Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the chartered body for
the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita and I'm
the editor of Project, APM's quarterly journal and your host
in this podcast. I'm speaking to Ashley Hargrave,
Interim Head of Strategic Projects and Management at the
King Edward the 6th Foundation in Birmingham, and David
Kitchener, Head of the Portfolio office at the RSPB, to find out
what it's like to be leading project management within these
two charities, both of which are APM corporate partners.
Ashley and David give me a behind the scenes look at how
project management is woven into the strategic and operational
fabric of their organisations. They also give me their top tips
from project managing in the charity sector and how digital
transformation is bringing great benefits.
Listen on to find out more about getting stuff done, hiding the
project management wiring and why it's key to stay calm.
Welcome both of you to the APM Podcast.
Thanks so much for sparing the time today.
I think an interesting place to start would be to ask both of
you a little bit about the charity you work for and your
current role and responsibilities.
So, Ashley, tell us a bit about what you do and where you work.
So I work for a charity which is a foundation charity, it's King
Edward the 6th Foundation in Birmingham and our mission is a
very ambitious mission and that is to make Birmingham the best
place to be educated in the UK. The foundation consists of 14
schools from across the secondary education sectors and
the idea is really to improve the educational opportunities
across Birmingham. We actually educate the largest
number of secondary school children outside of the local
authority in Birmingham now. So you're Head of Strategic
Projects and Management. Can you tell us a little bit
about your role and your responsibilities there?
So I've been in the role fairly short time since September.
The role is really to bring in project methodology and best
practise because we've brought in a new approach for schools
that they can bid in to strategic funds.
And so we've got a funding part and what I've really sort of set
up is a major projects fund for the schools to fit into with the
framework that sits around that and kind of the gateway process.
And then in terms of the strategy, we're doing a strategy
refresh at the moment for the next 5 years, which will take us
from 26 up to 31. And the idea of that is we're
reviewing our existing strategy. So we've looked at the
performance and gained feedback from students, staff and
governors and then working on the new operational projects
that align with that strategy. So really it's it's the whole
methodology of project management from beginning to end
and the gateways associated to and kind of the assurance piece.
Have you always worked in charity?
In charity sector and what do you enjoy about working in this
sector? Yeah, I've worked in all the
sectors across the spectrum. I started my career as a fresh
graduate with a biology degree, didn't really know what I wanted
to do many moons ago. And I went into working for a
conservation charity. I loved that I worked on a range
of conservation projects. And then really from there I
went into teaching and I did a sustainability management
postgraduate degree as well. But I've worked for a local
authority, I've worked for at least three charities across my
career and I've worked for an automotive company in industry.
And the common themes really being educational projects,
project management, working for charities.
I love charity work. Having that clear mission and
aligning with people around those values.
It's really exciting. It's very, very rewarding.
David, tell, tell us a bit about RSPBI mean, I'm sure everyone's
heard of it and also so your role and responsibilities there.
Sure. So yeah, I work for the RSPB,
I'm head of the portfolio office and the RSPB is a charity for
the conservation of birds in nature.
So we carry out conservation on a large scale, but you could say
a huge scale because it's, it's not only landscape scale
conservation within the four countries of the UK, but also
worldwide conservation across multiple habitats and
environments. So we're working across oceans
as well as land habitats as well.
But within the UK we do big landscapes.
So we do uplands, wetlands, you name it.
You know, any landscape that is in need of restoration or
improving or, or whether it's being impacted by the current
climate emergency overseas. We do work in rainforests and
because a lot of the species that we are interested in in the
UK migrate from other countries, we do a lot of work both in
those countries where they may spend a significant other part
of their year or countries across which they migrate.
So we work with our partners, our bird life partners there to
to help with the improvement of that those species actions.
And across the oceans we do work for the albatross.
So we have an albatross task force looking at reducing
bycatch. So making the way that fishing
is more sustainable, not only in the way that the fish are
caught, but in reducing the bycatch and bycatches is a nice
way of saying birds getting caught in Nets or online.
