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<TPa]X]V�[TVPRh Lessons learned from the London 2012 Games construction project
Programme Management
Abstract London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games created the need for a major regeneration and construction programme to provide the venues and infrastructure needed to stage the Games.
The programme of construction was extensive, technically and politically challenging. It was also up against a!fixed deadline of the Opening Ceremony of the Games in July 2012. Turning the vision of the Olympic Bid into the reality of roads, bridges and stadia was the job of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), a!new publicly funded body established by an Act of Parliament in April 2006.
From its creation until the planned completion of the majority of the capital works a year ahead of the Games, the ODA had just over five years to staff up, procure and deliver around £6 billion of major construction works. The majority of the construction works were to be built on a largely derelict and polluted site in Stratford, east London. At the same time the ODA needed to satisfy government, the media, local residents and the public at large that it was: – providing value for money; and – on track to provide both the
infrastructure required to stage the Games, and a lasting legacy for a relatively deprived part of London.
Authors Kenna Kintrea Head of Venues and Infrastructure Programme, ODA
Association for Project Management (APM) Peer reviewer
Olympic Park looking south through the parklands
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The ODA had five years to staff up, procure and deliver £6 billion of major construction works.
Introduction London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games created the need for a major regeneration and construction programme to provide the venues and infrastructure needed to stage the Games.
The programme of construction was extensive, technically and politically challenging and up against a fixed deadline of the Opening Ceremony of the Games in July 2012. Turning the vision of the Olympic Bid into the reality of roads, bridges and stadia was the job of the ODA.
From its creation until the planned completion of the majority of the capital works a year ahead of the Games, the ODA had just over five years to staff up, procure and deliver around £6 billion (bn) of major construction works. The majority of the construction works were to be built on a largely derelict and polluted site in Stratford, east London.
At the same time the ODA needed to satisfy government, the media, local residents and the public at large that it was: – providing value for money; and – on track to provide both the
infrastructure required to stage the Games, and a lasting legacy for a relatively deprived part of London.
Organisation Period Activity
London Development Agency a (LDA)/ODA
Year 1 (2006–2007) Planning and land assembly
Olympic Delivery Authority Year 2 (to Beijing 2008) Demolish, dig, design
Year 3 (to 27 July 2009) ‘The big build’ (foundations)
Year 4 (to 27 July 2010) ‘The big build’ (structures)
Year 5 (to 27 July 2011) ‘The big build’ (completion)
London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games
Year 6 (to 2012) Testing and commissioning, the Olympic and Paralympic Games
Olympic Park Legacy Company 2012 onwards Conversion of the Olympic Park and!venues to permanent legacy configuration, re-opening the Park to!the public
ODA scope and programme The ODA’s programme of works included: – the deconstruction and land
remediation of approximately a!400 hectare (ha) site;
– the master planning and submission of approximately 950 individual planning applications;
– the construction of infrastructure – around 20 kilometre (km) roads, 13km tunnels, 26 bridges, new utilities infrastructure (water, gas, electricity and telecommunications);
– the construction of 14 permanent and temporary sporting venues and a 12,000 square metre (m2) broadcast centre and 29,000m2 media centres (for commercial use after the Games);
– construction of the Athletes’ Village (to be converted to 2,800 homes for sale after the Games);
– the creation of approximately 100ha of parklands, gardens and public open space; and
– transport improvements, including station and infrastructure works.
The ODA budget (part of the overall public sector funding package agreed for the Games in March 2007) was set at £8bn, including approximately £2bn of contingency.
Table 1: London 2012 construction and infrastructure: project phases (milestones published annually)
a The London Development Agency. Responsibility for the legacy development of the Olympic Park was transferred to the Olympic Park Legacy Company in 2010.
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The ODA Mission: to deliver venues, facilities, infrastructure and transport for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on time, to budget and to leave a lasting legacy.
Strategic framework With extensive public funding being injected into the ODA it was to be expected that its objectives would go!beyond simply delivering a programme of construction projects. In particular, the UK government had committed that the Games would leave a lasting legacy for London and the UK. The ODA translated this!into the following Mission and Objectives, agreed with members of!the Olympic Board:
ODA Mission ‘To deliver venues, facilities, infrastructure and transport for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on time, to budget and to leave a lasting legacy’.
