Pcubed helps the London 2012 Olympic Delivery Authority

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Pcubed helps the London 2012 

Olympic Delivery Authority 

Internal Communication, November 2011

PCUBED Olympic Delivery Authority Update 

Contents 

Pcubed helps the London 2012 Olympic Delivery Authority .... 1 

Overview .................................................................................. 3 

Interview with David Higgins: The key to ODA’s Success ....... 4 

What has made it difficult to deliver ........................................ 4 

Fundamentals for Success ...................................................... 4 

Pcubed’s London 2012 Engagements ..................................... 6 

ODA Programme Management Office and Assurance Office 6 

ODA Construction Logistics Project ........................................ 6 

ODA IT .................................................................................... 7 

Support for ODA Director of Design and Regeneration .......... 7 

Pcubed work with CLM Delivery Partner ................................ 7 

Pcubed work with LOCOG: ..................................................... 8 

Pcubed work with Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC): .. 8 

Confidential 2


Overview 

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is on track to deliver the infrastructure for the 

2012 London Olympics on time and on budget. This is a tremendous achievement as 

the ODA has, from a standing start, managed to deliver one of the largest and most 

complex infrastructure programmes in a tough political and economic environment. 

Pcubed have had the opportunity to work with the ODA over the last five years to help 

them achieve this impressive feat. Our great delivery work for ODA meant that David 

Higgins, the CEO of the ODA, took the time to discuss with us his views on the 

fundamentals that have driven this impressive performance. 

The purpose of this note is to share with everyone David’s views on the essentials of 

success and a summary of the work we have done for the ODA. As you read David’s 

comments you will see that he ascribes the ODAs success to implementing the 

fundamental programme management principles that Pcubed try to drive on most of 

our client engagements. The ODA, with our help, has managed to implement more 

effectively than most and it is great to see what can be achieved when PM disciplines 

are intelligently applied! 

My thanks to the tremendous delivery team we have had working on ODA over the 

last three years, as you can imagine every consultancy in the UK wants to be involved 

with the Olympics and there has been intense focus on only using consultants on 

short term engagements. Our five year track record exists because of the 

tremendous hard work of Ky Nichol, Peter Henderson, Mark Sorrell, Nina Arbuckle, 

Barbara McLeod, Nicholas Smith, Tim Brett, Jonathan Wynands and Nickolle 

Paschal. 

Regards, 

Martin Hodgson 

Global CEO 

Confidential 3


Interview with David Higgins: The key to ODA’s 

Success 

David Higgins is the CEO of the Olympic Delivery Authority having previously been 

CEO of English Partnerships and Group Chief Executive of the Lend Lease Group. 

Our great delivery work for ODA meant that David took the time to explain to us his 

views on the fundamentals that have driven this impressive performance. 

His summary of the key to ODA’s success: 

What has made it difficult to deliver 

• Over 30 stakeholder groups that all have the power to stop progress 

• No politician or anyone else in the governance chain wants to force issues and 

make tough decisions. So ODA has to force the pace on decision making and 

confronting issues. 

Fundamentals for Success 

• Clarity on scope. The brief (yellow book) covers scope, responsibilities and 

assumptions. The brief is clear and written at a level to communicate to 

stakeholders and was signed-off by them. Getting and keeping clarity on the 

scope as it changes has been key. David’s words were create a “Firewall 

around scope” and “Discipline around change”. 

• Be very clear on what success looks like at key stages and the risks to getting 

there. Make it very clear and simple. 10 key objectives each year. Line 

everyone up to deliver these objectives and make them very public. This ups 

the pressure on everyone, your own team, delivery partners and stakeholders. 

• Clarity on roles, governance and change control. Clear on rules of operation 

and being in charge of ODA’s reputation, the ODA has only agreed to take 

ownership if they control delivery and can manage the decision making 

process. Very clear on what decisions have to be made when and the decision 

making process. Discipline on decision making (timing, responsibility etc) 

• Get the right team. 

• David personally spent the first nine months interviewing, not just his 

direct reports, but at all levels in the organisation to get the right people 

and right culture in place. Always looked for what motivates 

individuals. 

• Partnership with key suppliers needs respect both ways: 

• Have strong client side team: pay private sector rates and 

bonuses, but drive performance and deal with underperformers. 

You have to have people that are peers of the key 

suppliers and paid similar amounts or there is envy / lack of 

respect / no true partnership 

• Assess and treat suppliers as partners. Struggled with CLM in 

the early days, but dealt with it. Gave CLM offices in ODA, 

invited to all meetings etc 

• You need leadership. Force the issue on poor leadership e.g. 

changed much of the CLM management team 

Confidential 4


• Control the money. Use Treasury as an ally. No politician or anyone else in 

the governance chain wants to force issues and make tough decisions, e.g. 

forcing the budget issues. Treasury is a great ally. Get to the people in the 

engine room (grade 5s and 7s), spend time with them, get their trust, they brief 

the senior Treasury management. Be open and honest. 

• Rigorous execution: 

• Hold to your scope, schedule and budget - Don’t blink. If decisions 

were not made on time, then time was added to the plan, not absorbed 

by hoping to do better on later stages. If scope increased, budgets 

increased, not absorbed into existing budgets. 

• Peer challenge: weekly meeting, no hierarchy, everyone has the right 

to challenge 

• Get the right Chair for all Project Boards, the role is key 

• Coaches for all execs, they improve performance massively 

• Real smart exec assistants (Cambridge grad types) to sift through info 

and make sure the right elements are dealt with 

• Create the time and machine, so you can focus on the critical issues 

and get into the detail where required – detail matters 

• Huge attention to detail and really clear accurate summaries that make 

the complex simple for their stakeholders. 

