Challenges, opportunities, chosen areas of focus, 2028 achievements, and peer support notes — captured across six Project Office executives and directors at the HIVE SteerCo Workshop.
LXRP had repeatability in roles — opportunity to do this across VIDA.
Achievement: Handover of the project — asset handover and allocation, mass coordination across teams, deliver NELP on time under budget without kicking cans down the road.
The scale of all the new parts that NELP is bringing is a big undertaking. If we can complete it on time and on budget, that would be a great achievement.
He really likes the idea that the Hive can help make things easier to deploy and scale in their project office — they already have lots of ideas. The opportunity is how Hive helps with executing and scaling ideas.
It's still hard to get buy-in from day one. Even when everything was lined up and ready, there was still so much work and effort needed to bring people in.
Would love to see an emphasis on cross-pollinating ideas.
There is a general resistance to change. For example, refreshing project management is like herding cats — people want to reinvent the wheel each time. Even when they know frameworks exist, they don't use them.
Alastair noted a general resistance to change, and how people want to reinvent the wheel instead of just fixing and tweaking something that already exists. People seem really tempted to do something new every time.
He's sure there are many good things going on and would really like to know how we can collect and celebrate innovation more effectively.
Wants to ban the word 'trial' — people are not following through with post-trial discipline (i.e. implement into BAU or reject).
Bulk of people are great at following processes — we need to embed innovation so they don't have an option. Scale doesn't happen organically, it needs to be enforced.
Achievements: Productivity, efficiency, collaborating and solving problems as a collective. Embedding and normalising innovation. Reducing costs.
He's banned the word 'trial'; instead, frame things as processes, which people seem more inclined to follow.
Credit to the Hive for pushing forward trials in 2023; now it's normalised. He thinks the next evolution is to focus on embedding. Efficiency is the ultimate goal — embedding into BAU, with the achievement of reducing costs.
The support from the Hive in validating technology — and more importantly, helping with next steps like making videos, online content, and sign-up processes — was the real value. The opportunity is embedding ideas and innovations into BAU.
Challenges: Indirect costs are running at 40% for non-construction teams. Have done trials to reduce admin but need to convert these trials into results. Culture of setting soft targets. Delivery fatigue in construction teams.
Indirect costs are at about 40% right now, which is a big number. There could be an easy win in cutting out major inefficiencies (messy systems, duplicate processes).
Rail is the perfect environment to test and innovate, since you can carry things forward into the next stage. What's in it for them — how do we sell it to them? People are caught up in the day-to-day, just ticking boxes, and don't have time to change.
Regarding dynamic resourcing: it's hard to plug and play people. There's a challenge using the systems in place for mega projects for the smaller goals and breakouts.
Opportunity: Using existing tech better across VIDA (e.g. AI strategy). Stuff happening in pockets and not across VIDA — can't be scaled. Projects too short a timeframe to implement innovation. Main obstacle is time; continuous improvement is discretionary.
Achievement: Productivity improved by 10%.
He sees the VIDA rail AI strategy as a pilot and is interested to see how that plays out. There are projects in many offices and programs — knowing what's out there and can be scaled is an opportunity. Having a good pipeline and knowing what's coming can let you invest with more confidence. Continuous improvement isn't a priority as people are more concerned about their immediate priorities.
In terms of improvement types, the Hive has often focused on final stage breakthroughs — but he sees a big opportunity in everyday problem-solving that has already been worked on in one project office. Ngooron is an example that can be rolled out to other project offices through the Hive steering committee. dRofus is another one.
There are a few BAU things going ahead, but he wants to create a list of preferences and ideas from project offices — won't do them all, but will be able to pick from there.
For the HIVE facilitation team — capture what worked, what to refine, and what this session revealed about the group.
Suggested follow-up questions and HIVE innovation support considerations for each participant's initial follow-up meeting.
Challenge: Uncertainty of pipeline, don't deliver mega projects so variance is impactful. Fixed term employees with very few ongoing staff. Forecast and retention.
Achievement: Make executive structure more agile.
A challenge has been around the uncertainty in their pipeline — it's hard to resource and retain quality staff without knowing what's next.
There's an opportunity to look at their executive structure now that they've joined VIDA, especially as they've delivered many of their big projects. They should review it and ensure things are still fit for purpose. The teams would then fall into place, bringing more balance to the current situation where certain areas could be over- or underutilised.