Quite close together when we're walking.
Welcome to Episode 2 in our three-part series on APM
corporate partner the National Trust, where we're finding out
about how the charity has brought project management close
to its organisational heart. I'm Emma De Vita and I'm your
host. In episode one, I went behind
the scenes at Historic House Durham Park to speak to Mike
Hudson, Head of Strategic Planning, Projects and Programme
Management, who told me all about the professionalisation of
project management at the charity.
I also got to hear from Senior Project manager Tim Camborne
about how he led the recent multimillion # transformation
programme at Deer and Park. If you didn't catch it, listen
to it now. In this episode I'm finding out
about two different sites, the National Trust's work, it's
urban programmes, particularly in London where I visited a new
community garden. And secondly, it's work in
renewables as it focuses towards its aim of becoming carbon net
zero by 20-30. But first, let's meet Joe
Dimitri, a senior Programme manager for the National Trust
London programme. He started her career in event
management before switching to project management.
She began her urban work in Birmingham on the Roundhouse
projects and is now leading a team of nine project
professionals as part of the strategy work the National Trust
is doing in London to connect green spaces and increase its
presence in the capital city. Could you tell us a bit about
the programme itself? So what the scope is, what the
what you hope to achieve and the time frame.
The London programme it we're collaborating on projects in six
out of London's 33 boroughs. We've got a range of different
types of projects and interventions that we're working
on. So to really help address
unequal access to nature, beauty and history.
And that ranges from a community garden in East Dagenham where
we're providing access for people in that area to I I guess
in the grand scheme of London, a relatively small space.
But for lots of people in that area it might be the their their
only sort of access to our outdoor space on their doorstep.
So we know that over half the people that are coming to
Stonyford Community Garden and don't have their own private
green space. And then our other projects that
sort of go right through to looking at how you connect up
green and blue space across several London boroughs.
So working in the Wandle on a green corridor across
Wandsworth, Merton, Sutton and into Croydon.
So you've got the the Wanderer River corridor.
So looking at the communities, the access the communities
across that river corridor have to to green and blue space and
thinking about how to connect that up and and create more and
better access to nature across those boroughs.
And looking at so in Lewisham, we're also looking at again in
an award level within that borough, what the opportunities
are to create more, more green space and better green space on
the doorsteps where people live. How will success be measured for
all of these projects and for the programme?
A programme level, we're really looking at increasing the amount
of people accessing green space. So we know that there is a real
correlation between green deficit in cities and that
disproportionately affects people from global majority
communities and people from more disadvantaged areas of the city.
So we're really wanting to ensure that when we when we're
working in the areas we're working where there there is a
where where we can have impact, but also measuring the increase
in in the amount of good quality green space in the city.
So again looking at where there are there is a green deficit
area and and how to how to increase the amount, the quality
and also sort of what's going on in that space as well.
So also looking at what we can do in those spaces to make them
feel safer, to make them feel evidence and to to bring them to
life for for a wider range of people.
Could you tell us a bit more about the Instagram project,
please? We were bequeathed half acre
garden in East Dagenham. It's connected to somewhere
called stone for cottage. We've separated the garden from
the cottage. So the bequest was in 2018 and
we open stone for community garden at the end of 2022.
So we worked with the community before that to really understand
what they wanted from green space in their area where what
were the opportunities and how how could we use that half acre
to really provide a space that the local community wanted to
use. We have been working with some
creative consultants to to to bring the garden to life and
we've put on a programme across the past over the past year
particularly working with younger people.
So if we ran last year some sessions for under fives and
also an after school club in the garden.
So again looking at how to sort of respond creatively to to
nature in the space, but very much bringing people together.
And alongside that we've worked with a brilliant organisation
called Thames Chase who have their own volunteers that they
bring to the garden to help manage manage it.
So look after it, tend to the garden, keep keep sort of the
keep, keep things growing but also keep some of the the growth
under control. And they have also started a
gardening club made-up of members from the local
community. Over half of the people that are
coming to Stone for that don't have outdoor space of their own.
And it really feels like we've got really wide interest from
across the community and the feedback that we get suggests
that we're, you know, we're offering in stone for something
that they can't find elsewhere in the local area.
Quite close together. I visited Stonyford Community
Garden in Dagenham in east London on a windy February day
where project officer Emma King gave me a tour of the once
ramshackle cottage garden that she's busy transforming and
which now welcomes in the local community, including the
children at the primary school just over the road.
I'm here on a windy but quite warm February morning at
Stoneyford Community Garden in East Dagenham with Emma King,
who's a project officer at National Trust.
