I joined PB in 2009 as a Senior Project Controls Manager, reporting to the European Operations Director. In this Corporate Leadership role, I spent my first 2 years driving a Corporate Change Programme across the UK and Europe business. As part of a major strategic initiative to drive a consistent approach to project delivery across the business lines, I was responsible for developing and implementing key tools that laid the foundations for major change in the business going forward. Specifically, I was responsible for;
- Implementing a brand new Business Management System across the whole of the Europe Africa business, allowing all employees to quickly access all PB processes & procedures
- Introducing Earned Value Management techniques to 90+ project managers and provided training and coaching. These techniques included the APM standard earned value model as well the more modern Earned Schedule approach, which is becoming the benchmark standard beyond the APM standard.
- Leading the design and implementation of a brand new bespoke software tool (BOOST) to deal with the management of ALL projects (large & small) through the PB project life cycle, dealing with the creation of opportunities, building a tender, a work breakdown structures through to cost estimates, budgets, resources, actual costs, deliverables, forecasts, project reporting and finally project close-out.
- Implementing (as part of the BOOST initiative) a comprehensive dashboard-reporting feature for business analysis and corporate reporting.
- Implementing a new and innovative client facing data management and reporting tool on Major Projects both current and in tender submission phase.
- Implementing project controls on the Crossrail South East Section Project, which completed GRIP Stage 4 in an unprecedented 7 month duration, delivering the Preliminary Design to Network Rail on time, with no quality issues raised.
Appointed to the role of Head of Programme Services in March 2011, I reported to the Director of Major Projects and was accountable for the performance of Project Controls staff on all PB major projects within the UK portfolio, both in terms of the quality of their work as well as their delivery in front of the clients. Projects included Heathrow’s Terminal 2B, National Grid’s North West Gas Alliance and Crossrail South East Section project, to shape both the organisational structure and processes implemented in delivering the works.
As part of the Major Projects Leadership Team, I was active in promoting the Zero Harm Safety Culture across all areas of the business and, along with the other members of the Leadership Team, I undertook regular Site Safety Tours to ensure the right messages about safety were being embedded at all levels of the organisation.
In May 2012, in addition to my role as Head of Programme Services, I was appointed to the role of Head of Balfour Beatty Group Programme Management Office (PMO). In the PMO I was responsible for visibility of performance across all internal business change initiatives and with an annual spend in excess of £30million, I reported performance to Andrew McNaughton (CEO) and Duncan McGrath (CFO). My primary responsibility was to work with and co-ordinate all the various change projects to ensure a consistent approach to reporting and highlighting critical issues. This addressed a wide range of programmes from various IT initiatives to culture, collaboration (BS11000), innovation, merging of operating companies and Building Information Modelling (BIM).