Atkins - an innovative PPSO formula

 

Construction and capital programmes giant Atkins is working in partnership with CITI to create a fresh approach to supporting major projects and programmes.

 

Opportunity

Support offices — known by various names — are often seen as the Cinderella of the project management world. Sometimes they are used simply for administrative work; but a good PPSO can do a great deal more, ensuring that best practices and procedures are followed, and providing effective guidance for project managers.

A PPSO can be the place where experienced project and process experts reside, providing advice and support to all project managers, and helping to raise the game of the whole organisation. The PPSO can also set organisation-wide standards. This ensures that all projects report in a consistent format, allowing senior managers to identify the key issues, and make effective decisions on priorities, resource allocation and strategic goals.

A good PPSO can make the critical difference by providing senior management with visibility and control over their key projects and programmes. It can also act as the organisation’s long-term memory and repository of learning, and provide a link to sources of best practice knowledge and experience that keep the whole organisation up to the mark in programme and project delivery.

Approach

CITI and Atkins are working together to professionalise the PPSO, liaising with leading professional bodies to provide career paths that will establish the PPSO — just as much as project management itself — as a career with recognised standards of excellence, and not just a short-term job. This opportunity is available to any organisation that is truly serious about its project and programme capability.

Outcome

First fruit of this alliance is the recently announced five-year contract to provide a Programme and Project Support Office (PPSO) for Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ). The service will combine Atkins’ experience in running project support services with CITI’s state-of-the-art expertise in programme and project management.