken to decommission in the first place was the correct one. And decommissioning costs can spiral out of control. (The UK has seen estimates of its cost of nuclear decommissioning costs rise from £40bn in 2005 to over £110bn in 2015)

Against this background, this discussion dinner provides attendees with an opportunity to consider the imminent impact that decommissioning will have on their own organisation and the lessons they need to learn now around the design and delivery of infrastructure to avoid these issues in the future.

By Jonathan Norman
June 13th 2018

Project closure and operational readiness Short Report

In the late 1980 Jan Carlzon transformed SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) into the best in Europe from what had been “the sickest of sick men”. He said, “the first 15 second encounter between a passenger and the airline sets the tone of the entire company in the mind of the customer, it is the ‘moment of truth’”.

Similarly, in whatever industry a major project is undertaken, however well the project is delivered, irrespective of time and budget savings, there will come the ‘moment of truth’ when the project becomes part of everyday life and almost instantaneously will become a success or labelled as a failure. The opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow is a classic example – the well-executed project was overshadowed by problems with baggage handling. So much so that the BBC asked: What went wrong at Heathrow’s T5?

Success of transition will be dependent on numerous factors including design, construction, testing and commissioning, recruitment, training and planning. Key questions must be answered to achieve a smooth transition:

• How soon should the planning for the transition from project to operation/daily use start?
• Who should be involved?
• How does the risk profile change during that period?
• How do we manage stakeholders, media and end users?
• How do we obtain safety assurance?
• What lessons can be learned from past projects and the people who delivered them?

This seminar will examine the critical success factors, and some of the less obvious, for Project Managers, Project Directors, Financiers, Project Sponsors, Politicians and many other key stakeholders.

There is no charge to attend this event.

By Jonathan Norman
June 13th 2018

Project closure and operational readiness Highlight Report

In the late 1980 Jan Carlzon transformed SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) into the best in Europe from what had been “the sickest of sick men”. He said, “the first 15 second encounter between a passenger and the airline sets the tone of the entire company in the mind of the customer, it is the ‘moment of truth’”.

Similarly, in whatever industry a major project is undertaken, however well the project is delivered, irrespective of time and budget savings, there will come the ‘moment of truth’ when the project becomes part of everyday life and almost instantaneously will become a success or labelled as a failure. The opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow is a classic example – the well-executed project was overshadowed by problems with baggage handling. So much so that the BBC asked: What went wrong at Heathrow’s T5?

Success of transition will be dependent on numerous factors including design, construction, testing and commissioning, recruitment, training and planning. Key questions must be answered to achieve a smooth transition:

• How soon should the planning for the transition from project to operation/daily use start?
• Who should be involved?
• How does the risk profile change during that period?
• How do we manage stakeholders, media and end users?
• How do we obtain safety assurance?
• What lessons can be learned from past projects and the people who delivered them?

This seminar will examine the critical success factors, and some of the less obvious, for Project Managers, Project Directors, Financiers, Project Sponsors, Politicians and many other key stakeholders.

There is no charge to attend this event.

By Jonathan Norman
June 13th 2018

Project closure and operational readiness Full Report

In the late 1980 Jan Carlzon transformed SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) into the best in Europe from what had been “the sickest of sick men”. He said, “the first 15 second encounter between a passenger and the airline sets the tone of the entire company in the mind of the customer, it is the ‘moment of truth’”.

Similarly, in whatever industry a major project is undertaken, however well the project is delivered, irrespective of time and budget savings, there will come the ‘moment of truth’ when the project becomes part of everyday life and almost instantaneously will become a success or labelled as a failure. The opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow is a classic example – the well-executed project was overshadowed by problems with baggage handling. So much so that the BBC asked: What went wrong at Heathrow’s T5?

Success of transition will be dependent on numerous factors including design, construction, testing and commissioning, recruitment, training and planning. Key questions must be answered to achieve a smooth transition:

• How soon should the planning for the transition from project to operation/daily use start?
• Who should be involved?
• How does the risk profile change during that period?
• How do we manage stakeholders, media and end users?
• How do we obtain safety assurance?
• What lessons can be learned from past projects and the people who delivered them?

This seminar will examine the critical success factors, and some of the less obvious, for Project Managers, Project Directors, Financiers, Project Sponsors, Politicians and many other key stakeholders.

There is no charge to attend this event.