ODA Objectives – To create infrastructure and
facilities associated with Games’ venues to time and agreed budget in accordance with the principles of sustainable development.
– To deliver Olympic and Paralympic venues to time, to design and building specification, and to agreed budget, providing for agreed legacy use.
– To deliver the necessary transport infrastructure for the Games, and devise and implement effective transport plans which provide for legacy use.
– To assist the LDA in the finalisation of sustainable legacy plans for the Park and all venues.
ODA priority themes In the execution of its objectives, the ODA also committed to contribute to the overall London 2012 vision of a broad legacy of economic, social and environmental benefits for London and the UK. To realise this, the ODA defined six ’priority themes’ to underpin its activity as set out below.
Published policy documents and strategies b, outlined strategic benefits as well as specific objectives.
Priority themes were embedded as a!fundamental part of the overall programme governance.
Figure 1: ODA Strategic Framework
b The ODA’s priority theme strategies. Available from: www.london2012.com/about-us/ publications (accessed 10 February 2012).
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The ODA delivery strategy was based on a smaller number of important tenets.
Delivery strategy The overarching strategy The ODA delivery strategy was based on a smaller number of important tenets: – Getting the right people with
delivery capability on board – fast.
– Setting a realistic budget. – Nailing down the scope,
programme, budget and funding early and sticking to it.
– Early and prompt decision making – saving time will save money.
– Strong programme management. – Allowing industry partners to
deliver. – Active risk management from start
to finish. – Transparency and proactivity
in!internal and external communications.
– Maintaining a collaborative approach with government and industry partners.
People and delivery capability The ODA needed to move rapidly through the planning phase to all-out delivery. After initial staffing of ODA key positions, it was decided to employ a Delivery Partner (DP) with experience of large-scale construction projects and proven delivery capability. The DP selected was a private sector consortium, CLM, comprising a partnership from the three parent companies of CH2M Hill, Laing O’Rourke and Mace.
The DP was appointed both as the!ODA’s overall programme management partner, but also having responsibility as Project Manager for the major construction projects. This was preferred over the alternative approach of separating project and programme management as it was judged that there were clear synergistic benefits of a common programme and project manager, and that the potential for conflicts of interest could be managed by virtue of having the ODA in an overall assurance role.
Figure 2: Delivery strategy
Sub- programme project delivery
CLM
Supply chain
DP project manager
Project delivery team
DP project manager
Project delivery team
DP project manager
Project delivery team
DP project manager
Project delivery team
Programme sponsorship
Programme delivery
ODA
CLM
Priority theme heads
Programme assurance
heads Commercial
director DP sub-
programme managers
DP programme
director
DP programme
controls
Project sponsors
ODA accountable
directors LDA
ODA programme assurance
office
Executive management
board
Senior responsible
owner (ODA CEO)
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The Programme Baseline Report was crucial in bottoming out areas of scope uncertainty at an early stage.
The rapidly changing nature of the programme, together with the DP concept required a dynamic approach to organisational design and resource management. Joint reviews (ODA and CLM) of organisational design took place during the programme life!with the objective of ensuring constant alignment of client and DP organisational models, skills and resources.
Despite the finite lifecycle of the ODA!the organisation recognised the importance of investing in people to build leadership capability, embed team working and resilience, and retain and motivate staff. A tailored learning and development programme was deployed that included team building (especially between the ODA and CLM), focused skills development, mentoring and health and wellbeing activities.
This programme was one of the bedrocks of the ODA’s People Strategy and positively impacted retention, motivation and capability.
Nailing down scope, programme, budget and funding The ODA documented the programme scope and submitted it!with detailed budget assessments to the Ministerial Funders Group (Funders) and the Olympic Board for approval. The resulting Programme Baseline Report (PBR) (a detailed 500 page description of aligned scope, programme, budget and risk) was published in November 2007.
It identified the items that the ODA planned to deliver, the allocation of risk between the ODA and Funders (to govern any subsequent contingency allocations) and importantly, those items which were out of its scope. The development of!this document was crucial in bottoming out areas of scope uncertainty at an early stage in the programme and gave the ODA a firm footing for delivery of the programme.
