Latest / Project Podcast / Project leadership in the UK nuclear sector

Transcript

Project leadership in the UK nuclear sector · Project Podcast

0:14
Hello, and welcome to the APM Podcast.
0:17
My name is Professor Adam Bodison, and I'm the Chief
0:20
Executive of APM and your host today.
0:23
We're delighted in this episode to welcome to the podcast Gareth
0:26
Taylor. Gareth was recently appointed a
0:29
Nuclear Sector Director at Turner and Townsend, having
0:32
previously spent over six years at the Nuclear Decommissioning
0:36
Authority, or as we prefer to call it, the NDA.
0:39
Gareth has over 25 years of experience in the nuclear
0:42
industry and has held a range of senior leadership roles.
0:45
At the NDA. He led transformative programmes
0:48
to improve asset management, programme delivery and
0:51
operational efficiency across EU KS Nuclear estate, and his work
0:54
included implementing A programme management and asset
0:58
management strategy that identified over £10 billion
1:02
worth of savings and advancing net zero air goals.
1:06
So a mechanical engineer by background, Gareth's earlier
1:09
career included roles at EDF Energy and British Energy.
1:12
So Gareth, thanks very, very much for joining us today.
1:16
It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
1:18
And maybe to kick us off, let's talk a little bit about you.
1:21
Can you give us a sense of your background and your career
1:24
journey to date? Thank you Adam, and thank you
1:28
for the warm welcome. I'm delighted to be here today
1:30
and pretty important spending the afternoon with you.
1:34
So yeah. So a bit about me then.
1:35
So Gareth Taylor, I live in South Wales, I studied at
1:39
Bristol and a mechanical engineer by qualification,
1:42
started my career in aerospace and then progressed into an
1:47
energy utility where I was in a mechanical engineering role.
1:50
And I pretty soon realised that perhaps solely the engineering
1:55
aspects weren't for me. And so I started my journey into
1:58
project management from early in my career, starting with roles
2:02
in project engineering, then some site engineering,
2:06
construction management, starting to then pick up my own
2:09
projects and then delivering bigger projects to various
2:15
levels of complexity and size. Culminated in my role as a
2:19
Programme Delivery Director at Hinckley Point C, the new
2:24
nuclear project in Somerset. We're left in 2019 to join the
2:29
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
2:30
As you've said, when I left there earlier this year, I was
2:34
the Group Performance Improvement Director with
2:36
responsibility for projects, Programmes, operations, asset
2:40
management and engineering. So yeah, Projects has been a
2:45
current throughout my career and I'm a real advocate, as you
2:49
know, Adam, of the APM and the great work that it does.
2:52
Wow, that's, it's quite the career.
2:54
And I, yes, you, you've been a long standing champion of APM,
2:57
but I would say also the, the, the profession more broadly.
3:01
And, and I think what one of my takeaways from that is that you
3:04
know, you're, you, you've kind of one of these people who kind
3:08
of spans multiple professions. You know, as we know, you've got
3:10
the engineering side of things, you've got the leadership side
3:13
of things, you've got the project side of things.
3:15
So to have you really kind of getting behind the profession
3:18
this way means a lot. Maybe tell us a bit more about
3:21
your current role then, Gareth, because you're obviously in this
3:26
role as a nuclear sector director.
3:29
What what, what does that involve?
3:31
And can maybe share some examples of the kind of projects
3:34
you're currently working on? Yeah, sure.
3:37
So I've delighted to join Turn in Townsend a little over six
3:40
weeks ago. Turn in Townsend is a global
3:42
leader in project delivery. My role is to lead the nuclear
3:46
sector in the UK. So working closely with our
3:48
clients and the supply chain that deliver successful
3:51
outcomes. So we're present across various
3:55
projects in the nuclear life cycle.
3:57
By that I mean from early stages of of manufacturing, fuel
4:02
manufacture, mining through into new builds into operations,
4:07
decommissioning and also in future supporting future
4:10
investments as well. So a really varied portfolio.