So working with fishermen across the oceans of the world to
improve, improve the way that they fish.
Can you tell us a bit about your role and responsibilities and
then if you have an international aspect to your job
as well, that would be interesting to hear about.
So I'm head of the portfolio office and my role is to help
projects and programmes be the best they can be.
So we own, if you like, the project management framework,
which is something that we are embedded in the organisation at
the moment. And our PPM systems are the
system that is recording all our projects and programmes.
So our role is to ensure that that is being used and we can
see the benefits actually of all the projects and programmes
being run. So it's the first step in
bringing all that project information under one umbrella,
if you like, but not taking away the project delivery from the
local areas in the RSPB. And some of those areas will be
overseas. So although we don't have a
direct link through to those overseas projects and
programmes, the projects are being managed using our works.
So we are here to help those projects being be run well and
and achieve the benefits that they are hoping to achieve.
What do you enjoy about working at RSPB?
I've been in lots of sectors, so I've been in the IT sector, I've
been in the charity sector for the last, golly, 17 years.
I've also been in financial sector outsourcing.
I think from the charity perspective, it's actually
working for an organisation that's putting something back.
So it's not just about building things or making money for
shareholders. We're putting something back
into the community, putting something back into to nature to
to make the world a better place.
Ashley, tell us a bit about how project management fits in your
organisation, how mature it is and what the ambitions are for
for the project management function.
Project management is part of a strategic management function.
And within the strategic management, it's essentially
there's a director role who I report directing to.
And then within that function there's also risk and assurance
roles and governance roles. And then in terms of the project
management, it's just me at the moment in terms of the the
projects that are in flight and operation and being developed.
But essentially we've then got people delivering those projects
that are within schools or estate teams or IT teams.
What we're looking at is the assurance side, the governance
side, ensuring the delivery of those projects.
But it's, it's obviously since it's evolved since April of last
year, a lot less mature. And so part of the role that I'm
in now is really trying to develop that maturity and using
framework that essentially is the APM framework.
So from my knowledge from working in other organisations
and using the APM framework, it's it's bringing that kind of
structure and kind of supporting my colleagues on that journey.
Really in terms of the aspirations for the
organisation. It's an interesting time because
we're getting more and more interest and knowledge around
projects, obviously since we've launched the major projects fund
for the schools to bid into, but also through the development of
the strategy and the emerging new projects that sit within
that strategy. It's very timely to look at
whether or not we will have in the future a larger project
management function. So that's part of what I'm
looking at as well. And so as part of that, I'm also
exploring apprenticeship providers and looking at whether
we could have apprenticeships and kind of grow our own team in
Heist or other routes. And also the aspiration for
young people within schools, project management, still a
fairly new career and obviously less known to some of our our
students than say careers in, in medical, medicine, law,
etcetera. So again another another kind of
opportunity is to raise the profile within the schools.
How do you communicate what project management is to the
rest of the people in an organisation who might not
necessarily be familiar with it or might think it's one?
You know, it's all about Gantt charts and project management is
just going to stifle what you do.
It's going to be boring. It's going to be bureaucracy.
So how do you communicate what project management is?
What have you found to be successful?
It's basically hide the wiring, hide the jargon, spoil it right
back to the simplest thing. What's in it for that
individual? So when they contact you on
either, you know, it's usually like a teens chat or an e-mail
or they phone you, they've got something that they want from
that conversation. So it'll typically be, I will
get an approach from a school where they're looking at,
they've got a fledgling idea for a project and they want to know
if it's a fundable project, which means it has to sort of
sit within our wider strategy. So it's boiling it back to when
I meet them and what that project idea is, and then
developing that idea with people so that it's got a wider,
perhaps a wider remit than their first thinking.
Because the first thought can be something that's just very, very
centric to one individual school and quite a small number of
individuals in reality. So it's sort of starting to
think, well, how does this join up?