• Stakeholder management. Go to them; discipline in meeting and managing 

them; let them know you are thinking about them; relationships matter. Have 

the rigorous discipline on scope, process, and clarity on issues – but then deal 

with people and make sensible management discussions on what is needed for 

overall (not just ODA) success. 

• Risk: Look far enough ahead and focus on risks to your 10 key goals for each 

year. Use experts in their field who have done it before. 

Confidential 5


Pcubed’s London 2012 Engagements 

ODA Programme Management Office and Assurance Office 

• Pcubed helped set up the ODA’s Project Development phase – how to manage 

projects during pre-construction, including creating the budgets, agreeing the 

scope and performing options analysis to identify the optimal delivery solution. 

With this in place, we helped to build the original ODA Programme Baseline 

Report, which set programme and project scope and budget baselines. 

• We put in place the risk management approach and process, creating and 

supporting the ODA executive-level risk management board. 

• We advised the ODA on the procurement of its delivery partner from a 

programme management good practice perspective and took part in the 

competitive dialogue process. 

• We helped build the ODA’s programme and project assurance provision to help 

projects and programmes get access to good practice, to help avoid risks and 

to ensure their reporting data was robust. This included a pragmatic approach 

to external assurance, involving reviews by the Office of Government 

Commerce (OGC Gateways) for the programme and its projects. 

• We helped to build the Olympic Projects Review Group and gained the 

agreement of diverse funding stakeholders (GLA, LDA, DCMS, Treasury etc.) 

on the benchmarks for measuring successful project investment. 

• We designed, wrote and provided quality assurance for the project business 

cases which justified the funding approvals and signaled the end of 

procurement and the start of project construction. 

ODA Construction Logistics Project 

• Pcubed drafted 19 business cases on behalf of the ODA Construction Logistics 

Project Sponsor. The total approved value was £365m. 

• We proofed of procurement documentation (PQQ, ITT and Tender Evaluation 

Reports) to ensure compliance with public sector procurement rules prior to 

publication. 

• We acted as Deputy Project Sponsors for various Construction Logistics 

projects, including the management of temporary highways and other 

infrastructure. This involved overseeing the CLM Delivery Partner and 

providing assurance to ensure success of these sub-projects. 

• We wrote an Options Analysis Report for the location of the Olympic Park Site 

Offices. 

• We acted as Programme Development Manager. This entailed establishing and 

integrating 18 workgroups representing LOCOG and the ODA, to define the 

successful integration of the two organisations for delivery of the London 2012 

Games. 

Confidential 6


ODA IT 

• IT Capability Manager, ODA IT Project: Oversight and assurance of project 

delivery, including business case review and liaison with business client 

sponsor. 

• ODA IT Project: Liaison with business users for roll-out and implementation of 

Programme-wide EDRMS (document management) project, working with 

projects to design new file structures and migrate all project documentation into 

the new system. 

Support for ODA Director of Design and Regeneration 

• Project Manager, ODA Arts and Culture Team: Full project management 

ownership of a varied portfolio of art installations within the Olympic Park on 

behalf of the Arts and Culture team, including fountains, lightpieces and 

entrances. The role has also included a secondment to the GLA for an 

ambitious project to install a landmark tower in the Park. 

• Assistance in setting up ODA Olympic Park Operations project and new 

functional area. 

Pcubed work with CLM Delivery Partner 

• PLUG (PowerLines UnderGrounding) project: 

1. Co-ordinated the Utilities contractor for the £6.5m removal of 54 

overhead pylons across the Olympic Park. 

2. Coordinated closeout documentation compliance for PLUG. 

3. Acted as client Project Manager for the design, development and 

installation of the Art Fence and sedum wall of the PLUG Northern 

Headhouse (see photograph below). 

• Structures, Bridges and Highways project: Supported the Head of SBH, 

examining the governance processes and rewriting key project management 

documentation, including the Project Execution Plan and Scope Book. 

• Construction Integration: Managed the coordination of interface issues 

between construction projects within the Olympic Park, including design 

clashes between venue and infrastructure projects and the phased scheduling 

of construction works. 

• Handover Assurance: Managed the client team to coordinate and ensure the 

HSE-compliant handover of construction areas between contractors across 

Olympic Park. This included handover process redesign and ongoing 

assurance responsibilities. 

Confidential 7


Pcubed work with LOCOG: 

• Pcubed developed the Venue Preparation Schedules to allow for cross 

workstream integration and external stakeholder buy in. We helped to integrate 

and coordinate the work of the Town Planning, Design and Technology teams 

amongst others to ensure successful delivery. 

• We also worked with the Venues and Infrastructure team within LOCOG to gain 

buy in from external stakeholders including the Department of Culture, Media 

and Sports and the International Olympic Committee. We reported to the 

Director of Venues, James Bulley, in coordination with the LOCOG CIO, Gerry 

Pennell to assure the schedules were representative. 

Pcubed work with Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC): 

• Pcubed helped set up the OPLC’s Project Development phase – similarly to 

work at the ODA we helped the OPLC set out how to manage projects during 

pre-construction, including creating the budgets, agreeing the scope and 

performing options analysis to identify the optimal delivery solution. We 

developed with the OPLC its overall programme and projects approvals 

schedule. 

• We helped to review and improve OPLC’s project appraisal process to meet the 

needs of Government Departments. 

• We helped the OPLC develop its business planning and supported Government 

spending review submissions. We also supported internal and external 

reporting and communications including overarching programme schedule. 

• We worked with the OPLC to develop its stakeholder management approach 

for drawing down, controlling and assuring investment in projects. We liaised 

with various Mayoral Authorities and Government Departments to agree 

processes and timetable to review business cases. 

Confidential 8

Pcubed helps the London 2012 Olympic Delivery Authority

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