Welcome to the APM podcast.

APM is the chartered body for the project profession.

My name is Emma DaVita and I'm the editor of Project, APM's quarterly journal and your host in this podcast.

I'm speaking to Ashley Hargrave, Interim Head of Strategic Projects and Management at the King Edward the 6th Foundation in Birmingham, and David Kitchener, Head of the Portfolio office at the RSPB, to find out what it's like to be leading project management within these two charities, both of which are APM corporate partners.

Ashley and David give me a behind the scenes look at how project management is woven into the strategic and operational fabric of their organisations.

They also give me their top tips from project managing in the charity sector and how digital transformation is bringing great benefits.

Listen on to find out more about getting stuff done, hiding the project management wiring and why it's key to stay calm.

Welcome both of you to the APM Podcast.

Thanks so much for sparing the time today.

I think an interesting place to start would be to ask both of you a little bit about the charity you work for and your current role and responsibilities.

So, Ashley, tell us a bit about what you do and where you work.

So I work for a charity which is a foundation charity, it's King Edward the 6th Foundation in Birmingham and our mission is a very ambitious mission and that is to make Birmingham the best place to be educated in the UK.

The foundation consists of 14 schools from across the secondary education sectors and the idea is really to improve the educational opportunities across Birmingham.

We actually educate the largest number of secondary school children outside of the local authority in Birmingham now.

So you're Head of Strategic Projects and Management.

Can you tell us a little bit about your role and your responsibilities there?

So I've been in the role fairly short time since September.

The role is really to bring in project methodology and best practise because we've brought in a new approach for schools that they can bid in to strategic funds.

And so we've got a funding part and what I've really sort of set up is a major projects fund for the schools to fit into with the framework that sits around that and kind of the gateway process.

And then in terms of the strategy, we're doing a strategy refresh at the moment for the next 5 years, which will take us from 26 up to 31.

And the idea of that is we're reviewing our existing strategy.

So we've looked at the performance and gained feedback from students, staff and governors and then working on the new operational projects that align with that strategy.

So really it's it's the whole methodology of project management from beginning to end and the gateways associated to and kind of the assurance piece.

Have you always worked in charity?

In charity sector and what do you enjoy about working in this sector?

Yeah, I've worked in all the sectors across the spectrum.

I started my career as a fresh graduate with a biology degree, didn't really know what I wanted to do many moons ago.

And I went into working for a conservation charity.

I loved that I worked on a range of conservation projects.

And then really from there I went into teaching and I did a sustainability management postgraduate degree as well.

But I've worked for a local authority, I've worked for at least three charities across my career and I've worked for an automotive company in industry.

And the common themes really being educational projects, project management, working for charities.

I love charity work.

Having that clear mission and aligning with people around those values.

It's really exciting.

It's very, very rewarding.

David, tell, tell us a bit about RSPBI mean, I'm sure everyone's heard of it and also so your role and responsibilities there.

Sure.

So yeah, I work for the RSPB, I'm head of the portfolio office and the RSPB is a charity for the conservation of birds in nature.

So we carry out conservation on a large scale, but you could say a huge scale because it's, it's not only landscape scale conservation within the four countries of the UK, but also worldwide conservation across multiple habitats and environments.

So we're working across oceans as well as land habitats as well.

But within the UK we do big landscapes.

So we do uplands, wetlands, you name it.

You know, any landscape that is in need of restoration or improving or, or whether it's being impacted by the current climate emergency overseas.

We do work in rainforests and because a lot of the species that we are interested in in the UK migrate from other countries, we do a lot of work both in those countries where they may spend a significant other part of their year or countries across which they migrate.

So we work with our partners, our bird life partners there to to help with the improvement of that those species actions.

And across the oceans we do work for the albatross.

So we have an albatross task force looking at reducing bycatch.

So making the way that fishing is more sustainable, not only in the way that the fish are caught, but in reducing the bycatch and bycatches is a nice way of saying birds getting caught in Nets or online.

So working with fishermen across the oceans of the world to improve, improve the way that they fish.

Can you tell us a bit about your role and responsibilities and then if you have an international aspect to your job as well, that would be interesting to hear about.

So I'm head of the portfolio office and my role is to help projects and programmes be the best they can be.

So we own, if you like, the project management framework, which is something that we are embedded in the organisation at the moment.

And our PPM systems are the system that is recording all our projects and programmes.

So our role is to ensure that that is being used and we can see the benefits actually of all the projects and programmes being run.

So it's the first step in bringing all that project information under one umbrella, if you like, but not taking away the project delivery from the local areas in the RSPB.