He's closely involved with the project here.
Hi Emma, Can you describe what what we're looking at at the
moment? Because it's kind of like a
fenced off area off a suburban street with lots of colourful
kind of flags waving about and some kind of artwork.
But do you want to describe as we go around what we're seeing?
Yeah. And a little bit of history of
the project, of course. So.
So it's Stonyford Community Garden.
It's a fairly small space. It was, in fact, someone.
'S domestic back garden. It belonged to the cottage.
The family had lived in the cottage for 100 years, and this
part of Dagenham was not that long ago.
Sort of just before the war was all sorts of farmland and this
was their small farm, so you've got sort of remnants in the
garden of of when it was a farm. So there's a few different
outbuildings here where they would have kept animals and they
would have stored things. Also had an orchard and the
orchard still here. So we've got a lovely mature
orchard of different fruit trees like cherries and plums.
We're standing under a a lovely old plum tree.
Has it produced any fruit? Yeah, in here in the summer we
get lots of fruit. Is it tasty?
Good. And we have lots of activities
with the local community to do fruit picking.
Ohh. So I think for me that's one of
the key features of the garden is the sort of mature trees
we've got here of them fruit trees as they say.
So in the summer we've got lots of shade and things.
So it's kind of like a a little haven in a in what's now quite a
residential built up area. We're walking on our new paths
that we just had put, yeah, had these put in a couple of months
ago. And because the garden or those
sort of lovely and charming is a bit higgledy, piggledy, I would
say that's a bit uneven, the surfaces and things, which looks
very nice. But now we've got these great
new paths, which means lots more people can access the site,
whether that's wheelchair users or people with pushchairs and
things like that. Who comes here typically?
So at the moment we've got an after school club so we're just
down the road from the school. So yeah, I can hear the children
in the background there, yeah. Yeah, so we've got families who
come to that. We've also got a gardening club
which is for sort of local residents joining that, That's
Fortnightly club so but and this year we're hoping to sort of
expand the type of activities we run and the kind of people that
we're welcoming into the space. How long have you been working
on this project? So I've been involved since
November 2020. So the the house and garden were
left to the National Trust in 2018.
That's quite common with the National Trust.
Lots of people leave things to us and there's always a decision
about them, what we would, what we're going to do with those
places. And there was always an idea
that we could open this as a community garden.
But as you can imagine, there's sort of various hoops to jump
through to to make that happen. And then so that was the plan,
that it would be a community garden.
But then COVID came along and things changed a lot and there
was uncertainty about whether the project would go ahead.
But actually what what happened with COVID at the National Trust
is we refocused our strategy and we really saw the need as a
charity to be creating more urban green space.
So it felt that actually this was something that would really
deliver our strategy around urban places, creating more
urban green space. Once that decision was made,
began the feasibility work on the project, trying to
understand, you know, what were the steps that we needed to take
to to make that happen. And quite early on we decided we
needed to do a community consultation to just sort of
understand what the need was in the local area.
Is this something people would want?
Is it something they needed? So we worked with a local
organisation called Company Drinks who are already very much
embedded in the area and sort of connected with the community.
So they ran a series of workshops and things to to
understand what people might want from this base and and we
also did data mapping and things like that looking on what other
green space was around, what the demographics of the area were
like and things like that. So once we've gathered all that
information and we felt there really was a strong need to have
something like this in the area, that's when we sort of started
doing our fundraising and all that kind of stuff to to put in
a new. And so there was a big decision
about what would the House be part of the project.
Where is the house? The.
Cottage there, yeah. But actually it was decided that
it needed a lot of renovation and the only way.
So you sort of get an internal loan to do the renovation, but
you have to sort of generate income to make sure you're
paying back that loan. So we've got a private tenant in
there now they're just as their house, they rent it and so we
put in a new fence. So it was that was kind of a big
first step. We're sort of separating the
house from the garden, making them separate entities, putting
in a new gate. And then the approach has has
always kind of been not to. We started doing all these like
grand plans with architects and thinking like and then sort of
realising how much that was going to cost and having to
fundraise huge amounts. And we thought actually let's
before we do that, let's actually just get it sort of put
in the bare minimum infrastructure to make the site
usable and let's just open it and get people in and start
doing things. And then kind of build from
there and sort of learn as we go in terms of what is needed.
In this space, yeah. Does it feel quite an unusual
project to be working on as part of the National Trust?
Yes. I would say so.
