Want to learn from Europe’s largest construction project?

 

Platform construction at Liverpool Street station completes © Crossrail Ltd.

Infrastructure projects in the UK don’t always get good press, but that is starting to change. Crossrail, in particular, is spoken of in very high terms. At a training event I attended recently, one of the delegates was from the Crossrail team. She spent most of her time in a hardhat and overalls and getting out of the tunnels for the course seemed almost a novelty. The trainer called on her several times to explain to the group the ‘Crossrail way’.

And why not? Crossrail is delivering and making real change in London and going about it with good grace and excellent stakeholder relations from what I can tell.

Crossrail is the UK’s largest project for a generation. It’s a comprehensive programme of tunneling, station construction, railway and infrastructure work that affects 40 sites in London. It’s burning through £140m per month and it’s doing amazing things.

The programme, inspired by the learning legacy work done after the London Olympics, I imagine, has set up a comprehensive lessons learned site with a large section on project management.

The project and programme section covers:

• Project initiation and development
• Delivery and execution strategy
• Handover and transition (I shall definitely be browsing this area)
• Programme controls
• Audit and assurance
• Quality
• Sustainability strategy

So there is a lot covered, across a range of project and programme management disciplines and functional areas.

They are sharing how the work is done in minute detail. For example, you can download the change control and budget management procedure, along with a change control form. Then you can learn from how they have made those documents work for them and you benefit from all that expertise when you put your own together.

There are also documents that outline how Crossrail approached Earned Value and their estimating approaches. In fact, there are documents that cover pretty much everything.

The Documentation

Within the learning legacy document archives you’ll find a number of different file types.

Good practice documents are templates, processes and similar that have been shared for you to use (or modify). Note that they don’t talk about best practice.

There are micro-reports which are website pages (not documents to download although they might link to them) that focus on a short point.

There are case studies which include lessons learned and recommendations for future projects and programmes.

Technical papers take a topic and go in-depth. These are also peer-reviewed so you know you are getting a good quality, accurate document.

Finally, there are research summaries, which are shorter versions of research carried out by academics studying Crossrail – yes, universities are picking over what is happening there as well as practitioners.

The Value

I don’t work in construction, so some of the findings are less useful to me. However, if you do have a construction element to your projects, there is definitely value in finding out how other people ran projects – both the good and the not so good.

If you are preparing a business case or proposal you could also find some value here: many stakeholders and decision makers like statistics, so throwing in some research to show that you have taken on board learnings from other large programmes could well add weight to your arguments. Worth a try, eh?

My Key Takeaways

There is a huge focus on sustainability, and a lot of effort has gone into the legacy element of the project. It’s so important that a development like this is managed holistically over time and with consideration for the environment in all its forms around the build sites. There are documents in the learning legacy archive setting out how that focus has been achieved, which make interesting reading.

Finally, the overarching message of Crossrail is that it is about more than just the project management. If you have the time, browse the section on Talent and Resources as this covers their approach to managing the people side of this huge initiative.

I’m particularly impressed with how they have grown their own skills – knowing that skilled engineering resource is somewhat lacking, and wanting to make a difference to the local community as a legacy from the construction, they have embraced all the different ways to develop talent. From apprenticeship schemes to work with school children promoting STEM as a career choice, to creating an Academy to teach the tunneling and construction skills required, they’ve done a lot to ensure a pipeline of appropriate resources.

Your project might not have the budget (or the duration) to train young people in the skills you will need in 5 years’ time, but there are bound to be some key pointers here that you can take and implement on your own project initiatives.