And some of those areas will be overseas.

So although we don't have a direct link through to those overseas projects and programmes, the projects are being managed using our works.

So we are here to help those projects being be run well and and achieve the benefits that they are hoping to achieve.

What do you enjoy about working at RSPB?

I've been in lots of sectors, so I've been in the IT sector, I've been in the charity sector for the last, golly, 17 years.

I've also been in financial sector outsourcing.

I think from the charity perspective, it's actually working for an organisation that's putting something back.

So it's not just about building things or making money for shareholders.

We're putting something back into the community, putting something back into to nature to to make the world a better place.

Ashley, tell us a bit about how project management fits in your organisation, how mature it is and what the ambitions are for for the project management function.

Project management is part of a strategic management function.

And within the strategic management, it's essentially there's a director role who I report directing to.

And then within that function there's also risk and assurance roles and governance roles.

And then in terms of the project management, it's just me at the moment in terms of the the projects that are in flight and operation and being developed.

But essentially we've then got people delivering those projects that are within schools or estate teams or IT teams.

What we're looking at is the assurance side, the governance side, ensuring the delivery of those projects.

But it's, it's obviously since it's evolved since April of last year, a lot less mature.

And so part of the role that I'm in now is really trying to develop that maturity and using framework that essentially is the APM framework.

So from my knowledge from working in other organisations and using the APM framework, it's it's bringing that kind of structure and kind of supporting my colleagues on that journey.

Really in terms of the aspirations for the organisation.

It's an interesting time because we're getting more and more interest and knowledge around projects, obviously since we've launched the major projects fund for the schools to bid into, but also through the development of the strategy and the emerging new projects that sit within that strategy.

It's very timely to look at whether or not we will have in the future a larger project management function.

So that's part of what I'm looking at as well.

And so as part of that, I'm also exploring apprenticeship providers and looking at whether we could have apprenticeships and kind of grow our own team in Heist or other routes.

And also the aspiration for young people within schools, project management, still a fairly new career and obviously less known to some of our our students than say careers in, in medical, medicine, law, etcetera.

So again another another kind of opportunity is to raise the profile within the schools.

How do you communicate what project management is to the rest of the people in an organisation who might not necessarily be familiar with it or might think it's one?

You know, it's all about Gantt charts and project management is just going to stifle what you do.

It's going to be boring.

It's going to be bureaucracy.

So how do you communicate what project management is?

What have you found to be successful?

It's basically hide the wiring, hide the jargon, spoil it right back to the simplest thing.

What's in it for that individual?

So when they contact you on either, you know, it's usually like a teens chat or an e-mail or they phone you, they've got something that they want from that conversation.

So it'll typically be, I will get an approach from a school where they're looking at, they've got a fledgling idea for a project and they want to know if it's a fundable project, which means it has to sort of sit within our wider strategy.

So it's boiling it back to when I meet them and what that project idea is, and then developing that idea with people so that it's got a wider, perhaps a wider remit than their first thinking.

Because the first thought can be something that's just very, very centric to one individual school and quite a small number of individuals in reality.

So it's sort of starting to think, well, how does this join up?

How does this, how is this hitting our strategy?

And it's for me, it's always like boiling it back to very simple terms.

So don't talk in any kind of jargon about assurance compliance benefits, but just literally sit and listen and listen more than you speak.

Listen to their ideas.

And then, you know, good old kind of old fashioned pen and paper, post it notes, build their ideas, be there as the person that people can go to and you deal with the jargon.

And then essentially if a project's in the delivery mode, because obviously on the delivery side, I've tried to make sure that everything's clear from the assurance piece for our executive committee.

So that kind of report and it's really boiling it back again to what do they need to know?

They don't want to read through loads of lengthy reports, very simple rag status, red, amber, green, anything that's jargon, keep it eye, just very simple and you know, just constantly keeping things simple for people.

I think you then get much better engagement.

The other thing I want to ask you is you've obviously straddled both the corporate world, the charity world, the education sector.

How transferable have your project management skills been and have you got any advice for people who might be listening and thinking?

I've worked in corporate side of things, can I move over to charity side of things?

I think essentially just have that self belief that if you enjoy what you do, you like talking to people, you're interested in people, you can go into any sector, you can find out what you need to know because you don't have to be the subject matter expert.

It's about your attitude and your behaviours and you know, know your knowledge in project management and, and have those transferable skills.

But don't worry, you know, if you want to get, if you're currently working in the food industry and you want to work in the nuclear industry, you can still learn that and there's still always time, whatever stage of your career you're at.