How does this, how is this hitting our strategy?
And it's for me, it's always like boiling it back to very
simple terms. So don't talk in any kind of
jargon about assurance compliance benefits, but just
literally sit and listen and listen more than you speak.
Listen to their ideas. And then, you know, good old
kind of old fashioned pen and paper, post it notes, build
their ideas, be there as the person that people can go to and
you deal with the jargon. And then essentially if a
project's in the delivery mode, because obviously on the
delivery side, I've tried to make sure that everything's
clear from the assurance piece for our executive committee.
So that kind of report and it's really boiling it back again to
what do they need to know? They don't want to read through
loads of lengthy reports, very simple rag status, red, amber,
green, anything that's jargon, keep it eye, just very simple
and you know, just constantly keeping things simple for
people. I think you then get much better
engagement. The other thing I want to ask
you is you've obviously straddled both the corporate
world, the charity world, the education sector.
How transferable have your project management skills been
and have you got any advice for people who might be listening
and thinking? I've worked in corporate side of
things, can I move over to charity side of things?
I think essentially just have that self belief that if you
enjoy what you do, you like talking to people, you're
interested in people, you can go into any sector, you can find
out what you need to know because you don't have to be the
subject matter expert. It's about your attitude and
your behaviours and you know, know your knowledge in project
management and, and have those transferable skills.
But don't worry, you know, if you want to get, if you're
currently working in the food industry and you want to work in
the nuclear industry, you can still learn that and there's
still always time, whatever stage of your career you're at.
David, tell us a bit about the RSPB and how to put well.
You've given us an understanding of how how project management
fits in, but how mature it is and what are your future
ambitions for project management within the RSPB?
So I think with any charity organisation, project management
is something that's relatively new.
So it's a, it's an, it's a new profession coming into it.
And so we're working to increase the maturity.
And while we do have a number of of projects and programme
professionals across the organisation, what we're trying
to do is really, as we, like Ashley, highlight to the
organisation the project and programme group of people as an
important aspect of of any organisation, but particularly a
charity. It's part of that, selling the
benefits of it. Yes, absolutely.
From a charity perspective, the money we need to spend needs to
be against our charitable objectives.
So we get money in, we get income in from individuals, from
organisations who work in partnership.
So what we want to do is spend as much as that as possible on
our charitable objectives. And so something like project
management needs to show its benefit.
So we can invest in something like project management to make
sure that we are delivering towards our strategy exactly as
actually said and ensuring that it's not an overhead as
perceived by some people in the organisation.
So from a maturity perspective, we we want to invest in
individuals and the group of projects and programme managers
and those people who are managing projects who may not be
professional projects and programme managers, but do that
in a way that shows a benefit to the wider organisation.
So it's not a means to an end in in and of itself, it has to be a
means to have the charitable ends of the organisation.
What are the sort of unique challenges you face in in an
organisation like RSV? You already talked about the
kind of funding and money side of things.
Are there anything else, any other challenges that are unique
that you've overcome? I'm not sure they they're
unique, but as again, charities have within them people who are
really passionate about you know what we do, You know, we
wouldn't work for charity unless we were.
So it's how do we harness that energy into some of the, dare I
say, back office things? And a lot of people perceive
things like project management as a, as a back office function.
So how do we, how do we harness that passion and that energy
without stifling some of that creativity within those people
that want to work for a charity and deliver something?
My next question is how? How do you do that?
Is it very much in the storytelling side of things?
We have to express every project in a way that shows how it's
delivering towards our strategic outcomes, and the language
around those may be a little bit different because we're not
building cars, we're not creating widgets.
How do you describe something that may not achieve a benefit
for someone's lifetime? How do you describe it as part
of an objective within a project?
We're not at the end of that journey yet and we still need to
do more work around that because I think there is a lot of
business language within the project management, any project
management framework. So how do we use that language
that best fits in an organisation that is maybe more
useful using a very different kind of language without it
sounding like jargon. So it's it's how we try and
soften the jargon, keep it to a level where where we're working
with funders or partners rather organisations.