I think there's definitely a lot of overlap with other parts of
the organisation. Lots of our our sort of more
traditional gardens are very community focused now.
There's actually a National Trust property down the road
called Raynham Hall and that's called a community garden.
The garden there is called the Community Gardener, so it so it
does exist. And actually since COVID,
really, there has actually been an explosion in terms of urban
work and things happening in Manchester and Birmingham and
there's all these teams and resources being put into that.
So I suppose it doesn't. You know, it feels like we are.
There's a kind of shift within the organisation, but I think
projects like this are still quite new to the organisation
and so we're all learning as we as we go.
And what as? A project officer.
What are your main sort of responsibilities right now?
So the role requires it's, it's kind of an unusual thing.
So you'd have the project side and the development side of sort
of and what is is happening next with the project.
We need to fundraise what, what, how are we going, what's the
future going to look like, how's it going to operate long term.
But then because it is a site that is open to the public, it's
also very operational and I have to think you know is it safe?
Do do we have toilets? Do we have, you know, it's just
kind of like the everyday thing. So I my role is is quite split
into I would say. We'll return to Emma's tour of
the community garden later, but let's get back to Joe.
He'll be telling us more about the founder of the National
Trust, Octavia Hill, and her mission to improve the
well-being of city workers. We were talking before about the
founder Octavia Hills mission for the National Trust.
You and tell us a bit about that, because maybe not everyone
knows. Yeah.
So Octavia Hill was a really inspirational founder for the
National Trust and really strongly believed in the
importance and the right that people have to green space
connection to nature, wide open skies for for the benefit of
their health and well-being and you know a time of massive
change and industrialisation in the country late 19th century.
She, you know she was seeing huge, you know huge influx of
workers into cities, varying living conditions, you know some
really terrible living conditions for people.
And as a a social reformer wanted to kind of address that
by preserving the sort of heritage and natural spaces
within cities to to sort of counterbalance that of
densification within within our towns and cities and campaigned
really hard to save parks and green spaces in London for the
benefit of particularly working populations.
And so that kind of core purpose on which National Trust was
founded has, you know, is as relevant now as it was at the
time. You're now Senior programme
manager of this. Can you tell me a bit about your
career in project management and and particularly within the
National Trust? Because I've been trying to
understand how beneficial it has been to have a professionalised
project management function and career route within National
Trust. And also it's an APM corporate
partner, so you have that kind of extra support and resource
there. So it would be good to
understand a little bit about your career.
So I started working in event management.
So or it probably you know coming up for about 25 years ago
my my route into project management and I don't think
this is unusual actually came through this all through the
event management route. So I started off working in
corporate events and then that evolved into working for a youth
charity. And I just, I really love that
sense of working with people to make exciting things happen.
And I guess that that's the sort of endure throughout all of my
career. And I also sort of liked the
fact that the sort of way the way I worked helped to bring
kind of structure and process in that at that point to sort of
managing an events and you know how that could make things run
more smoothly. You know it's a bit more
effective in in making things happen.
But for various different reasons the sort of relentless
pace of events but also the kind of short term nature of those
sort of projects didn't appeal as much.
And I looked at the time to to see sort of what felt like a way
of transferring my skills into a similar but perhaps a slightly
different sort of career. You know I I started looking
into project management and that really appealed that for similar
reasons to to event management. But I I love the idea of that
sort of slightly sort of longer term investment of time and
energy into sort of enabling change to happen and found a a
role at the Natural History Museum in London.
So it's a sort of, it's a bit of a hybrid really between the work
I've been doing in events and going more formally I think into
into project management. Had I had any project management
training? At that point, no.
So it it was quite a steep learning curve actually moving
from event management into project management.
But I was really fortunate that Natural History Museum really
invested in me as a project manager, as a project
professional and that's where I got my first qualification for.
They supported me and getting what was at the time the PMP,
which I think is now this sort of equivalent to the PMQ's.
That was a really interesting point actually in my development
as a project manager because I think it gave me a sense of the
sort of quality and standards across the profession.
It was important for my development and understanding of
how to manage projects well, but also gave me sort of confidence
as a project manager to know I was sort of on par with others
in my profession. You know, that's where I feel
there's a huge amount of value to to qualifications as they
don't necessarily automatically make you a better project
manager, but they do give you that insight and that
opportunity to develop, to develop your skills and I have
seen in myself, but also in others that I've managed and
worked with. The sort of confidence boost it
gives to sort of there's a real affirmation in terms of skills
and experience and and understanding that, yeah, you
are of a standard and sort of where you sit in a in a sort of
much wider profession which is so vast in terms of the range of
different projects that that people could be managing.