David, tell us a bit about the RSPB and how to put well.

You've given us an understanding of how how project management fits in, but how mature it is and what are your future ambitions for project management within the RSPB?

So I think with any charity organisation, project management is something that's relatively new.

So it's a, it's an, it's a new profession coming into it.

And so we're working to increase the maturity.

And while we do have a number of of projects and programme professionals across the organisation, what we're trying to do is really, as we, like Ashley, highlight to the organisation the project and programme group of people as an important aspect of of any organisation, but particularly a charity.

It's part of that, selling the benefits of it.

Yes, absolutely.

From a charity perspective, the money we need to spend needs to be against our charitable objectives.

So we get money in, we get income in from individuals, from organisations who work in partnership.

So what we want to do is spend as much as that as possible on our charitable objectives.

And so something like project management needs to show its benefit.

So we can invest in something like project management to make sure that we are delivering towards our strategy exactly as actually said and ensuring that it's not an overhead as perceived by some people in the organisation.

So from a maturity perspective, we we want to invest in individuals and the group of projects and programme managers and those people who are managing projects who may not be professional projects and programme managers, but do that in a way that shows a benefit to the wider organisation.

So it's not a means to an end in in and of itself, it has to be a means to have the charitable ends of the organisation.

What are the sort of unique challenges you face in in an organisation like RSV?

You already talked about the kind of funding and money side of things.

Are there anything else, any other challenges that are unique that you've overcome?

I'm not sure they they're unique, but as again, charities have within them people who are really passionate about you know what we do, You know, we wouldn't work for charity unless we were.

So it's how do we harness that energy into some of the, dare I say, back office things?

And a lot of people perceive things like project management as a, as a back office function.

So how do we, how do we harness that passion and that energy without stifling some of that creativity within those people that want to work for a charity and deliver something?

My next question is how?

How do you do that?

Is it very much in the storytelling side of things?

We have to express every project in a way that shows how it's delivering towards our strategic outcomes, and the language around those may be a little bit different because we're not building cars, we're not creating widgets.

How do you describe something that may not achieve a benefit for someone's lifetime?

How do you describe it as part of an objective within a project?

We're not at the end of that journey yet and we still need to do more work around that because I think there is a lot of business language within the project management, any project management framework.

So how do we use that language that best fits in an organisation that is maybe more useful using a very different kind of language without it sounding like jargon.

So it's it's how we try and soften the jargon, keep it to a level where where we're working with funders or partners rather organisations.

They can understand that we are managing projects in a structured way but within the organisation, not make it seem like a completely foreign language of those people who whose role is not directly deliver projects.

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Because when projects succeed, society benefits.

I wanted to move on to discuss digital transformation, how that's affected your organisation?

Have you worked on on any projects related to this and and how has digital transformation affected the way you run your own projects?

David, do you want to give us some insights into how the RSPB is affected by all of this and your work?

The real catalyst certainly last few years for the digital transformation was the whole COVID and working from home and everybody, you know, working remotely and no longer being able to have those corridor conversations and talking to people walking down the corridor and speaking to people in other offices.

So it brought us together digitally.

And what that has meant was we're using those digital opportunities to share, collaborate and work together.

So information repositories such as SharePoint and also managing various aspects of collaborating through functions like teams are certainly changed as how we work as an organisation.

And in the last couple of years we took the step to digitise our project management methodology.

So moving away from the Word and Excel and PowerPoint based project management through to a project and programme management system, which for the first time has brought all of that project and programme management into one place, which means we can start comparing like with like for decision makers.

So it's making it easier for those people at the project gateways to approve or check on project progress as they move through those gateways.

How difficult was it to introduce this to the organisation?

It was difficult, I won't, I won't say it wasn't and we're not at the end of the journey yet.

So, you know, as with any organisation, we are moving through that change curve.

So it has been a challenge to move people away from the comfort of how they've always worked, using the the tools they've always worked with, through to using a single tool that maybe restricts some of the more local ways of working that have evolved over time through necessity.

So what?

So what this always brings, what this digitization brings is standardisation, which is a dirty word for for many people in any organisation, I think because you get used to your own ways of working.

So what we've had to do is show the benefit of it, but show that we are, we've moved from one way of working to another.

We have transformed that.

But what we try to do as part of that move is keep a lot of the language the same, keep a lot of some of the functionality to be very similar.

So we we took the adapt and adopt approach when we brought in the new system.

So some of the change was adapting to the new system, but some of the ways of working were adopting to the organisation previous ways of working.

So you had some flexibility there.

