How do you create a common language and approach across
a myriad of projects? Manchester City Council has embarked on an
ambitious project to do just that. Helen Beckett gets to
grips with the Manchester Method
In 2003 Manchester City Council decided to rationalise the many
flavours of project management flourishing on its capital
programme. Standardisation, entitled the Manchester Method, was
necessary to bring greater efficiency to the construction portfolio
of 800 projects worth £250m per annum.
Now, with the automation of the Manchester Method, the authority
hopes it has surpassed this remit. Long-term it aims to create a
hub of project management expertise in the North West and give all
council employees the capability of being a project manager.
Achieving this objective calls for great project management in
its own right and that poses something of a "chicken and egg"
conundrum for the authority.
A sound start was to appoint an overseer with a heavy-duty
record in project management, and so Kevin Fletcher was appointed
as strategic planner. Fletcher came from the KnowledgePool arm of
IT giant Fujitsu, and soon realised that the public sector drivers
of people and services created a diversity of methods.
"There were a number of different departmental approaches, some
better informed than others. Most relied on common sense plus some
support," says Fletcher. As well as departmental resources,
Manchester had a dedicated project management team and also brought
in specialist consultants from IT and construction from time to
time. "We had to reduce unnecessary consulting cost," says
Fletcher.
With 25,000 people within the authority using different
terminologies, there was an obvious need to create one shared
language. Fletcher also witnessed a variety of tools in operation,
including proprietary methods and MS Project. "We felt that if we
could join up this knowledge and add some software expertise there
would be a chance to share very diverse experience."
The key to achieving this was to democratise project management.
"We wanted to be able to take a librarian and turn them into a
project manager," explains Fletcher.
Giving every employee the confidence and capability to be a
project manager is no easy task, and called for transformation on a
huge scale. However, change is easier to administer and embrace in
smaller pieces, and so the plan was broken down into four
parts.
First in hand was the task of refining diverse best practice
into a single method (the Manchester Method), and this was followed
by training staff and creating a project management culture in
Manchester City Council (see box). Selecting technology that could
support the processes was the third stage and finally, creating a
centre of excellence for project management that would cut the
amount spent on external consultancy.
The implementation of technology was the enabler of a key
objective: transforming every employee into a potential project
manager. And the objective of making project management skills
accessible largely determined the choice of technology and
supplier.
Project management specialist Mantix was picked to manage the
technical implementation because of its track record in government
work, including the Environment Agency and the Foreign Office.
Mantix recommended the use of a low entry-point system based on
commodity Microsoft tools.
Microsoft's Sharepoint portal technology enables companies to
consolidate intranet content, and allows different users to create
custom views of the website. Enabling specific views of a project
to different stakeholders simplifies the processes of project
management, says Diane Stean, director for government business at
Mantix. "You can't suddenly give someone a fully functional system
and say 'you're now a gold star project manager'. It's too
daunting."
Software selected for the core of the system consisted of other
commodity tools, including MS Project Server 2003 and Enterprise
Project Management solution for multi-project planning and
consolidation.
In addition, SQL Analysis Services and SQL Reporting Services
were picked and configured by Mantix to sit backstage and power a
"heatmap" view of projects. This presents risks and issues in an
easily understood red, amber or green system of alerts. In turn,
these are tailored to different user profiles of project manager,
programme manager and portfolio manager.
While technology was deemed to be the third stage of the
Manchester rollout, Mantix believes that the initial elements of
the four-part programme would have benefited from earlier software
support. "Had the Microsoft technology been sufficiently mature [to
procure] two years ago, it would have made these elements more
visible," says Stean.
Even as the designated stages of the project were carried out,
the Mantix team knew that success depended on not just training
staff in a system, but in using it to support the processes. "We
had to show it was relevant to the person and role," says
Stean.
A powerful way of proving the tool before it was actually
delivered, was to use it to manage the project, and this partially
countered the chicken and egg syndrome. "Traditionally, with a new
system you have to pilot it to check the benefits are
delivered."
The second project board meeting was therefore paperless, and
progress was examined through the Sharepoint portal. Executives
were then able to look at various aspects through the highlight
report, the risk register, and the issue register screens. "The
potential to save money, paper and trees is enormous," says Stean.
Additionally, it was possible to demonstrate the different profile
usage of the system with various at-a-glance views presented
through the red, amber and green status dashboard.