Can you tell me about your career journey through the
National Trust then, from a project management perspective
and the kind of support and the qualifications that you've
worked through? Coming up for about 13 years
ago, I was lucky enough to get a role in the Midlands, actually
working on some of our our properties in Shropshire and
looking at visitor infrastructure initially sort of
looking at how to improve the experience of visitors have to
our properties in those places. And so I was working with
fantastic teams of cross discipline in terms of sort of
expertise you know across a range of consultants.
Also working with our operational teams who are kind
of on the front line of the places where where people visit.
And then gradually over the course of kind of working with
operational colleagues at some of our places, I also started to
explore the work that we were doing in Birmingham that was my
sort of initial foray into our urban places work.
The National Trust had been approached by the Canal and
River Trust, who owned and still owned the Roundhouse in
Birmingham, to to look at what to do with what was a stunning
building that, you know, had, over time sort of fallen into
that sort of level of disrepair. Both Canal and River Trust and
National Trust recognised the sort of opportunity for that
building, which is right on the canals in Birmingham, to be
something quite special for the city and for the communities
that live around it. And so, yeah, we set about
restoring the Roundhouse and finding a new purpose for it.
So yeah, so I've been really lucky in the range of things
that I've done at the National Trust and and bringing that
experience to London then. So sort of that project
management experience and sort of seeing how that can inform
and influence and sort of sort of add value to my role now as a
programme manager. And thinking about how you can
bring those sort of that range of projects and interventions
together and in that sort of strategic change programme for
the work that we're doing in London and and organizationally
and within that time, you know again I've been lucky enough
that the the organisation has supported me to become a
chartered project professional. And that's something that was
quite a special moment for me because I've been kind of
watching the journey of the APM towards becoming chartered body
for project management and to then have that opportunity to to
receive chartership, you know it's a really important moment
in my career. I think you know the the
importance of chartership to project management in terms of,
you know, it adding that sort of affirmation and that sort of
gravitas I guess to the profession in terms of it, you
know, being on par with other chartered professions as well, I
I think it's been really exciting.
What's it mean to you to have a professionalised project team or
teams? Actually, is programme manager
working for you? So I mean, I've been hugely
impressed by how seriously the profession is taken within the
organisation, but what's the kind of, what benefits is that
brought to you as someone needing to get the job done
across multiple projects? You know how seriously National
Trusts take project management? It's really visible in the
standard of what we achieve, but also you know the the value that
projects add to the delivery of our strategy and most
importantly that delivery of public benefit.
So we invest huge sums of money in projects and it's really
important that that those charitable funds are spent
really wisely and really effectively.
And I think the amount that we achieve through projects is, is
really sort of testimony to how effectively we can use projects
to to deliver public benefit. It shouldn't come as a surprise,
but I think it's really important that we do have a
super professional group of of people running those projects.
So to sort of maintain the consistency of them but also
make sure that we're as successful as we can be each
time. And I think we can do that more
confidently knowing that we have those brilliant people in place
that are kind of safeguarding the sort of integrity of the
projects that they're working on.
I mean it's brilliant for our people that we work for an
organisation that does invest in our professional development,
but it also again improves the sort of skills and confidence of
of those that are working on projects.
What support do you receive as a project professional, either
from within the National Trust or from it's corporate
partnership with APM? I think one of the really
fantastic things that has evolved over in the organisation
over a number of years is how sort of dynamic and vibrant
project community we've got. That's hugely exciting actually,
because you know I hear it from colleagues a lot that sometimes
working on projects can feel a bit isolating.
So to have that wider community, whether that is within our
regions, so National Trust is sort of divided into a number of
regions but also across the whole of the country where we
can come together and there's different ways that we do that.
So as I say there's a, there's a sort of that our project and
programme management office facilitates a number of ways
that we can engage with what's going on in the professions or
meet up often virtually to hear from other project
professionals. So there is that sense of of
being part of this amazing community across the
organisation, you know 100 hundreds of professionals
regionally. Similarly we have you know we
have a a cohort within our region that we can tap into and
we can do that again through learning from each other.
We do visits to other other projects so that you know we we
hear what's going on here about good practise elsewhere and and
learning from from what other people are doing.
We have sort of particular specialist insights, so
different different ways of of connecting.
What do you enjoy most about your role and being in project
management and working for the National Trust?
I love the range of people I get to work with.
That's it's one thing I I clocked really early on.
