Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the childhood body for
the project profession. Hi, I'm Emma, defeated.
The editor project apm's quarterly Journal this.
Our crisis talk season of podcasts.
I'm asking project professionals to share their stories of
managing adapting and pivoting their projects through lockdown
and now during this next phase, as restrictions are, he's, so
thanks for joining me in this episode.
We'll be meeting Joanna Roland director of Her Majesty's,
revenue and customs. Covid-19 Response, Unit
responsible for the Department's strategic approach.
The pandemic. Joanna, is the senior
responsible officer in charge of delivering the Chancellor's
Flagship economic interventions. The job retention
self-employment Income Support schemes as well as the new eat
out help out and job retention bonus schemes.
Joanna is also the head of the project delivery profession for
a channel C and is a fellow of the association for project
management. She's been at the very heart of
the government's response to the pandemic.
So it was a privilege to get some time with her to ask what
it's been like to be in the thick of it.
If you want a detailed blow-by-blow account of how
Joanna approach the photo project, please watch out for
y'all to miss your project which will be landing with you in the
middle of September. I spoke to Joanna and early
August just after the eat app to help out scheme launch.
We pick up the conversation when she tells me a bit about what
she was working on at the start of 2020.
Joe, welcome. I'm not sure how you've managed
to find the time to speak to me, but we're hugely grateful.
Let's begin with. You.
Tell me a bit about what you were doing at the beginning of
the year. What projects are you working
on? At the sort of 2020 which seems
like a lifetime ago now? Sure.
And it does seem like a lifetime ago.
So 2020. I was leading making tax digital
for business. That's hmrc's Flagship program,
which is intending to And all tax registrations digital,
collect all the information digitally, but also more
importantly, help small businesses, particularly manage
their tax Affairs, more easily. And how was that going at the
time? It's going really well.
In fact, since I've left and been doing something different.
They've just announced the new phase where they'll start to
mandate the use of digital technology for income tax
registrations. So, so, it's picked up a lot of
pace actually since I left, although it was busy at that
time. So anything to do with the
results of the projects, you've been working on as well at the
moment. The success of those has that
accelerated that those projects, one of the things working on
these projects has really shown us is sometimes the limitations
of the data we hold and certainly making tax digital has
shown that the more Records. We hold the more instant access
to information. There is the more responsive the
tax system can be. So undoubtedly, it strengthened
the business case for making tax digital covid-19 struck, I guess
March maybe earlier for you, but can you tell us what it was like
in the early days of the crisis? I got a call, I think on a
Thursday night from my then boss to ask whether I would Go and
Lead, one of the projects that was coming out of the
Chancellor's office. That project was actually the
self-employment Income Support scheme and the next morning.
It emerged. There were actually two
projects. The other one was the furlough
scheme, as it's generally known, although it's their ctrs
coronavirus job, retention scheme.
Is its official name, had this phone call.
I then by the Friday morning had a new boss, Melissa Tatton who's
been A supportive. And it emerged, there was a
third part to this role as well, which was to coordinate the
whole of the response to coronavirus across the
department. So it wasn't just to project
manage the schemes. There was also quite a
leadership challenge in in, just at the coordination.
Everything from getting 67,000, people working from home to
updating our policies and guidance and also to an extent
Stopping some of the usual activity of the tax system, that
just were not appropriate to do such as sending our compliance
teams out to do home visits, Etc.
So was it primarily about crisis management?
Then there were a few elements in the early days that was
certainly crisis management, but I think the first thing I
recognize coming into the Rival, was actually this was going to
stay with us for While. And in a way, the last thing we
needed was Crisis management. And what instead what we needed
was very controlled leadership and management of this being a
project person through. And through, I love a bit of
governance. We all do governance is your
best friend. It keeps you in control.
So one of the first jobs of that Friday, was to set up the
governance structures both for the projects, but also the
wider. Our organization to make sure
that we could coordinate this in a way that was very controlled
and not reactive or crisis management.
Can sometimes mean that you know, you're all headless
chickens and and and the high octane and and that generally
doesn't drive the best decision making that said, the governance
was kept light touch. So it was really important.