4:14
Locally in the UK we we're present at Hinkley Point C as I
4:17
mentioned where I previously worked and the great work that
4:20
the team are doing there. We're also present at Sizewell
4:24
C, the sister station to Hinkley Point, another big nuclear power
4:29
station that is being built that's going to provide power to
4:34
7% of the UK both at Hinkley and at size or so major energy
4:40
infrastructure being built there.
4:42
We're also supporting the next wave of nuclear reactors and
4:45
keen to be involved in that programme of small modular
4:49
reactors and advanced modular reactors as the as they progress
4:53
into the UK. So quite a varied portfolio in
4:56
terms of the new energy. But also we're keen to support
5:00
the legacy as well and existing operations.
5:03
And also the great work that the Nuclear Decommissioning
5:05
Authority do and its subsidiary companies in making sure that
5:09
the legacy nuclear sites that we have are dealt with
5:13
appropriately, safely and sustainably to encourage a
5:17
bright future for the nuclear industry.
5:19
So important times, we bring a lot of cross sector experience
5:23
in Turner and Townsend and that's something which I think
5:26
the nuclear industry can benefit from and does benefit from as
5:30
well as transferring from the nuclear sector into other
5:32
sectors. So exciting times, delighted to
5:35
be here. That's great.
5:37
And, and you know, for our listeners that there'll be
5:39
people who are listening to this who work in the nuclear sector
5:43
or have worked in a nuclear sector and know all about it.
5:46
My, my experience is that most people when you talk to them
5:49
about nuclear, they only know what they've seen maybe on the
5:52
news or the television. They have a very kind of
5:54
polarised view maybe of nuclear. I know that in your work you've
5:58
kind of done everything you've described some of it there, the
6:00
full nuclear life cycle, if I call it that, from kind of new
6:04
build right through to decommissioning to help our
6:07
listeners kind of understand the kind of the breadth of nuclear
6:10
as a sector. I wonder if you can give some
6:12
examples of, of the big projects or some of the most significant
6:15
projects from your career, maybe the ones that taught you the
6:18
most, the ones that were really complex.
6:20
And, and I'll just help people, I think understand the the
6:23
breadth of it. It's not just, you know, it's
6:26
not only nuclear power stations, for example, There's, there's,
6:29
there's lots of other things going on, right?
6:32
Yeah. So I agree, Adam, I think it's
6:34
important that people are informed of what nuclear power
6:38
can bring and, and the nuclear sector in general.
6:40
And and I think it's important that if I'm an energy generation
6:43
capacity, nuclear is important to be part of a mix.
6:46
It's not the only install solution.
6:48
So I've been involved in a variety of projects in the
6:51
nuclear sector and some of fairly large scale like I've
6:55
described around building new power stations, but also some in
6:59
terms of helping maintain the existing power stations.
7:03
So in terms of the nucleus sector, it kind of starts with
7:06
you need to get a fuel and fuel is mined.
7:09
The fuel is then manufactured and so it can be used.
7:13
It's then used placing what we call the reactor.
7:17
And the reactor is effectively the kettle of the power station.
7:20
It creates A fission reaction that generates heat and then
7:25
then creates steam that can then drive a turbine that generates
7:29
electricity. So then that part is quite
7:31
traditional and simple with other conventional modes of
7:35
electricity generation. The significance of nuclear is
7:39
it has nuclear waste that needs to be managed carefully and
7:42
sustainably. And that's where the Nuclear
7:44
decommissioning Authority play a vital role in creating routes
7:48
for the waste to be transported and transferred and then
7:52
importantly managed for the legacy of its life.
7:55
So all under it's under controlled, it's well regulated
8:01
and undertaken by some real professionals including many
8:05
from the projects and programmes profession, but also from
8:09
engineering, commercial and other technical aspects.
8:16
Yeah, I know that that's been really helpful.
8:17
Thank you. And, and I suppose I'll just say
8:20
as well for our listeners that this is actually the second
8:23
nuclear podcast I've I've done. So I did one I wouldn't say
8:27
about the 18 months ago now with Professor Sir Nigel Thrift and
8:32
he was talking a lot about the geological disposal facility and
8:36
about the some, some of the complexities around that and so
8:41
on. So for those people who are who
8:42
are enjoying this conversation, who also want to find out more
8:45
about the, the kind of the nuclear waste and disposal side
8:48
of things, that's a particularly good one to, to, to, to look up
8:51
after you've listen to this one. OK, well, let's talk about
8:55
leadership and particularly project leadership in the
8:59
context of scaling up nuclear activity in the UK.