I think in in my career is that I have that expertise around
being a project professional. That sort of goes to the core of
what what I'm good at and what I can bring to those teams of
people trying to make change happen.
But particularly in the trust, the range of people and the sort
of passion and professionalism that I get to sort of interact
with through being a project professional is just incredible.
And you know, I I get that through through the
organisation, but also because I'm working so frequently in
partnership, I get that through other organisations as well.
So I just this it really brilliant that that sense of
collaboration with others to make such exciting things happen
and you know partnership isn't always straightforward to make
it happen but the the rewards can be amazing.
So that's that's one of the things I really value and enjoy.
OK. Well, listen, thank you so much
for your time. It's been a pleasure talking to
you. Thank you.
It's time to get back to Emma and Dagenham, who tells me more
about her work on the garden and what the new community garden
means to those who live nearby. In your role as a project
officer, you're part of the National Trust kind.
Of. Project management framework, so
are. You studying towards any
particular qualifications? Yes.
So I'm actually doing the APM PMQ at the moment, the project
management qualification and that's the one where you do the
training in six. Weeks.
Yes. So how's that going?
It's really good. It's it's so we've kind of
covered because of the course content now and I think it is
going to be very useful in my role and sort of just a lot,
yeah, having a lot more theory behind the work I'm doing.
But the tricky thing is revising for the exam and I don't.
Think I've done any revision over a decade, so it's a bit of
a a skill I haven't used in a while.
Ohh, you'll be fine. How's it feel to be part of an
organisation that's giving you this qualifications?
Fair bit of support and what you're doing as well.
Yeah, I feel so lucky actually that I'm getting, yeah, the
training as part of my job role. I know people pay lots of money
to do qualifications like this and it makes you feel that they,
you know, they want you to progress in your role and yeah,
there's a clear path in terms of so at the moment I'm a project
officer, but once I have this qualification, the hope is then
I can move up to a project manager role.
So it's nice to know that there's that.
Route of progression within the organisation and what has the
response been from the community towards the garden?
What's worked or what hasn't worked?
Has anything surprised you? So we have had a really positive
response from the community. I think people because it was
someone's back garden for so long, but it's quite closed off.
You know you've got high hedges and things people can't
necessarily, you can't see in from the street really.
So I think people are so happy that they can come inside now
and use the space. One of the reasons it was left
to the National Trust was because the the lady who left it
to us didn't want the land to be built on as she wanted it to be
left for the local community. And I think the community feels
when everyone tells stories about Mary who lived in the
house, they say how generous she was, how.
She sort of. Was always doing things for the
community, so it's amazing that she now has this legacy for
everybody around here where they can come in and use.
This space, I can see some of the ground has been cleared.
There's like a pile of rubble at the back.
There's a a shed and a greenhouse and really just how
you imagine a kind of rural garden actually to look like,
and some vegetable breads. So what are your plans for the
garden for this year? So we a lot of the work we've
done to date has been kind of clearing things.
So when we took over the space, there was about 3.
It had been not touched for about 3 years.
So it was really overgrown and things like that.
So we've been slowly working to just get things back.
So now we can get a bit more of a sense of the space.
And really what we want to do now is start to kind of do
zones. So an area or a zone that's kind
of focused on families, an area that's focused on food growing,
a nature area. So that, yeah, now we're
starting to sort of plot out and plan out a bit more of a design
or thinking a bit more about the visitor experience now what?
What benefits do you think it's brought local people?
What have they mentioned to you? What is the intention for the
project to deliver? So we have been collecting
testimonials from people, which has given a real insight into
what what people, you know, how what they feel about the garden.
One of the things that always sticks with me is someone from
the after school club parents saying, you know, we would just
be sat indoors watching TV right now if we didn't have this.
So it's kind of that breath of fresh air, that space to just be
outdoors. So I guess many people around
here don't have access to outside space for themselves.
Yes. No.
So we've monitor that. We sort of kind of capture
feedback from people and we know that over 50% of the people
using this space don't have their own garden.
They don't have their own outdoor space.
So that is one of the key audiences we're trying to
connect with. So we're really pleased that we
are. So yeah, it's just that we we
believe that spending time outside gives you a sense of
well-being supports mental health and physical health.
So it's kind of just by opening up the garden, it's.
That's what we're hope we're doing.
It's allowing people that I guess it is.
I mean the keyword is communities and it's a community
garden. Do you feel that there is a
community growing here? Yes, definitely with the two
groups that we've formed. So the after school clubs
they've and with our gardening club, they've all sort of
reflected how in this area people don't tend to talk to
their neighbours so much or people don't necessarily know.