But neither was there time for for Or meetings, so I needed to
put in place the governance structure that was able to be
highly adaptive really, really efficient fairly light touch but
have a iron grip of control around our projects and
responses. How did you prioritize things
there? Because a lot of new things were
kind of landed on your desk and as you mentioned the whole shift
of working from I'm home. Plus those adrenaline-fueled
days and also a lot of fear around what was happening.
How did you manage to prioritize things so well, and how did you
feel at the time? First of all, I I felt
brilliant. It was, you know, it's what I
love to do. You don't often get something so
important, but such a blank canvas as well.
All of this was brand new and needed setting up.
Scratch. And that was an amazing
opportunity and certainly a bit of a career highlight for me the
priority it was it was risk-based.
So clearly the chancellor schemes were the highest
priority and the furlough scheme was the highest of that because
it was the most needed for the economy.
So we had only four weeks to get that one designed set up
delivered and then operational. The governance to allow the
department to take the weight of the work.
But in a way that was coordinated, was the second
highest priority for me. And then, to be really Frank
about it. The rest was just really, really
long hours. It's not the way you can work
for long and it's not anything, I endorse but it was just
necessary at that time. So I was 16 hour days was just
The norm for the first few weeks.
Tell me a bit about how the team came together.
You wrote a really great feature for the Autumn issue project
explaining in detail, the approach you took to the project
and something that impressed me from that was the sense of
collaboration, you know, with many different kind of
stakeholders inside. And outside.
Was that something that just came about?
Spontaneously, you had something called ruthlessly simple, which
sounds a brilliant idea but was it for?
But she all had a very clear purpose in mind and kept things
simple that they needed everyone to collaborate.
There were three things that were very deliberate choices in
those early days. So the first was to set up what
I call a hub-and-spoke model. And this is where I literally
grabbed from all corners of hmrc.
Just a handful. I think no more than about 10 or
15. Asked people to run the central
project for see duress and then the equivalent for
self-employment, but then we reached out across hmrc to get
what I called accountable owners for all the different
specialisms. So, you'd get somebody who
specialized in compliance. You did someone who specialized
in operating, our contact centers.
You'd get a lawyer. You'd have obviously the very
important, very talented, digital teams all Those
accountable owners, were were responsible for doing their bit
completely empowered, completely trusted, but they could not make
decisions anywhere other than, as part of that Central project.
If they were designing an element.
They would need to come back to the project just to make sure it
matches the other elements. So that was the first thing,
this Hub and spoke model where the the people actually doing
the delivery, we're empowered, but the control remained with
the A central project was that of an approach you to used
before in other major projects. I have in the past.
Not with hmrc. I'm a great believer that
projects should transcend normal structures and therefore not be
pigeonholed into structures that they should work across an
organization. Because that's where you get the
whole organization. Partaking as head of project,
profession for hmrc. It's been a long-running
ambition of mine to set up projects in that way.
And here was my chance. It was my opportunity, the, the
other two elements to how we approach.
This was the ruthlessly simple. That was actually a phrase
coined by our CIO, very talented, man, and to whom a lot
of the successes Duty and who certain what's his name, Mark.
Denny. He was fantastic at keeping us,
all on that principle of ruthlessly simple.
And it meant that we did not get scope.
Creep. What we did notice is in the
early days, when four weeks to set up a major
multibillion-pound scheme like this felt impossible, keeping.
It ruthlessly simple was actually quite easy.
People got the concept as we started to sort of, you know,
make astounding leaps in progress.
That's when people started to that sort of.
Can you just syndrome? Started to Nippon Mark and I had
to be all over that. And actually, that was our third
principle. You need to bulldoze out the way
the blockers and sometimes that is sometimes you know, it's a
ask politely sometimes. It's actually just really quite
assertive structures in place to make sure that you are not
letting anything distract you from getting the job done.
Done. How did you feel you daunted?
Or were you excited in that four weeks, running up to the
furlough scheme? And then of course, the self
employment, scheme went live three weeks after that.
I think I had every emotion that a human being could possibly
have. It was I you know, it ranged
from thoroughly, daunted, even terrified actually thinking, you
know, how can the logic Of being able to do this successfully in
such a short period of time. Sometimes just didn't stack up.
Even though the evidence was thankfully, before us I had
Elation excitement, you know, it was the whole Gambit of
emotional response in that time that period of extreme crisis
has passed a bit in business in general, but do you feel you
bonded quite closely with the people you are working?
