How to get started

While many organisations can understand the benefits of taking a programmatic approach, they grapple with how to bring these benefits to life. The starting point for those who are successfully adapting their organisation to move from a piecemeal approach to a programmatic one is to first seek expertise to help identify, review and confirm if it will add value.

Is there a common project scope? Timeline alignment? Common project objectives? Supporting common capability needs? Common sites? These are just some of the critical questions asset intensive organisations need to find answers to before setting off on a programmatic journey.

They also must understand and have a clear view of the basic requirements to form a programme such as the minimal programme length (no less than 12 months) and have reviewed the structure and length of contracts to enable multiple projects. Also, considering panel arrangements for designers and contractors is important and can lead to increased flexibility in delivery, particularly around timing of delivery.

Starting to adapt to enable a programmatic approach may seem like a challenge for organisations who feel they are hampered by planning processes not traditionally set up for delivering projects as a group.

However, there are steps asset intensive organisations can take to move towards a programmatic approach.

We are seeing this being done successfully in many sectors and there is huge opportunity to adopt this approach more frequently and consistently, to ultimately enable greater agility across programmes, provide better access to information for more informed decisions, achieve the best value for money outcomes, reduce risk, and enable safety and greater performance for assets, the workforce and the competitiveness of sectors more broadly.

Contributors & reviewers: Stephen Carrol

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