People say hi as they're walking down the street, but now they've
started to feel like they do know their neighbours more.
So I think it's wonderful. Yeah, that's been so touching to
see that. Yeah, it actually is just
providing a space for them, the people to start to get to know
each other. What are the biggest challenges
for the project like this? Has it been just clearing the
space, imagining what could come next?
Is it engaging the community, dealing with the different
stakeholders here for you? What has it been?
Sort of the most challenging aspects?
I think one of the things is is is funding.
We're we've been quite lucky that we've we've managed to
secure money from the National Trust which is brilliant and
externally we've fundraised for money too but I there's still so
much more we could do here. We don't have proper toilets or
water or power. If we could staff at full time,
so it could be open full time. But it's it's it's a tricky
thing because it's quite, it's not like a big Grand National
trust house where you've got an income stream.
It's quite difficult with the community garden to sponge those
elements to to operate it. So that that I would say is the
biggest challenge is working out how we do, how we're going to
make that happen going. Forward.
Thank you Emma. It's such a treat to come here
and get a behind the scenes explanation from you.
It's a wonderful project, so I wish you the best of luck with
it. Thank you.
What a wonderful addition to the community.
O We've heard a lot about the urban side to the National Trust
work, but it's time to find out more about its pioneering work
in renewable energy. Senior Project Manager Denon
works on the Charities Renewable Energy Investment Programme,
which is now focused on achieving Net 0 by 2030.
Shall we begin with you giving us an overview of your role and
responsibilities? I'm one of the lead project
managers on the National Trust Renewable Energy Programme.
I've been working on the programme for the last eight
years. Responding to climate change is
one of the Trust's top two priorities in our current
strategy. And the renewables programme has
been running since 2013. The to reduce our all use and to
deliver a target that we set ourselves of getting 50% of our
energy from renewables by 2021 against the 2008 baseline.
That was the first phase of our programme.
So we we delivered over 130 renewable energy projects,
properties that included things like hydropower stations, solar
installations, heat pumps and biomass boilers across our
properties. We're now kind of moving forward
into the second phase of that programme that is very much
targeted on the ambition from the National Trust to get to net
Carbon 0 by 2030. And my part in that is along our
other lead project manager, I'm responsible for delivering the
heat side of that renewable energy programme going forward.
So that is working with our the team of 6 project managers to
implement again replacement of oil boilers and gas boilers, our
properties with things like heat pumps and biomass boilers.
I guess there's all different kinds of stakeholders who or
partners that you're involved that are involved in the
projects. And there's a huge number of
stakeholders involved. You can imagine the
sensitivities of a National Trust site.
We are designated up to the eyeballs in many of our sites,
whether that be environmental designations for ecology,
whether it be archaeology, obviously the sensitivity of
listed buildings and any kind of works that take place within
those. So there's a huge number of both
internal and external consultees that we need to involve in in
our projects. Do you enjoy that side of
things? Because I always think of
project management as being as much about the people side of
things as the technical side of things.
What's been your experience so far?
What What do you enjoy about your role?
I really enjoy seeing the variety of places that we look
after and and hearing some of the stories that you maybe don't
get exposed to as a as a member of the public.
Looking around from from those specialists in those really, you
know, technical areas, whether someone's like a leather
specialist or a specialist in a particular type of floor tile or
a particular type of nut. And getting their insights into
that, that project development process.
It can be really tricky to manage when we've got lots of
conflicting opinions about what is more important in terms of a
project development. But yeah, it's really
interesting as well. How important to you personally
is it to be working on in renewable energy in that area
for the Trust? Yeah, it's really important.
I've worked in in energy my whole career and I started off
working on fossil fuel power stations, but always with a view
of getting into renewables and I've worked on wind energy, wave
and tidal energy and now we're in kind of renewable heat and
solar as well. So that's really my passion and
and doing it at places that are to be enjoyed by the public as a
whole and making them more sustainable just makes it even
more, you know, ambitious and enjoyable.
How are your projects, or other projects of this particular
programme, shaping the direction of the National Trust?
I think having delivered this programme that was set up
started up looking at a 2008 baseline set up in 2013.
So it's been running a long time now and it's one of the first
programmes that the Trust had as I believe.
And so I think that the success of that and seeing the benefits
that can come from working as a programme have fed into the way
that the Trust kind of now works going forward with programmes is
a lot more programmes been set up to deliver strategic
priorities for the organisation. I mean, how long have you been
in project management? Have you always, Was it always
something you wanted to do? How did you end up becoming a
project manager? I guess I've always been in
project management really in one form or another.