Beyond that. It's somehow changed that level
of collaboration. Oh, incredibly.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Really close. And there is people that I've
never physically met. That's the other in credit
because hmrc's such a massive organization.
And of course, we had our suppliers capgemini as well as
very close partners with us, and there are people that I had
never actually physically been in the same room with that.
Now feel like close friends because You bombed, everything
was done at PACE, including, you know, bonding with friends.
Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Hopefully you'll meet them soon.
Yes, indeed. Well, we always joked about.
This is going to be one big party.
Yeah, normally and projects, you know, after a successful launch
of something, you know, as a program director or SRO one of
your duties is them to buy the round.
Selena celebrate. So I can tell you.
I owe a lot to drink. I'll be bankrupt.
I'll need a team to bailed. My financial situation out.
I owe that many drinks to that, many people.
So you've told us about the way you approach the projects and
I'd like to pin you down to find out how you are able to get them
off the ground so quickly because a month start to finish
is pretty amazing. So with a little bit of
hindsight, and I know you're still in there.
Thick of things. But what would you say worked in
your favor? What were the things that the
success factors and helping you to get them off the ground.
First of all, most was the senior sponsorship right up to
our permanent? Secretary Jim Hera and the
chancellor himself. They were crystal clear.
This was the number one priority in no way was this competing for
time or attention from other things?
Secondly, somebody who's much better at maths and I am worked
out that the cumulative hours. We all worked.
Actually, it was an equivalent of something like a 12-week
project because just the evenings weekends extra
overtime, the we were running red hot every single one of us
on that scheme. And you can't sustain that that
is reserved for crisis only and should be reserved for crisis.
Only. The other thing is we used
agile. To its absolute best effect.
And that was quite new, was it? We've used agile as an approach
in hmrc and and indeed my other programs from previous roles
that I've done used agile a lot. I do assert though that very
often and I include some of my previous programs.
We don't use our job properly, though.
How do you mean agile when done? Well, is even more.
UND than waterfall all too often agile is seen as enormously
flexible and it is, but it's within controls.
So, for example, we launched a minimum viable product.
So on the 20th of April, when the fellow scheme went live and
then 13th May when the self employment scheme went live.
They were the the minimum viable products that we could put out
to the public. Behind the scenes.
There was still quite a lot build to do.
For example, our internal users, to be able to take manual
claims, or for some of the post claim compliance to be done.
So if it wasn't essential scope for day one, it was on a
backlog. Ready to be developed on Day, 2,
3 4, Etc. That's good agile.
Good agile. Also, we didn't skimp on
quality, the customer absolute came first and We even had time
in our schedule to do highly limited private betas with
customers so that we could always get their feedback and it
absolutely had to control every step of the way.
Every decision was recorded. And as I said before every
decision came back to the project group to make so that if
a decision was being made by the digital teams that had an impact
on say the customer service team.
Is that decision was well known and discussed, but the proximity
from decision to development was minimal.
So sometimes I'd be in a Chancellor meeting.
I'd get a decision from the chancellor and almost assumes
that decision had been made. I've sent the message to someone
who's developing the code. And so our proximity was really,
really close and that's great agile, and the new person is
well with such seeing you. Support was decision-making,
made easy for you was I kind of a clear line in decision-making.
Could you make them quite fast? It was always a matter of
judgment when to escalate a decision to the chancellor or to
our executive committee rather than make it in program and that
that judgment fell to me to make.
Hopefully, I've got the balance right, what I would say though.
It is unusual in the Civil Service, particularly for
delivery and project people to be in the room with the
chancellor. Normally you would have the
policy development do that, and then the, with a degree of sort
of viability discussion, put in the room, but it's quite late
down the line when people like me are engaged to say, right,
how do we deliver this? Then what we do?
Had here was the delivery right in the room and delivery
considerations. Therefore were an influence on
policy design. I'm not going to say it always
shaped it because ultimately the policy must do what the
chancellor intended it to do. But the chancellor was able to
hear first hand either, the risked time scale or the
complexities. There were some things that we
were just have to say, we can't do that.
That's certainly shaped the Chancellor's thinking and
decision-making. This is partly because delivery
was the priority for that policy.
So that the delivery are you giving money to the people who
needed it as fast as they could. That, that was really what this
game was all about and that you needed to be in the room.
Absolutely. So, normally government policy
that delivery timeline is sufficiently.