Yes, we've had to bring some of that flexibility in because the breadth and scale and scope of the work that we do means that you can't have A1 size fits all approach.

So what we've had to do is embed something that is relatively flexible as in in its approach.

So it's it's one system, it has one set of forms that you go through.

Those forms are the same for any type or any size of project, but there is guidance that we provide that describes that depending on the complexity of the work that you may be doing.

So the complexity of the project here we see how you can adapt those forms.

So these are the bits you need to fill in.

These are the bits you don't necessarily need to fill in.

These are the logs that are really useful for you.

These are not necessarily the logs that allows people to be a bit more flexible locally with how they're, how they're using those those frameworks.

So what we've what we've done is bring in some, what we've called them essential areas that are one size for all projects.

And then beyond that there is some guidance about best practise and what you you use in the framework around that.

What have been the benefits of introducing this kind of standardised system that that either you've that you've experienced and that you communicate to others?

So for individuals, if an individual in the organisation wants to move to another part of the organisation, which which happens relatively frequency, we're a very mobile internally organisation, they will they will be using the same system.

So if they move from 1 from 1 country to another country, or from 1 directorate to another directorate, they know that they'll be using a standard system within it.

From an organisational perspective, it means that we are able to hold things like risk and lessons and other things in a single place so we can have a look at them and see what might be impacting across the organisational at a risk level.

We can learn from previous projects, so we may be repeating a similar project in another part of the organisation.

If our lessons learned are all in that standard format on one system, we could learn and look back at those lessons and understand what they did well, what we need to learn from from a decision making perspective.

The decision makers, decision makers are comparing similar information that's coming towards them.

It's not been presented to them in a different format in a different way.

They can understand that when they see one project proposal coming to them, it will look and feel the same as another project proposal coming to them, so they can compare them if they need to.

At an organisation level, we can actually report on the number of projects, where they are in their life cycle, the cumulative risk and so on.

That enables us as an organisation to understand the sort of breadth, depth and scale of projects that we are running.

Ashley, what about for your organisation?

How's digital transformation affected the way you run projects or affected the organisation?

How you've been?

I know you haven't been there very long, but how have you been able to get to grips with that?

So in terms of the stage that we're at, we are rolling out Microsoft across all of the schools.

So the IT department are working on that.

What were they using before?

Was it just each school had a different system?

So each school had different systems.

So where we're aiming for is that all schools are on Microsoft as their in house system and and then essentially for every school there's that easy communication through Teams etcetera.

In terms of our in house tools, we are using Microsoft as the key tools in terms of project management.

So the Planner tool, Microsoft Project Excel and essentially from a reporting point of view, everything's, you know, in kind of that format, the kind of the PPDM framework, the the type of technology that David's talking about.

I think we're probably a few years away from using something like that.

But what we are looking to do and we're just starting to requirements map it at the moment is find from the requirements a way of demonstrating at an individual level the links between the individual delivery of objectives through to with strategic outcomes.

And so we have been exploring that within the Microsoft Office tool set.

And we did think that we had a tool that we were going to use purely for that.

But there's been some changes within Microsoft that mean that we're not going to be using that.

So we're kind of back to the drawing board with that at the moment.

I want to ask both of you, just from having listened to you about where you think the future of project management lies within the world of charities.

You know, when I've interviewed other project professionals across organisations that quite senior levels, it's very much making that jump up into the kind of executive C-Suite.

You know, having project professionals at the very top of the organisation who's speaking to the CEO or whoever about how to put the strategy into place.

How do you, how do you make it happen?

I'll be really interested to know what you base think about that perspective and where you think the future might lie.

So David, where do you think this is headed?

I think charities will be well out of necessity need to be working more closely together and so project management may, it may come a point where where project management is running across charities.

Oh, that's interesting.

Why?

Why?

Why?

I think as well because a lot of, a lot of not just charities, but a lot of organisations are doing similar things and a lot of charities are are looking for that, that income or looking for that working with others to actually try and deliver their strategy.

So our many strategies, strategic aims are greater than what an individual charity may be able to do simply because of the resources available.

So we will need to work very closely with others to deliver some of our strategic outcomes.

So I think project management as as it does now, you know, many of our projects have worked in partnership with other large organisations, local governments and others.

So I think one of the big aspects of the future ways of working is, is how projects can run across multiple organisations.

And what does that mean?

So if our framework is different to another organisation framework and we have successfully embedded them in our own organisations, what does that mean for those for those projects have to work together on a project?

We have, we haven't worked that out yet, but it's something we're we're definitely looking at.