So initially worked on the the Empower graduate scheme as an
engineer part of their graduate scheme, but that immediately was
going into to large scale projects and working with their
fossil fuel coal power station development team.
So huge, huge projects you know taking decades really in
development. And then I've I've been kind of
at the project manager level for the development of.
Wind farms like onshore wind farms, so taking those through
through to the consenting stage but then handed them over to to
another stage. Again, quite large scale
projects and now the projects that I work on and that my team
work on, we take them all the way from feasibility through to
through planning process, through the tendering process to
appoint the contractor, manage them through the construction
phase and really important manage that handover process to
make sure that the end users are really happy with what they've
got and often kind of ongoing support beyond that as well.
And now you're chartered, so that's quite recent.
So congratulations on achieving that.
What does it mean to be chartered and and and in fact,
what has it meant to have a kind of professional framework laid
out for you within the National Trust?
Thank you. Yeah I I got my chartership I
think in November. I think it it shows that the
national Trusts really investing in the development of their
their people and and recognising project management as a as a
professional skill in itself. And I think by investing in that
training and and having the framework that we then follow as
an organisation is really brings on the quality of the projects
that we're delivering and make sure that we are controlling
things like scope much more carefully and and obviously time
cost quality throughout the the project, recycle the, the
chartership. I think for me it's my team,
we're all going through like the project management qualification
and by going through the judge publication it you know allows
me to sort of remember those sort of technical things a bit
more and be supportive from that point of view.
I think it carries a bit of authority when you're talking to
clients and and project teams as they're as a project manager,
well that's a a lead project manager on a project.
It gives gives a bit more gravitas I suppose.
Yeah, absolutely. And and what kind of
professional support do you receive, not only from within
the National Trust, but? Do you use any APM?
Resources at all. I've been listening to your
podcast quite a bit actually recently, but when I was going
through the chartership process. Can you tell me about lessons
learned at National Trust? How does the Trust record and
share valuable experience on projects around the
organisation? So a very basic level within our
we've got a like a project management workbook that we use
and certainly within my team we have a lessons learned log
within that. So that as you're going through
each month, month and updating your your workbook you can think
of or what lessons have I learned this month and you can
make a note of them. And then those those get picked
up at our at what we call a Gate 4 review which is like an end of
project review. But in in our team as a
programme, we undertake those using our programme officers.
So there's that continuity from 11 project to the next.
And those project offices also facilitate our startup meetings
for our new projects, which is fantastic because it means that
all of the that those kind of golden gems and Nuggets that
have come specifically from, in this case, you know, renewable
energy projects that you can then bring those forward and
they can connect people up with others who've been through
similar similar projects or technologies and then they can
apply them in those projects going forward.
Am I right in thinking that your programme or the projects you
work on in terms of renewable energy, the you're you're doing
the same thing multiple times, so it might be unknown putting
in a ground source heat pump in one property that will then be
replicated across other properties, is that is that how
it how it's organised? Yeah, absolutely.
So every project is unique because every property has its
own unique quirks and designations and people of
course. But yeah, the whole benefit of
of doing this as a programme is that we're able to share their
documents like the our, our. At the moment, one of the things
that I'm working on is making sure that our feasibility scope
of work that we give to our consultants is delivering
everything that we wanted to deliver.
And then that document will be used and adapted for each of our
projects to make sure we're getting the same information on
each down to even actually giving them a a template for our
feasibility studies. So that we we make sure we're
getting all of the key data that we need.
But then through you know through the planning process
there's always things that you can take from other similar
projects. And obviously we've got the
costs of the implementation of the last grants will support
project for example that we did or biomass boiler project that
we did. We've got fuel costs for our
existing properties that we can work into our investment
appraisals and and yeah, there's there's loads and loads of
things that we can bring from one similar project to a next,
next project within our programme.
Is your project team then centrally based or based and
then they go out to the different projects?
Or how do you organise it in terms of project team that
you're running and then the actual sort of individual
projects that might be in locations all around the
country? So from an organisational
structure point of view, we sit centrally but physically they're
located each of the project managers within the regions and
face it within hubs or often home based or.
But then be going out to properties locally to them and
get to know the the specialist consultants that that are you
know NT employees that may be specialists in archaeology or
ecology or planning in their regions.
So they get to know those people, and those people then
work on multiple projects. I wanted to ask you what it what
it means to have a team that's professionally trained in
project management. What?