9:03
Clearly leadership is important in any sector and in any
9:07
profession, but from what, from your perspective, what are the
9:10
kind of main challenges around project and leadership that come
9:14
up when you're trying to scale up specifically in the nuclear
9:17
sector within the UK? Yeah, good question.
9:21
And so I think I look at the challenge as an opportunity.
9:24
And so the nuclear sector can bring a lot of opportunity for
9:27
people. It's a first of a kind in many
9:31
instances because we've not built power stations in the UK,
9:34
nuclear power stations in the UK since the 80s and 90s.
9:37
So Hinkley Point C was a first of a kind in that guard and the
9:41
kind of skills and experience in the supply chain had had
9:45
evaporated over that time. So that presents the opportunity
9:49
to regrow it, create opportunities for the supply
9:51
chain, create opportunities for partners, create opportunities
9:54
for most importantly people. There's a real opportunity to
9:57
regenerate skills across the industry for generations to
10:01
come. There's an opportunity for us to
10:03
create vibrant communities in the power with in the stations
10:07
that are built often in remote locations so they can be a real
10:11
heart and soul of of a community and really create a legacy for
10:15
the future. So, so Gareth, you know, thank
10:17
you for talking about that. And one of the things you
10:20
mentioned in your, in your answer there was about this kind
10:23
of almost loss of institutional memory, if I call it that, over
10:28
time, sector memory, where people who've been involved in,
10:31
in nuclear, you know, decades ago and you know, because we
10:35
haven't built any power stations in a long time, that that was
10:37
kind of lost and we had to rebuild that from scratch.
10:40
We're obsessed in the project profession about learning
10:43
lessons. On this podcast, we're always
10:44
talking about learning lessons and applying lessons in, in, in
10:49
your sense, how you know, if you were given advice to, to whether
10:53
it be to government or, or decision makers about how, how
10:56
do we learn the lessons of, of that, of that gap, if you like,
11:00
that we had in the past to make sure that after we build these
11:02
power stations, we don't make that same mistake again and go
11:05
say, yeah, we're good now for another 50 years.
11:08
You know, how do we keep that that that that new talent, that
11:12
new set of skills that we've developed kind of live and
11:15
kicking in fresh for the next 50 a hundred years and avoid making
11:19
that same mistake again? What advice would you give to
11:21
the policy makers? I think you keep it live kicking
11:24
in fresh as you said, Adam by using it and continuing to grow
11:28
it. And so building a fleet of small
11:31
modular reactors, building more larger scale nuclear reactors,
11:36
maintaining a steady flow of development and project work at
11:41
the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority so that that
11:45
capability is maintained and can be grown and sustained for the
11:49
future. So I think it's using it as key
11:52
and interestingly around lessons learnt, whether it be
11:54
specifically from first of a kind projects is making sure
11:59
that we do embed the learning and not just capture the
12:02
learning. And I think that's important
12:03
that it's done in a systematic way such that it does and also
12:08
through our people. You know, the best way to
12:10
transfer lessons is through both people and and through the
12:14
energy that they can bring by transferring to different
12:17
projects, bringing that experiences, bringing that
12:20
learning, bringing those characters to really help others
12:22
gain and benefit from that. Yeah, that makes good sense.
12:26
I was, as we were talking, I was thinking about the rail sector
12:32
and you know, we've got all of this experience from, you know,
12:35
whether we think HS 2 is a good or a bad thing.
12:37
We've certainly developed a lot of capability in rail, you know,
12:40
whilst we've been funding that project.
12:43
And one of the interesting things I've seen is that other
12:45
countries, take Australia, for example, where they're doing
12:49
metros in Sydney and, and Melbourne and so on.