Communications and stakeholder engagement supporting delivery The ODA understood at the outset that there would be huge levels of public interest in London 2012. It also!recognised that the project could only be delivered in partnership and with the support of a large coalition of organisations, many of whom had differing interests. As a result, the ODA adopted a highly proactive and!systematic communications and stakeholder management approach from community and political engagement, through to daily public site visits and media opportunities.
The strategy was to: – embrace transparency and ensure
complete alignment between internal and external objectives;
– maintain a drumbeat of progress with intense focus at big moments; and
– recognise that ’seeing is believing’, let success speak for itself and allow as many people as possible to see the Park for themselves.
Programme management Work Breakdown Structure A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) was defined to organise the scope of!work and manage delivery and monitoring of the programme, with individual ’projects’ defined, typically corresponding to a single venue (for example, the Olympic Stadium) or element of infrastructure (for example, Utilities). Some ’projects’ such as Logistics and Security provided programme-wide services as this was determined to be the most efficient delivery and procurement model.
Planning and approvals Objectives for the programme as a whole were approved by government via the PBR described earlier. This also outlined the definition of individual projects, which together made up the totality of the ODA’s scope. Following approval of the PBR, individual project business cases were developed and approved by government. These established the project objectives, overall design parameters (including for legacy) and cost targets.
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Approval of the business case initiated the release of individual project budgets to the ODA. Thereafter, a rigorous change control process maintained the critical relationship between scope, schedule and budget and sought to manage any emerging ’requirements creep’.
Programme control Although delivery responsibility was cascaded down to project level, all key policies and processes were determined and implemented at a programme level. Thus, for example, all projects followed a standard approach for risk management, cost and progress reporting and change control.
Standardising project control and reporting was of fundamental importance in preserving control of!the overall cost and schedule. It provided a consistent approach to project management and allowed project level data to be easily rolled up to programme level for overall review of performance and likely outcomes. This in turn gave management key data to enable tradeoffs of resources or targets to be!made, to achieve programme level objectives.
Monthly ’Implementation Reviews’ with senior management reviewed the progress of every individual project, and allowed a programme- wide view of risks, issues and resources to be taken.
Figure 4: Programme breakdown
Village Transport Venues and park infrastructure
Developer
Stratford projects
Village vertical
build sub programme
Operational and support
projects Other
projectsOperations Site
platform projects
Venues
Transport sub
programme
Delivery partner
Transport delivery partnersDevelopment manager
SCDL CLM
On Park venues
Off Park venues
Eton Dorney
ODA ODA transport TTL
BAA
Network Rail
Boroughs Highways Agency
Lend lease
Olympic Delivery Authority
ODA property
Z2-7 infrastructure
Stratford property
Stratford infrastructure
Z1 infrastructure
Programme management *
Interface management
Project management
Client representative
* CLM is responsible for programme managing all other areas of the programme
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Across all aspects of managing integration there were two key elements; issue identification and issue resolution.
Integrated planning There were several aspects to managing integration across the programme. These included dependency management (schedule logic/construction sequencing), design management (coherent and compatible solutions), physical integration (for example, two or more!projects need to be in the same geographical place at the same time) and change management (consequential impact of scope or schedule changes particularly across project/organisational boundaries).
Across all aspects of managing integration there were two key elements; issue identification and issue resolution.
Where issues were identified and resolved within a single project, this was managed within the project’s meeting and governance structures. Generally this involved the Tier One contractor managing the interfaces between its Tier Two contracts.
At a programme level additional processes were required to manage the cross-project interfaces to ensure that consequential impacts were identified and programme priorities applied in resolution.
Where escalation was required, then!the criticality of an issue was assessed in terms of overall programme impact (both schedule criticality to key delivery milestones and managing any ’bow-wave’ effect of delay). A key requirement for this was the integrated programme schedule.
Integration issues and the potential solutions were ranked in order of impact upon key milestones (for example, Venue Beneficial Possession). This ensured that decisions were prioritised and options assessed in the programme (as opposed to an individual project) context.