And I think as an organisation it's it's internally, it's that professionalisation of that project and programme management function that actually is describing its value to the organisation and actually putting it Brunton centre of some of the delivery that that we have to do to to achieve the things we want to achieve.

A lot of our work is done what we call our business as usual work is, is done by everyone every day.

If we make, if we're going to need to make substantial changes to, to the to reduce the impact of of climate change or to improve some of the landscapes of some of the species we want to work with, that involves a change that can really only be run through projects.

Actually, do you agree with that?

What are your thoughts?

Yeah, very much so.

I think in terms of the development of strategy and the delivery of strategy and it's it is confined.

I think the actual kind of the strategic side of project management is confined to a much smaller number of people.

That that knowledge, like you've mentioned, Emma, being confined to kind of the C-Suite and kind of really understanding that it feels to really drive benefits across charities.

That a positive thing would be ways across charities of enabling, particularly now that people are able to work more remotely.

Opportunities for people to network and come in to actually kind of almost audit the work that's going on and to give fresh pairs of eyes.

Because I think one of the things that most charities benefit from is, is having that kind of holistic look and that little bit of, you know, kind of peer review almost, you know, what are our challenges and how do we get move forward?

Because for a lot of charities, the the staffing is quite small and it's a really positive thing to bring someone else in to have a look.

But often for charities, they've got very limited budgets to use consultants.

And you know, using a consultant is really, really expensive.

But if there's a way of having a network and opportunities where you can kind of peer review, you can share ideas, you can listen, it's like gold dust really.

It adds so much value.

What have been the biggest lessons when it comes to project management that you've sticks up over your career that you'd want to pass on to to people listening, David?

It takes a long time to embed, so don't underestimate it.

Also, I think as well, it's expressing it in a way and I think that if you like the project management professionalism has moved in this direction.

It's move, it's trying to move it away from forms towards function.

So it's moving it more towards how does project management fit in with the function and of individual organisation rather than try and bend an organisation to the form of project management.

So if you think about how you manage a project and you take away some of the dry language around it, it's actually how all of us as individuals plan stuff.

I like using the word stuff because I think that can kind of that that takes some of the the language out of it.

We all, we all do stuff.

Some of that stuff we happen to run as projects.

Some of that stuff we happen to not run as projects.

So it's it's don't, don't, don't always try and shoehorn the language in, but also understand that as individuals, how we run a project is often how we we run our daily lives.

So it's we have an idea, we plan for the idea, we decide whether we're going to do that idea or not.

We move forward with it.

Bringing some of that personal perspective in is always useful and adapting what you think as being the key things that you need to embed as part of your project management framework.

Adapting those to the organisation in which it's going to have to live, breathe and be useful because if you don't it will be harder to get people to use it because they will save something as being other and outside.

Ashley, what do you think?

What's your what's your lesson that you pass on?

I would just say don't expect everything to go smoothly all of the time because actually on the percentage of things that go smoothly, it's, you know, there's a high amount of business change and risk in any projects.

Even very small, straightforward, simple projects can just go completely left field.

Obviously you're doing all these things to track risks, issues, you're bringing all your stakeholders together, you're doing all your assurance piece, you've got your governance around it in terms of a career or working on projects, you'll come into contact with lots and lots of people, all walks of life, but things won't go smoothly all the time.

My key tip is always stay calm.

You know, just stay really calm and work with a no blame culture on everything that you do and try and create in your own working environments.

So the meetings that you hold, the dialogues you hold, the sessions you run one to ones, anything, any interaction with people, just create a safe space and harmony for others to work.

I don't mean by that be a pushover or anything like that.

You know, have those key leadership qualities really be a person who can do be +1 of my key tips is always walk in the shoes of others.

So someone's getting very stressed about something.

Try and unpack in your mind that they've come to work and they may have lots of other things that are going on in their lives.

You know, they might have had zero, might have sleep the night before because they've had a child that's had them up all night.

And just, you know, understand others where resistance arises.

It's easy sometimes I think, or it's an earlier in your career mistake to make to think, Oh no, that's all gone wrong and it's all my fault or this person's being awkward or difficult.

My top tip would just be stop and think and look at everything holistically.

I could spend another hour talking to you because you're just passing us a really valuable advice.

And what I'm getting from it is as much about the relationships that you're managing as, as the systems.

In fact, it's probably more about how do you speak to other humans about what you're doing so they understand and, and, and help you get there in the end.

So I just leaves me to say thank you, massive thank you to both of you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Thanks again to Ashley and David for joining us and to you for listening to the APM Podcast.

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