Far ahead to allow this a bit more.
Cascade approach of policy work and then delivery get hold of
it. And then it's but actually that
creates problems because inevitably by the time you go to
deliver it, there are things that there are complexities in
there that need navigating that creates later today.
We couldn't afford for that to happen.
So it made it faster and made it far more efficient.
And I think you know, I can't speak of him, but I think the
chancellor appreciated having that advice.
On hand, were there, any other success factors that you want to
mention? I know for example that the it
systems in place already and the hmrc service for for customers
was already working very well. And that must have been some of
the work you're involved with previous to these projects, but
that must have contributed to the success to have that already
in place. We've got a really, really good
technical team. And as I say, Mark, Denny's,
come in, and With a few colleagues.
Really shaken up the system for a long time.
We've had an IT strategy to create a new platform of far
more agile platform that we can develop microservices into and
eventually also swap out some of our Legacy systems and head of
Duty, we did to take the very deliberate design decision early
to reuse existing technology not Got to go and buy and try
untested. We also took the decision not to
integrate more than we had to into any of our heads of Duty
system because it's the integration that takes the time
but also it's the calling off different Services all ads load
to the system and and the volumes.
We were getting at one point on self-employment.
I think on day two. We were getting so many
thousands and thousands of hits every minute.
It was actually more than Google get as a platform.
This platform needed to be an absolute Beast.
We started calling it a Ferrari. I think we've just upgraded it
to me a beast now, because the volumes it had to cope with, but
our technical teams and our Architects were excellent.
At really thinking through ways to minimize load, on the system.
So that all the The power was pointing to coping with the
volume. Did it fall over at all.
Now, it had hadn't at also day two, at that really piqued mind.
We were a little bit worried. We had a about a scary half an
hour where steam was starting to come out of the engine, but they
got control of it really, really quickly.
We used front-end tools, which allow people to queue for the
And let them in an order. So we deployed that and that
brought it under control. But, no, we've had, we've had a
few external issues. I think an external service went
down which had some minor impact on us, but no, their system
coped. Brilliantly everyone in our
technical department is odor, huge amounts of congratulations,
but didn't you receive some praise from Tim berners-lee?
Yes. I think we Reduce.
Yes, it's been incredible. Actually, although all the
praise is slightly tinted with an element of shocked and
surprised and there's been some brilliant comments about well, I
never thought I'd be thanking the taxman and things like that.
So but we love it and everybody in hmrc is immensely, proud of
everything that has been achieved.
Well, I mean, I sit you're right and I think it's boosted the
reputation of hmrc massively and we want to continue that at.
So we were Launching just before all of this happened something
called a health of a tax system. So what does a healthy tax
system looks like and it's one that's fair transparent and that
the public trust and we know that the way we conduct
ourselves with our customers is an important part of that trust
in a tax system. So and it's really fortunate.
That timing because now we do need to still be collecting tax.
And there are many people out there who may default on their
tax payments. Just because of the economic
circumstances are in. It's really important that we
treat our customers with compassion on things like that.
And and I think so the great reputation we've earned with
proud of but we know we need to work.
To maintain it. Have you measured the success of
the covid-19 projects you've been working on, so we've got
lots of the metrics you'd expect so usage.
How much money is gone out the door?
And we'll do a lot of analysis particularly on tdrs later down
the line when we can see, you know, how many businesses of
sort of retained employees. And that's that's linked to the
employment. Entre tension bonus that the
Chancellor's announced what I would say though, my personal
measure success has been the customer feedback.
We've had some heartbreaking. Tales.
There was one gentleman that called from his sick bed in
hospital. He was suffering with covid was
unable to work and the self-employment Grant was a real
lifeline and one of our advisors because he can access Computer
took his claim over the phone and just when I heard that
story, it brought tears, to my eyes.
It's just things like that, make it worth it.
And that's the success for me. Well, if you don't from the
whole experience has anything positive come from this or
anything that surprised you lots is come from, there's lots and
lots of and some of it's not surprising, some of it's
actually what we've probably known for years, but need to
just now get on with things like Like getting delivery advice
upfront things like working more collaboratively.
We are undertaking Lessons Learned in hmrc.
We always do after any project but I think this will be a bit
of a Tipping Point for us to set our projects up slightly
differently. How do you mean?