Figure 4: Interface management
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Transparency of the ODA’s governance and assurance processes helped provide government with confidence that the ODA was delivering to plan.
Programme governance and!assurance From the outset the ODA instituted processes and systems, meeting structures and delegations to ensure strategic direction, performance management and value for money.
The DP was fully integrated into all!aspects of governance, from the!Executive Management Board downwards, and was responsible for!leading programme and project delivery review meetings, with participation from the ODA.
Stakeholder meetings were also held!on every project and for each priority theme to ensure that key stakeholders were kept engaged as!projects developed.
Successful delivery of the priority theme targets was monitored monthly by project as part of the overall project progress review. Dedicated Boards for each priority theme (with ODA Board-level participation) assured that at a programme level the priority themes were achieving the!targets, and where shortfalls were forecast, helped deploy targets or!resources to enable delivery.
Transparency of the ODA’s governance and assurance processes helped provide government and other agencies with confidence that the ODA was delivering to plan and helped reduce outside intervention into the ODA’s day-to-day work.
Benefits management and the Learning Legacy The majority of benefits generated by!the ODA Programme delivering venues and infrastructure will be realised after the transformation from Games format to legacy, through future sporting and regeneration uses. The management of the direct benefits obtained from hosting the London 2012 Games will lie with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and HM Government (Department for Culture,!Media and Sport (DCMS)- Government Olympic Executive (GOE)). The legacy benefits will be delivered by other agencies, such as!the Lea Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) and the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC).
Figure 5: Programme governance and assurance
ODA board
Executive management board
Change board Operations board
Procurement board Commercial board Project boards and implementation reviews
Priority theme boards
Strategy and policy approvals
Issues resolution
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By setting and achieving ambitious targets for a range of measures across the themes, the ODA believes it has made a significant impact.
The ODA’s design philosophy was to ’design for legacy and adapt for the Games’ and thus the long-term usage of the buildings and infrastructure was the primary focus of design and!construction, with legacy targets being included in business cases and design briefs. The ODA has worked closely with the OPLC to ensure that the platform left by the ODA is aligned with OPLC’s legacy aspirations for the Park.
Despite not being directly responsible for delivery of the majority of benefits, the individual project business cases included anticipated benefits that were agreed with government or the responsible agency. As the projects were completed, and the business cases were formally closed out, a benefits handover plan was created per project to ensure that responsibility for delivery of the benefits was passed to the responsible agency.
An area where the ODA clearly aimed to provide lasting benefits was through the delivery of its priority theme objectives. In these areas the ODA publicly declared an aspiration to raise the bar in the UK construction industry in areas such as Health and Safety, Sustainability, Equality and Diversity, and Employment and Skills. By setting and achieving ambitious targets for a range of measures across the themes, the ODA believes it has made a significant impact.
In order that the lessons learned, innovation and best practice from the!ODA’s experience is captured, disseminated and used in future projects the ODA has established a ’Learning Legacy’ project, working with industry and academic partners. This will be published through a learning legacy website.
Conclusion The ODA’s approach to programme management and organisation did!not contain any one magic ingredient; rather it concentrated on the establishment of a clear delivery strategy, maintaining a high level of transparency to all stakeholders, clear definition of scope and focused delivery.
The appointment of a DP allowed the!ODA flexibility and agility in responding to the differing skills required at different stages of the programme, and the effective partnership between the ODA and the DP underpinned the success achieved in delivery of the objectives. A clear separation of roles between the ODA and the DP gave the DP the freedom to execute the programme, while retaining adequate oversight and assurance from the ODA to satisfy stakeholders that the objectives would be achieved.
Fully integrated programme management was crucial to ensure that the complex programme of work delivered the programme-wide benefits the ODA had committed to, and met the cost and delivery targets agreed with government.
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© 2012 Olympic Delivery Authority. The official Emblems of the London 2012 Games are © London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Limited (LOCOG) 2007. All rights reserved.
The construction of the venues and infrastructure of the London 2012 Games is funded by the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency.
For more information visit: london2012.com/learninglegacy Published April 2012 Ref: ODA 2012/031