What does that mean for the delivery of projects and to the
overall success of projects? One of the the things about
having a team that is a dedicated team of project
monitors, not only are they are they sort of technically expert
in that they they know how to follow the project management
framework and they are making sure that they're keeping
everything to time, cost and quality.
They're reviewing the risks, they're applying risks from
other projects. But also the very fact that they
are a dedicated project manager is a real bonus in our programme
because otherwise these projects would be being delivered by
operational teams that are being dragged in 20 different
directions with things that are going on that are urgent that
they can't, you know they have to deal with there and then.
But by having a dedicated project management resource that
you can put onto projects and that is their their focus and
they draw on the expertise of the local operational team staff
and and bring those in. But they they save their time by
they deliver the project and they drive it forward and they
make it happen. I think that that can't be
underestimated, the benefit of that.
I imagine the projects at National Trust are kind of quite
unique just by the nature of the organisation and the different
sort of properties and land and coastline that it manages, but
could you tell us a bit about those unique challenges?
The most unusual was a property that was completely disconnected
from the grid and we were looking looking to reduce as
much as possible about oil consumption in their generator
because all of that oil had to be transported across
effectively the sea because it was it was it's quite off almost
completely cut off from the the land which obviously is huge
pollution risk cost a lot of money, produces a lot of carbon.
So that that one was particularly interesting that we
ended up putting in a reasonably a large solar array on that
property and then having a a battery storage and generator
system. What would you say the most
important lessons you've learned from running projects at
National Trusts, either for the way you run projects or lead
projects? Or.
Personally, the skills you need to be an effective project
professional. I think this is applicable to
all projects but particularly within the National Trust is the
ability to facilitate lots of different viewpoints and ideas
and to to get decisions made. So not being the decision maker
as such because I am I am the project manager that is you know
reporting into a client and and a sponsor who are ultimately
making the decision. But the ability to draw together
lots of information and present it in a business case
effectively to to those making the decision and and and bring
that team with you. So when I always find that if
you have specialists in different subject areas and you
need to reach a decision and conflicting views on where
something should go or how something should be done, that
we get them all those people together and and get that
discussion as a whole, we we, we seem to still be able to reach a
balanced decision at the end of the day.
That's me. That's something I think many
project professionals contend with.
But have you got any tips? Actually, when you have to do
this in real life? Have you?
Is there any kind of hacks or tips you've picked up about how
to facilitate conversations like that?
Getting everyone together if you can in the same place and going
and looking at something together, especially if it's
like a physical construction project, getting out and walking
the of the pipe work or the the area that's going to be
disturbed or that going into the building that's going to be the
plant room. If you can do that together,
that always seems to be more productive than trying.
You know sometimes you end up having to have one to one
conversations just purely because of Diaries and not being
able to get everyone together. But wherever possible, if you've
got those those key viewpoints, if you can get them physically
together, I find that's always really beneficial.
What your career ambitions are, you're chartered.
I don't know that I've ever really had career ambitions as
such. I I think what drives me
personally is coming back to this, being interested in what
it is that you're doing and and thinking that it's a useful and
important thing to be doing for society as a whole or for the
environment and planet as a whole.
And that's kind of always been what's driven me and kind of
career decisions. Brilliant.
Thank you. Uh, was there anything else you
wanted to add? Yeah, I think what makes, what
makes delivering projects part of what makes delivering
projects in the National Trust Fund is that the colleagues that
you work with and how skilled those people are in their
particular areas of knowledge. And so you're both learning
about those things which can be really interested, but you're
bringing them together to be a project team.
And when you all get hooked on the idea and and enthusiastic
about it and delivering it, then that helps really drive the
project forward. But it also makes it more
enjoyable to work as part of that team with those
interesting, passionate people. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of
fun, actually. They thank you so much for your
time. It's been an eye opener speaking
to you. Brilliant.
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
When most people think of the National Trust, they think of
historic houses or the work it does along the coast of England.
This episode I've learned about its increasingly important role
in cities and how project management is central to its
working renewables. Both these areas of focus are
guiding the future direction of the National Trust, and Joe,
Emma, Andy seem truly excited and driven by their mission.
In episode 3, I'll be meeting 3 project management.
Apprentices at the National Trust will be telling me all
about their work, so don't miss it.
Thanks again to Joe, Emma, Andy and to you for listening.
As ever, we want to hear your comments, feedback and
suggestions at apmpodcasts@thinkpublishing.co.uk.