They can understand that we are managing projects in a
structured way but within the organisation, not make it seem
like a completely foreign language of those people who
whose role is not directly deliver projects.
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Because when projects succeed, society benefits.
I wanted to move on to discuss digital transformation, how
that's affected your organisation?
Have you worked on on any projects related to this and and
how has digital transformation affected the way you run your
own projects? David, do you want to give us
some insights into how the RSPB is affected by all of this and
your work? The real catalyst certainly last
few years for the digital transformation was the whole
COVID and working from home and everybody, you know, working
remotely and no longer being able to have those corridor
conversations and talking to people walking down the corridor
and speaking to people in other offices.
So it brought us together digitally.
And what that has meant was we're using those digital
opportunities to share, collaborate and work together.
So information repositories such as SharePoint and also managing
various aspects of collaborating through functions like teams are
certainly changed as how we work as an organisation.
And in the last couple of years we took the step to digitise our
project management methodology. So moving away from the Word and
Excel and PowerPoint based project management through to a
project and programme management system, which for the first time
has brought all of that project and programme management into
one place, which means we can start comparing like with like
for decision makers. So it's making it easier for
those people at the project gateways to approve or check on
project progress as they move through those gateways.
How difficult was it to introduce this to the
organisation? It was difficult, I won't, I
won't say it wasn't and we're not at the end of the journey
yet. So, you know, as with any
organisation, we are moving through that change curve.
So it has been a challenge to move people away from the
comfort of how they've always worked, using the the tools
they've always worked with, through to using a single tool
that maybe restricts some of the more local ways of working that
have evolved over time through necessity.
So what? So what this always brings, what
this digitization brings is standardisation, which is a
dirty word for for many people in any organisation, I think
because you get used to your own ways of working.
So what we've had to do is show the benefit of it, but show that
we are, we've moved from one way of working to another.
We have transformed that. But what we try to do as part of
that move is keep a lot of the language the same, keep a lot of
some of the functionality to be very similar.
So we we took the adapt and adopt approach when we brought
in the new system. So some of the change was
adapting to the new system, but some of the ways of working were
adopting to the organisation previous ways of working.
So you had some flexibility there.
Yes, we've had to bring some of that flexibility in because the
breadth and scale and scope of the work that we do means that
you can't have A1 size fits all approach.
So what we've had to do is embed something that is relatively
flexible as in in its approach. So it's it's one system, it has
one set of forms that you go through.
Those forms are the same for any type or any size of project, but
there is guidance that we provide that describes that
depending on the complexity of the work that you may be doing.
So the complexity of the project here we see how you can adapt
those forms. So these are the bits you need
to fill in. These are the bits you don't
necessarily need to fill in. These are the logs that are
really useful for you. These are not necessarily the
logs that allows people to be a bit more flexible locally with
how they're, how they're using those those frameworks.
So what we've what we've done is bring in some, what we've called
them essential areas that are one size for all projects.
And then beyond that there is some guidance about best
practise and what you you use in the framework around that.
What have been the benefits of introducing this kind of
standardised system that that either you've that you've
experienced and that you communicate to others?
So for individuals, if an individual in the organisation
wants to move to another part of the organisation, which which
happens relatively frequency, we're a very mobile internally
organisation, they will they will be using the same system.
So if they move from 1 from 1 country to another country, or
from 1 directorate to another directorate, they know that
they'll be using a standard system within it.
From an organisational perspective, it means that we
are able to hold things like risk and lessons and other
things in a single place so we can have a look at them and see
what might be impacting across the organisational at a risk
level. We can learn from previous
projects, so we may be repeating a similar project in another
part of the organisation. If our lessons learned are all
in that standard format on one system, we could learn and look
back at those lessons and understand what they did well,
what we need to learn from from a decision making perspective.
