Value realised

Powerful stakeholders were mobilised to support the initiative to improve project management, a clear agenda was agreed and instead of passive or ‘accidental’ negativity there was a genuine commitment to achieving the outcomes.

As the change leader said, “My peer group now understand and support the efforts of my team in tackling this problem”.

Engagement focus

There was a strong political will and the finance to improve the capability of project management within Network Rail, and planning to achieve the change had begun. Actions had already been taken with the target community and there was a flurry of reaction, query and challenge as to what was going to happen and what should be done.

It was clear that the complexity of the challenge was creating uncertainty as to the best way to plan for the change. CITI set about clarifying the differing agendas and finding ways of bringing together the many and varied perspectives of what needed to be, and in what sequence, so that the key stakeholders felt that their opinions and needs were being listened to, and addressed.
This resulted in an increase in understanding and commitment and a decrease in the sources of resistance to change.

Approach to solution

By conducting a series of structured candid discussions with key stakeholders and capturing extensive, powerful verbatim commentaries it was possible to identify inconsistencies and gaps in the existing and planned communications.

It was also possible to map the various stakeholders against a ‘political terrain’ map showing where their allegiances and alliances lay – which prides clear indications as to the best strategies to adopt when approaching them to gain commitment to part or all of the initiative.
There were four questions that needed answering:

• What would count as success for the initiative from the differing stakeholders?
• What was the vision of the programme board, and in particular the SRO?
• How were the actions taken to date perceived?
• What ‘next step’ would receive the greatest level of support?

These were addressed and a route map set out and presented to the key stakeholders.

Lessons learned

Whilst the need for attention to the views and opinions of key stakeholders had been appreciated, the need to iteratively seek input and reaction to ideas, and to provide targeted interventions to maintain commitment had been underestimated. In particular, it was heavily underlined that if you ask a key stakeholder for their views, you must clearly demonstrate that you have taken them into account – even if the ideas are not taken forward.

Models / tools used

CITI stakeholder analysis techniques
Structured interviews
Facilitated workshops

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Value realised

The intentions of the Eurostar Board were translated into reality by organising and focusing the portfolio and funding structures to better reflect the strategic and the operational needs of Eurostar. Eurostar delivered to its strategic objective.

Eurostar won the APM’s Programme of the Year Award 2008.

As recorded by Richard Brown, CEO, Eurostar:
“CITI demystified many of the aspects of project management and governance for us, allowing the whole organisation to understand much more clearly what is required for successful delivery – a state much closer to ‘conscious competence’ than we were in before. I have no hesitation in strongly recommending CITI to others.”

Engagement focus

To implement its challenging strategy of being first choice for travellers, Eurostar needed to focus on the governance and execution of its strategic programme and projects – it needed an effective project portfolio prioritisation approach. It had to become more responsive to changing markets and opportunities and to translate strategic imperatives more quickly and more predictably into operational reality.

Approach to solution

CITI’s starting point was to ensure that Richard Brown and his direct reports had a shared vision of what was to be achieved and could articulate this consistently throughout the organisation. A route map that focused on the delivery of benefits (value) and the vision. The map identified the changes that needed to be made and the outputs needed from projects to cause the changes. By starting with the end in mind rather than from projects or solutions it was much easier to structure projects and to link them to stakeholders’ agendas.

With the value understood, with the different stakeholder’s interests mapped we were now in a position to see which combinations of projects, costs and resources delivered the best return, with the concept of ‘best’ recognised by all parties as having the same meaning.

In parallel with this, we profiled Eurostar’s programme and project managers to determine their capability, so that the portfolio of projects could be matched to appropriate individuals. An important step – as project portfolio prioritisation must deal with not just the desirable, but the do-able aspects as well.

Lessons learned

Portfolio prioritisation requires the groundwork of determining what is regarded as valuable by the key stakeholders; organising and ranking benefits against this value set, and then having ways of assessing the degree of risk associated with achieving the benefits, before setting out a prioritisation scheme. Without an agreed and public basis for establishing value, every prioritisation scheme fails – usually within the year its introduced.

Models / tools used

Portfolio analysis techniques
Facilitated workshops
Benefit – impact- product mapping
RACI analysis
KASE profiling
PMO maturation model

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