Productivity – The Performance Lifecycle

The 2008 financial crisis was followed by a decade of stagnant growth in productivity in the developed world. This productivity crisis was creating a serious value for money challenge for major and mega projects even before COVID-19 made such an enormous dent in government and corporate finances.

Productivity is a measure of the effectiveness of the use of resources.This seemingly straightforward concept can be difficult to apply to major projects. The simplest productivity measure of all, the volume of a product generated for every unity (e.g. labour and capital) is vital insight for improving a manufacturing process but may be less useful for a major programme trying to create different types of value and deliver a strategic outcome for its sponsors.

This conceptual difficulty has not stopped sectors such as construction targeting ever increasing standardisation and the adoption of manufacturing style production systems as the route to productivity growth – with limited success. Others have homed in on the quality of front end planning as the great enabler, leaving open the question of how high performance is to be maintained as the project moves through the lifecycle.

To cast light on this challenge, in 2018 the Association for Project Management carried out a review of published evidence on the links betweeen project management and productivity. This suggested some alternative or complementary avenues including; developing measures of productivity linked to outcomes; focusing in on practices and behaviours associated wih better productivity and linking these to macro-level outcoms; a better understanding of top-down and bottom-up process for managing innovation, and building capabilities to manage the risk and opportunity that are inevitable in complex major projects.

Through a series of discussions and case studies, this seminar will explore:

• Different ways to define and measure productivity in major projects and programmes.
• Opportunities at different stages of the lifecycle to stimulate and maintain improved productivity.
• Key enablers – e.g. behaviours, practices and competencies.
• Balancing innovation and getting the basics right in the search for productivity gains.