The decision makers, decision makers are comparing similar
information that's coming towards them.
It's not been presented to them in a different format in a
different way. They can understand that when
they see one project proposal coming to them, it will look and
feel the same as another project proposal coming to them, so they
can compare them if they need to.
At an organisation level, we can actually report on the number of
projects, where they are in their life cycle, the cumulative
risk and so on. That enables us as an
organisation to understand the sort of breadth, depth and scale
of projects that we are running. Ashley, what about for your
organisation? How's digital transformation
affected the way you run projects or affected the
organisation? How you've been?
I know you haven't been there very long, but how have you been
able to get to grips with that? So in terms of the stage that
we're at, we are rolling out Microsoft across all of the
schools. So the IT department are working
on that. What were they using before?
Was it just each school had a different system?
So each school had different systems.
So where we're aiming for is that all schools are on
Microsoft as their in house system and and then essentially
for every school there's that easy communication through Teams
etcetera. In terms of our in house tools,
we are using Microsoft as the key tools in terms of project
management. So the Planner tool, Microsoft
Project Excel and essentially from a reporting point of view,
everything's, you know, in kind of that format, the kind of the
PPDM framework, the the type of technology that David's talking
about. I think we're probably a few
years away from using something like that.
But what we are looking to do and we're just starting to
requirements map it at the moment is find from the
requirements a way of demonstrating at an individual
level the links between the individual delivery of
objectives through to with strategic outcomes.
And so we have been exploring that within the Microsoft Office
tool set. And we did think that we had a
tool that we were going to use purely for that.
But there's been some changes within Microsoft that mean that
we're not going to be using that.
So we're kind of back to the drawing board with that at the
moment. I want to ask both of you, just
from having listened to you about where you think the future
of project management lies within the world of charities.
You know, when I've interviewed other project professionals
across organisations that quite senior levels, it's very much
making that jump up into the kind of executive C-Suite.
You know, having project professionals at the very top of
the organisation who's speaking to the CEO or whoever about how
to put the strategy into place. How do you, how do you make it
happen? I'll be really interested to
know what you base think about that perspective and where you
think the future might lie. So David, where do you think
this is headed? I think charities will be well
out of necessity need to be working more closely together
and so project management may, it may come a point where where
project management is running across charities.
Oh, that's interesting. Why?
Why?
I think as well because a lot of, a lot of not just charities,
but a lot of organisations are doing similar things and a lot
of charities are are looking for that, that income or looking for
that working with others to actually try and deliver their
strategy. So our many strategies,
strategic aims are greater than what an individual charity may
be able to do simply because of the resources available.
So we will need to work very closely with others to deliver
some of our strategic outcomes. So I think project management as
as it does now, you know, many of our projects have worked in
partnership with other large organisations, local governments
and others. So I think one of the big
aspects of the future ways of working is, is how projects can
run across multiple organisations.
And what does that mean? So if our framework is different
to another organisation framework and we have
successfully embedded them in our own organisations, what does
that mean for those for those projects have to work together
on a project? We have, we haven't worked that
out yet, but it's something we're we're definitely looking
at. And I think as an organisation
it's it's internally, it's that professionalisation of that
project and programme management function that actually is
describing its value to the organisation and actually
putting it Brunton centre of some of the delivery that that
we have to do to to achieve the things we want to achieve.
A lot of our work is done what we call our business as usual
work is, is done by everyone every day.
If we make, if we're going to need to make substantial changes
to, to the to reduce the impact of of climate change or to
improve some of the landscapes of some of the species we want
to work with, that involves a change that can really only be
run through projects. Actually, do you agree with
that? What are your thoughts?
Yeah, very much so. I think in terms of the
development of strategy and the delivery of strategy and it's it
is confined. I think the actual kind of the
strategic side of project management is confined to a much
smaller number of people. That that knowledge, like you've
mentioned, Emma, being confined to kind of the C-Suite and kind
of really understanding that it feels to really drive benefits
across charities. That a positive thing would be
ways across charities of enabling, particularly now that
people are able to work more remotely.
