Secrets to success from APM’s Digital and Technology Project of the Year

The Home Office’s Hendon Evolution Programme won APM’s 2025 Digital and Technology Project of the Year Award. The programme aims to lay the technological foundations for all future policing and law enforcement data systems: it’s no mean feat.

Specifically, the programme is managing the transfer of ageing data centres, a physical criminal records library, along with staff, into modern, secure and sustainable facilities.

On learning the project had won, Fraser Carlisle, Project Manager for the programme, says: “We all sat there and heard the words, ‘The winner is the Home Office’, and we all looked at each other and thought we hadn’t won, because we refer to ourselves as Hendon Evolution. Then it dawned on us, one by one, that we had! What a night.”

Here, Carlisle gives us a behind-the-scenes view of the programme and shares what it takes to achieve award-winning success.

Project: Could you give us a brief overview of the Hendon Evolution Programme?

Fraser Carlisle (FC): Hendon Evolution is an incredibly complex project aiming to completely exit two legacy data centres that no longer serve our needs by ensuring services are moved to the cloud or to other, more modern data centres. This means migrating and decommissioning around 131 live applications and associated hardware, relocating around 150 people to new offices, and ensuring that we can safely and securely continue to occupy the existing data centres until we have fully exited. Each data centre has its own unique ‘period features’ as they have become known. The applications serve more than 250,000 users and include critical infrastructure. There is zero tolerance for disruption, necessitating comprehensive risk management.

Project: What do your role and responsibilities encompass?

FC: I am the Project Manager for Hendon Evolution, responsible for overall delivery. My role includes ensuring that there is a strong business case, and we are funded to achieve success despite public-sector challenges. I ensure we deliver to our plans, manage and engage our wide-ranging stakeholders, and manage our suppliers and dependencies (there are more than 50). The core for me is to create the environment for success and to drive delivery.

Project: What’s unique about working on a programme like this?

FC: The project is incredibly complex and, given the original data centre has existed for more than 50 years, there are many unknowns that we have had to manage as they have been discovered. The complexity means relationships with the many different parts of the Home Office and wider stakeholder groups are key.

Project: What project management approach are you taking on the programme?

FC: We have adopted hybrid delivery methods, tailoring aspects of agile and waterfall to meet the needs and context of each specific workstream or deliverable. We have also developed a lean delivery and governance model, allowing us to be responsive and adaptable to change at short notice, and to maintain efficient use of resources.

Project: What are the challenges you have faced so far, and how have you worked through them?

FC: We had to rapidly include an additional data centre into scope, which doubled the team size and cost as a result. We rescoped, redesigned and restructured the project, traversed governance swiftly, achieved funding approvals and seamlessly integrated two distinct teams together. We achieved this without disruption in three months.

Alongside exit activity, we have needed to work around asbestos in a data centre and in some cases manage its safe removal. This is a specialist activity and created concerns for our people. We worked with all stakeholders, listened closely to our people, and responded positively to all their concerns to ensure the asbestos was removed safely.

The other major challenge is that we are dealing with some very old technology and specialist technical resources that are in very short supply. We had to balance our demand alongside that of others within an incredibly complex technology portfolio. To overcome this, we introduced a demand management process and tooling to assist with portfolio prioritisation.

Project: What project management lessons have you learned so far, and what advice would you pass on?

FC: Stakeholder relationships are key, and establishing those early to then build on later is critical. We learnt that success is only possible when you understand you aren’t working in a bubble. Over time, we have built a team that embodies a Home Office value: courage. The team is now built on having the courage to drive forward, making decisions in an imperfect environment and being willing to challenge constructively.
Project: What are you most proud of about this programme?

We have the culture and environment for success and that is valued by all our stakeholders. I proudly lead one team made up of a truly collaborative blend of people and skillsets from the Home Office and suppliers. People recognise our strength and support us because of it.

Project: What are the secrets to success of managing a programme like this?

Culture, environment, embracing change, stakeholder relationships, courage, supplier management, creating the foundations for success and bringing the best out of every single member of the team.