Project magazine has launched Project Focus, a series of short films looking at major projects in the UK.The story of the Shard, featuring insights from Shard project director Robert Deatker, is the first to feature and is now available to watch. The video focuses on realising the vision of the UK’s tallest skyscraper, the challenge of building it in one of the world’s busiest cities and the benefits it will bring to the local community.Project editor, James Simons, said: “This is an exciting development for Project magazine and we hope it will inspire and excite people to get involved in...
Project people, we have a problem. We are pawns in a wider game and unless we raise the noise, we risk falling further and further behind in the technology stakes.Technology is no magic bullet; it will not solve all of our project ills but just as its role should not be overestimated, nor should it be underestimated.The world of projects is changing rapidly. We find ourselves in a place where dialogue and ideas are shared in real time, with little or no time for delay or indecision. (If you wait two minutes to reply, that’s two minutes too late!) The world is becoming smaller, too. Projects...
Project professionals need to be bold and innovative or risk falling behind when it comes to new technologies. James Simons and Andrew Hubbard report on Project’s Round Table event, which saw software developers and project managers discuss PM in the collaborative age.We should be project leaders, not managers – that was the big idea to come out of Project magazine’s first round table held at Microsoft’s offices in central London.In answer to the growing divide between software developers and consumers – the project sponsors, CEOs and other senior leaders – project managers were urged to...
She calls herself a project manager and yet has no formal training. She sells a brand of project management that the public recognises but professionals like to shun. James Simons meets ‘The Rottweiler’ who’s tearing up the rulebook."Project management is boring.” Claire Young pulls no punches when offering her thoughts on how the profession is perceived in UK schools. “Young people’s lives have changed dramatically: technology, the pace of life, peer pressure and celebrities; you’ve got to find new ways to engage with them.”The ex-Apprentice star perpetuates a brand – a style – of PM that...
Big idea: building a nationThe goal of building a sustainable – and peaceful – future for the people of Afghanistan had reached a critical stage. On the ground, forces and civil aid agencies of several different nations were operating with varying levels of autonomy. Most were doing excellent work, but there was a real risk that they would negate the effect if they pulled in different directions.The situation wasn’t helped by significant cultural differences and the wide range of stakeholders, all with very different viewpoints, and of course, the ever present threat of an escalation in...
Tall Standing It’s all about the details,” says Robert Deatker, Turner & Townsend project director at the Shard and London Bridge Quarter.Having been involved in statement projects like Canary Wharf, he is currently at the helm of creating the tallest building in Western Europe. The 310-metre (1016ft) structure will comprise a hotel, office space, exclusive residential apartments and London’s highest viewing gallery. It will feature the core-construction technology developed in response to the lessons from 9/11 and ticks a number of green boxes due to its multi-use layout.Due to finish in...
A Great British project idea is aiming to deliver an innovative and sustainable transport solution fit for the 21st century.The proposed £50 billion Thames Hub project, if realised, would represent the most ambitious UK project of the modern age.As well as a new £20 billion international estuary airport, the bold proposals also include UK-wide utilities, a £20 billion high-speed orbital rail line around London and a new £6 billion Thames barrier and crossing.Lord Norman Foster, founder and chairman of Foster + Partners, is championing the scheme. He said the UK is trading on past glories with...
If you wait two minutes, it’s two minutes too late. In the world of fast-moving projects every second counts but how do we make sure lessons, ideas and knowledge are shared and not lost?That is the question being asked at a Project round table discussion later this month.The discussion, ‘PM in the Collaborative Age’, will take place at Microsoft’s HQ near Victoria in London on Thursday 26 January, and will focus on how technologies – new and old – can be used to bring together often remote project teams.>> Join the discussion. There are FREE places still available. To enquire email...
What did the WWF do to establish its APM award-winning programme in the coastal fishing regions of Tanzania – and how will the organisation be taking forward what it learned? Ros James reports.‘Give a man a fish…’ Well, you know the rest. But teach a man (or woman) to manage their own fish stocks, and you achieve far more, both for them and the eco-system they depend on.Conservation charity the WWF has for many years been involved in working with communities, helping provide the incentives for local people to look after their own environment and the wildlife within it.But in the case of the...
On each of the construction projects to date – right up to and including Beijing 2008 – fatalities have been recorded in pursuit of that all important and immovable deadline.To put it another way, if you take the industry norms and apply it to the number of man‑hours currently predicted to finish London 2012 (approximately 70 million in total) that would equate to potentially four site deaths. So how do you prevent that – and make the London Games the safest ever?According to Louise Hardy, infrastructure director from delivery partner CLM (a consortium made up of CH2M Hill, Laing O’...
