Babcock Nuclear Project Management Capability Transformation webinar

Babcock Nuclear are undertaking a project management capability transformation to enhance the delivery capability and resilience across the nuclear sector. This webinar will describe the approach they are taking. This webinar was held on 14 July 2021.

Babcock is an international aerospace, defence and security company, with a leading naval business, providing value add services across a range of countries. Babcock help customers in the UK and around the world to improve the capability, reliability and availability of their most critical assets. Babcock’s nuclear teams undertake a broad range of projects both in terms of scale and complexity within the defence and civil industries. Projects range from new nuclear builds at Sellafield and the power station at Hinkley Point C, to major submarine re-fits and de-commissioning of complex legacy nuclear sites such as the redundant Magnox power station fleet and Dounreay.

Given the increasingly complex nature of Babcock’s projects, requirements for enhanced assurance and governance (both internally and from external stakeholders) and competition for skilled resources in remote areas, a project management capability transformation is underway to enhance the delivery capability and resilience across the nuclear sector so that we can continue delivering and meeting customer demands and needs now and into the future.

The capability transformation is focused on the following key areas:

P - People
O - Organisation
P - Processes
IT - Information Technology

This talk provided an insight into the types of projects undertaken by Babcock Nuclear, including their scale and complexity, and also contained information about the journey we are on to maintain and continuously improve our capability.

The speakers have very kindly allowed their presented material to be made available for viewing. The webinar recording on YouTube is now available in our APM resources area and also embedded below for reference.

To view the news article, please click here.

Speakers

Kathryn Jones, Director of Project Management

Kathryn is Director of Project Management for Babcock’s Nuclear Sector where she leads a functional community of over 200 project professionals. She is responsible for developing the people, providing governance, and leading capability improvement initiatives to ensure Babcock delivers on its promise of being trusted to deliver.

From an early career in manufacturing Kathryn has 18+ years of project delivery in various project management roles operating in customer focussed environments, across a range of industries. This has seen her setting up production lines in the Far East, leading carbon capture studies to explore new ways we manage our pollution streams and delivering capital investment programmes on nuclear operational sites.

Mark Dearden, Project Management Director

Mark Dearden. John Laing Civil Eng. at 16yrs and worked on various major construction sites in the UK until age 20 then studied a B.Eng Civil & Structural @ Sheffield Uni.

After Uni, joined the energy sector initially in downstream gas as a technical engineer in heavy industrial and commercial applications and then moved into Upstream Oil & Gas, spent 26 years with BG Group working on various energy projects, initially in the UK then in Trinidad, USA, Malaysia, India, Thailand and Egypt; during this period , spent 15 years overseas, 11 years of which was with his family.

Returned to the UK in 2012 and was Head of PM Function for BG leading over 600 PM and PC staff and functional responsibility for a $20BN Capital Portfolio of projects and programmes. Then as Portfolio Director led delivery of a $10Bn portfolio of projects ranging from Trinidad to Kazakhstan to SE Asian; final two years with BG led a $10Bn upstream development of gas reserves in Tanzania with the intent to supply LNG to Asia. However, BG was bought out by Shell in 2016, moved to Horizon Nuclear Power as PMO Director on the £18Bn development of the Wylfa Newydd Power Station on Anglesey.

Joined Babcock in 2018 initially as Assurance Director and now as Director of Project Management in the ExCo. Accountable for leading the P3M transformation across the Nuclear Sector; the Sector supports both the UK Civil Nuclear and Nuclear Defence Sectors.

In Upstream Oil & Gas, started his career in project controls then moved into project management with increasingly more complex and larger capital budgets. 1st project was £200M in the Central North Sea, then Trinidad $500MM, India $500MM and Egypt was a $5Bn programme of work.

Emily Armstrong, Graduate Project Management

Joined the Babcock Project Management scheme in October, and is currently in a placement with the P3M team. Prior to this, she completed placements in the Nuclear Facilities and Warships business units. Before joining Babcock, Emily worked as a mental health counsellor for three years, after studying Psychology BSc at the University of Plymouth.

Elsie Taylor, Graduate Project Management 

Joined Babcock in October on the Graduate Project Management scheme and is currently in a placement with the P3M team. Before this, her placements were within the Naval Nuclear Support Centre (CRM) and the Engineering Function. Prior to joining Babcock, she studied Business Management (with HR and Leadership) BSc at the University of Plymouth.

Steve Ellard, Graduate Project Management

Steve has just completed his two years as a Project Management Graduate and has recently joined the P3M team in his first substantive position. During his scheme he completed placements across the business including submarine design, asset management and warships innovation. Steve studied Civil and Coastal Engineering at the University of Plymouth.

This event is suitable for professionals with any level of experience.

Previous webinars can be viewed on the APM SlideShare and YouTube channels.

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APM Body of Knowledge 7th edition reference
Section	Description
3.3.6	Continuing professional development (CPD)