Opportunities for people to network and come in to actually
kind of almost audit the work that's going on and to give
fresh pairs of eyes. Because I think one of the
things that most charities benefit from is, is having that
kind of holistic look and that little bit of, you know, kind of
peer review almost, you know, what are our challenges and how
do we get move forward? Because for a lot of charities,
the the staffing is quite small and it's a really positive thing
to bring someone else in to have a look.
But often for charities, they've got very limited budgets to use
consultants. And you know, using a consultant
is really, really expensive. But if there's a way of having a
network and opportunities where you can kind of peer review, you
can share ideas, you can listen, it's like gold dust really.
It adds so much value. What have been the biggest
lessons when it comes to project management that you've sticks up
over your career that you'd want to pass on to to people
listening, David? It takes a long time to embed,
so don't underestimate it. Also, I think as well, it's
expressing it in a way and I think that if you like the
project management professionalism has moved in
this direction. It's move, it's trying to move
it away from forms towards function.
So it's moving it more towards how does project management fit
in with the function and of individual organisation rather
than try and bend an organisation to the form of
project management. So if you think about how you
manage a project and you take away some of the dry language
around it, it's actually how all of us as individuals plan stuff.
I like using the word stuff because I think that can kind of
that that takes some of the the language out of it.
We all, we all do stuff. Some of that stuff we happen to
run as projects. Some of that stuff we happen to
not run as projects. So it's it's don't, don't, don't
always try and shoehorn the language in, but also understand
that as individuals, how we run a project is often how we we run
our daily lives. So it's we have an idea, we plan
for the idea, we decide whether we're going to do that idea or
not. We move forward with it.
Bringing some of that personal perspective in is always useful
and adapting what you think as being the key things that you
need to embed as part of your project management framework.
Adapting those to the organisation in which it's going
to have to live, breathe and be useful because if you don't it
will be harder to get people to use it because they will save
something as being other and outside.
Ashley, what do you think? What's your what's your lesson
that you pass on? I would just say don't expect
everything to go smoothly all of the time because actually on the
percentage of things that go smoothly, it's, you know,
there's a high amount of business change and risk in any
projects. Even very small,
straightforward, simple projects can just go completely left
field. Obviously you're doing all these
things to track risks, issues, you're bringing all your
stakeholders together, you're doing all your assurance piece,
you've got your governance around it in terms of a career
or working on projects, you'll come into contact with lots and
lots of people, all walks of life, but things won't go
smoothly all the time. My key tip is always stay calm.
You know, just stay really calm and work with a no blame culture
on everything that you do and try and create in your own
working environments. So the meetings that you hold,
the dialogues you hold, the sessions you run one to ones,
anything, any interaction with people, just create a safe space
and harmony for others to work. I don't mean by that be a
pushover or anything like that. You know, have those key
leadership qualities really be a person who can do be +1 of my
key tips is always walk in the shoes of others.
So someone's getting very stressed about something.
Try and unpack in your mind that they've come to work and they
may have lots of other things that are going on in their
lives. You know, they might have had
zero, might have sleep the night before because they've had a
child that's had them up all night.
And just, you know, understand others where resistance arises.
It's easy sometimes I think, or it's an earlier in your career
mistake to make to think, Oh no, that's all gone wrong and it's
all my fault or this person's being awkward or difficult.
My top tip would just be stop and think and look at everything
holistically. I could spend another hour
talking to you because you're just passing us a really
valuable advice. And what I'm getting from it is
as much about the relationships that you're managing as, as the
systems. In fact, it's probably more
about how do you speak to other humans about what you're doing
so they understand and, and, and help you get there in the end.
So I just leaves me to say thank you, massive thank you to both
of you for your time. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thanks for the opportunity.
Thanks again to Ashley and David for joining us and to you for
listening to the APM Podcast. Don't forget to look out for
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