Using the Sharepoint-based system to roll out the Manchester
Method across the authority enabled comments to be collated and
modifications to be made on the way. "For example, we had made
various assumptions about how the high-level dashboard screens
would look, but in fact we needed to do some cosmetic changes to
the red, amber and green alerts," says Stean.
With such a broad population of users accessing the system, an
intuitive interface was crucial. "The trick was to have the
complexity in the background, but with an intuitive interface,"
says Fletcher.
Additionally, some users wanted to be able to add their bespoke
elements to the automated approval processes, explains Fletcher.
For example, some departments have a particular need to track
funding because it derives from different sources. Central
government funds may have to be spent by particular dates or
approved in a particular order, and the project management system
needed to flag this up.
Aside from automating processes in one coherent fashion, the
biggest boon is opening up local authority capital projects to
numerous stakeholders by enabling access via the internet. "As an
authority we have a commitment to inclusion. And so a headmaster of
a school can now look at the floor plan of a new wing and add his
comments. The original version would be retained, but the comments
are added in one central place," says Fletcher.
Storing all relevant documents and comments in one place also
facilitates a more joined-up approach to local government. Plus it
makes compliance with the Freedom of Information Act achievable as
a robust document management system makes information retrieval
easier. "Currently, letters and minutes of meetings relating to an
issue may be dispersed over several PCs and servers," says
Fletcher.
Manchester council has also seized the opportunity to craft
clearer definitions of other key functions such as accounting and
finance. Previously there was a fragmented approach, and auditors
had to adapt to different departmental methods. "If you ask people
to report on progress, cost and risk, the information you get back
might be a bit dubious. It therefore took a while for these reports
to become meaningful," explains capital programme manager, Bob
Rutt.
In fact, one of the problems throughout the project has been how
to achieve transparent communication and a shared language. The
culture varied in different departments and this was reflected in
the terminology of projects. Heads of the project would variously
be called a project sponsor or coordinator, for example, recalls
Fletcher. When talking across departments, "you had to check very
carefully against documentation that the language was crystal
clear", says Fletcher.
The Manchester Method has already made its mark, with all
projects within the capital programme now delivering to the
benchmark of within 5% of time and budget.
Further, cost savings are anticipated on completion of the
rollout of automation: efficiencies to the tune of £37,000 per £1m
on capital projects are expected to accrue for improved reporting,
document management and drawings. Whether front-line workers can be
transformed into project managers, however, remains to be seen.
Winning hearts and minds is the vital
ingredient
Creating a shared approach was in part an ideological battle.
With no evidence of the outcomes that a new, improved method could
deliver, conversion called for a leap of faith. "Winning minds and
hearts calls for a confident approach and a mix of great
personalities," says strategic planner Kevin Fletcher.
His team offered experience from the public and private sector,
and crucially included a working group with representatives invited
from every department.
Also key to winning acceptance of the method was ensuring that
it was genuinely generic and not tainted with the flavour of any
contributing department. For example, the IT department might have
argued in favour of including a particular component and
accompanied this by a document or tool relating to an actual
example. "The problem is that if presented in this way, another
department might reject it as being 'an IT method'."
The answer was to base it on Prince2, the widely used government
method, but to give it a distinctive, local authority flavour.
"Prince2 is a big, thick book of how to manage projects, and the
Manchester Method is a more practical manual," says Diane Stean,
director for government business at Mantix.
It does this by including lots of worked examples and templates
that are presented to the user, on screen, alongside the principles
and best practice material.
User feedback: 'Everything is a lot faster'
Manchester's project management software is being piloted by
Framework 1, a partnership between government and construction
companies, Bramalls, AMEC and Wilmot Dixon
The objective of Framework 1 is to build primary schools in
Manchester, and project manager Ian Greenwood is pleased with the
ease and speed of access to information (Sharepoint)
facilitates.
"Finance, procurement, design and technical services can easily
share information now. Technical services, for example, can select
a view and annotate the plans with any fresh information."
Change requirements did not comply with Framework 1's
paper-based system initially and so had to be amended.
One of the more useful features is the automated update alert
that sends additions and amendments to every relevant team member.
According to Greenwood, previously this was done with paper or
e-mail. "We're not a paperless office yet - but everything's is a
lot faster."