Eurostar - 'best in class’ project community

 

Eurostar is in the ascendant. With revenues rising, reliability increasing, and travel time falling, Eurostar has transformed the travel market between London and Paris-Brussels. Eurostar’s continuing success means that it must gear itself up for change. Richard Brown, Eurostar’s CEO, championing an initiative to produce a ‘best in class’ project community.

 

Opportunity

A new organisational structure had to be in place that focused on the governance and execution of projects. Its business purpose is to make the company more responsive, able to translate strategic and operational imperatives more quickly and more predictably into operational reality.

To ensure that the project community could meet the challenges he and the marketplace are setting, Richard asked CITI to support his management team. He needed to put in place the components of an integrated portfolio management approach. These components - maximising value from the portfolio, monitoring performance and predictable project delivery - involved all members of the change community; the board in their role of portfolio steering group and as individual project sponsors, the project management office (PMO) in it’s role as monitor and guardian of project performance, and the project managers themselves.

Approach

CITI’s starting point was to determine the number and types of projects Eurostar had planned over the next four years. In parallel we profiled all Eurostar’s project managers. We also ran a number of project health checks to identify common issues and points of concern. From this analysis five strands of work were woven together into a mutually reinforcing programme of change.

Senior managers became involved with seminars and workshops in which the issues and accountabilities associated with the governance of a portfolio and the sponsorship of individual projects were thrashed out and clear lines of responsibility drawn.

The urgent need for an effective ‘guidance’ PMO became self-evident and it was decided to ‘fast-start’ one using CITI personnel and tool kits. Meanwhile, the development needs of the project manager community were addressed based on the information provided by the profiling of the project managers and the projects, with CITI courses, coaching and electronic project management guidance all used to great effect.

Outcome

The impact of the programme was evident after just nine months. Project governance is in place and working. There is a perceptible ‘professionalisation’ within the project management community. The focus on performance and delivery has sharpened, and the status and influence of the PMO continues to grow. There remains much to do but, leading from the front, Richard has engaged all levels of the business and rapid progress is ensured, and as he says himself, “The future is looking much brighter for Eurostar as it prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary, and its demands on its project community continues to grow, and they are now responsive and a genuine asset.”