So a to work agile properly as I described earlier, but be it's
the way we set up the teams. It's The the role of a project
leader and project, managers is about the control, the pace and
the coordination, but it's the experts should do the delivery.
Sometimes the way we set up our programs means there's a lot of
people standing between decision-maker and deliverer and
it can slow the process down. So I think we need leaner more
streamlined program structures one.
Ones that are genuinely collaborative and ones that
cross cut the organizational structure.
There are some enduring lessons that will be your hope is that
they will be subsumed within kind of normal work in practice
in the future. Absolutely.
And indeed our lessons. Learn our intern, feeding the
civil service reform agenda that cabinet office and indeed the
Prime Minister himself is leading.
What have been the hardest things you've had to contend
with professionally? And personally, the hardest
thing has been keeping you resilience up, i-i'm mentioned
to you. There's this old adjective not
hearing the pilots cream. And and so therefore I think at
the hardest points, it everyone else around me understandably
was, you know, had their And of losing their nerve or getting a
sort of the Jitters of just how enormous this was, and how risky
it all was. And of course, as the leader of
this, both of your teams, but you across the organization,
you'll see, even your seniors. You're the one that has to stay
Resolute and show complete confidence, even if inside your
knees are shaking a little bit. And that, that was, that's been
the biggest challenge for out that because you need to look
after yourself in it. And that's in a way working from
home. At the time, was I think what
really saved my resilience because I had my family around
me, every given moment of the day and if I just needed a
breather a couple of minutes to catch my breath on something,
you know, you could go and sort of give you kids a cuddle or
find the cat. It brings you back down to the
ground. Yes, absolutely.
And my husband certainly needed his own fair share of resilience
putting up with me. I'm sure what, what, what did
you enjoy? The most from The Experience,
Elder. People it without doubt.
So when the service is go live, we actually for the first two,
we put them live a couple of hours early because you start to
just see a little bit of traffic come through even though, The
publish time was 8 a.m. And it's and we're using chat
bars to sort of communicate all the time.
And so I was up at 5:30. The sun's Rising as the services
are launching and there are just a few of us that were got
particularly close all on chat and it was like, you know, no
feeling quite like it their sense of togetherness, but
excitement and fear and It was just incredible.
I wanted to ask you more. Generally, if you think the
experience of the past few months will give project
managers and the project profession more of the
recognition. It deserves within large
organizations. I hope so.
I really you know, and that's why I'm grateful for the
opportunity to speak with you. I'm really, really Keen to
promote the fact that it was project management disciplines
that were Real part of this success and it was project
management advice, right? At the point of conceiving the
policies that was part of the success.
That isn't to distract when hugely talented policy teams and
all the people who did The graft, but project management,
coordinates it and and is the thing up, that turns the
ingredients of success into success, but do you think the
Civil Service? Has a way to go to Value
delivery more and I think that Tipping Point has now come in
the private sector delivery is everything because until it's
delivered. It's not making money or serving
the customer or serving the purpose.
We do need to have more of that in civil service and that's
definitely something being recognized as part of the civil
service reform. Finally.
I'd like to ask you what you're working on right now.
If you can tell us about the go live.
That you're doing today and also the winding down on the furlough
scheme, which will be in October.
So just what do you think the next couple of months will hold
for you? So as you say the eat out to
help out scheme is now live. I've used it myself plenty times
this week, but businesses will need to claim back the money and
it's important that we give them opportunity to do that quickly
because of cash. Constraints.
So, the first Claims can be made tomorrow.
So today is the final testing checking and retesting of the
technology of the claim service. And we've got a few private beta
customers using it as we speak, that will run to the end of
August. But as you say, we've also got
self-employment, second grant for that is available as of two
weeks time, and then we've got the wind down.
Town of both, the self employment scheme and the job
retention scheme. That's going to keep us very
busy until the end of this calendar year at least.
Well, I just want to say thank you Joanna.
It's been brilliant. Talking to you.
Thank you. Wish you good luck and some time
off at the end of the year. Yes.
Thank you. Thanks again to Joanna for
joining us and to you for listening to this final episode
of opm's Crisis talk series. Look out for the upcoming new
podcast, season and project innovation.
And restarting, the economy to come in.
The following weeks. This podcast has been brought to
you by APM the chartered body for the project profession.
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