12:52
They are tapping into the workforce that's been developed
12:55
in the UK. So it ends up being, we end up
12:57
being a bit of a, a net exporter of skills as well.
13:00
So there's this, I always feel there's a bit of kind of, I
13:03
don't know, system generosity to, to, to what we're doing in
13:06
the UK as well. Maybe maybe that's something in
13:10
the nuclear space that we can replicate as well.
13:12
Because I know there are some countries that are further down
13:14
the line than those, but there's equally plenty that looking to
13:17
develop the kind of skills and capability that we've been
13:20
building up and to and to move in the direction that we're
13:22
moving. So yeah, that'll be a one to
13:24
watch, I think. OK, let's talk a little bit more
13:30
about skills because one of the things I've observed, and by the
13:34
way, challenge me on this if you think I'm, I'm going off on a
13:37
tangent here, Karen, But one of the things I've observed is that
13:41
I see job descriptions for project professionals in the
13:45
nuclear sector, which will insist that they have experience
13:50
of the nuclear sector itself. To what extent if you're kind of
13:55
taking people on in nuclear, is that a kind of an essential
13:58
versus a desirable in terms of the skills?
14:01
Is it more important to have the project background?
14:03
And then you can and then you've got other kind of nuclear
14:06
experts around you or actually do you want nuclear experts and
14:10
then you want to kind of teach them the project kind of skills
14:14
and and competences. I know obviously in an ideal
14:16
world, you'd want both, right? I get that.
14:18
But it you know, if you if you're pressed into one or the
14:20
other, because there is this big skills voltage out there, which
14:23
way do you lean? It's not one-size-fits-all, I
14:27
think would be my my summary. Adam, I think there are certain
14:30
roles where nuclear experience is required and particularly if
14:34
you're dealing with the nuclear aspects of the power station, It
14:38
was a power station or mutually material.
14:40
It was managing waste or so I think that's important, but
14:44
that's not all of the work and it doesn't need to be all of the
14:49
people. You know, the project profession
14:52
can be applied across all sorts of scale of work.
14:56
So let's not be fearful. Let's not create unicorns of
15:02
people that can only do the job if they've already done the job,
15:07
which is clearly you're not the case and shouldn't be the case.
15:09
And so I think the profession has really matured as the
15:13
project profession and through the chartership is now available
15:16
through the APM. That's really created some real
15:20
kudos and clarity in how project professionals can conduct
15:26
themselves and how they can really bring that rigour and
15:30
that robustness that typically is required in high hazard
15:33
industry. So I think it's role dependent,
15:35
but I would say for most of the roles having nuclear expertise
15:40
and experience is desirable but not always essential.
15:45
Yeah, no, I really like that. And, and, and what what struck
15:49
me about what you were saying there was it's a bit like you
15:54
talk about the maturity of the project profession.
15:56
It reminded me of other professions.
15:57
So I was thinking if you were an accountant, for example, nobody
16:02
is worried about the accountants who goes from nuclear to IT to
16:05
healthcare to pharmaceuticals to construction or whatever,
16:08
because we're employing them because they're a good
16:10
accountant, right? I mean, that's, but, but
16:12
actually if they had domain experience, they could be an
16:15
even better accountant, even more valuable.
16:17
But actually it doesn't stop them being appointed in the 1st
16:20
place. And, and the idea that that's
16:22
kind of linked with maturity of the profession, I think is a
16:26
really, really good insight to know.
16:28
Thank you for that. Let's talk about kind of
16:32
teamwork, because obviously when you've got people with different
16:39
skills, different experiences, it's going to be important that
16:44
that that that they can work together and that you can get
16:47
the most out of people. And to do that, it's often means
16:49
you've got to have a great leader to kind of get the most
16:52
the most out of those teams. In your opinion, what is the
16:56
most important traits or traits of a of a great project leader?
17:02
So I live my life by my values, Adam.
17:05
So integrity and honesty is something which is dear to me.
17:09
But from a leadership perspective, I think
17:11
authenticity and ambition is vital because that creates
17:15
inspiration. And as a leader it's about
17:19
inspiring people to be the best they can be because they want to
17:23
be it. So creating that environment
17:25
that they are comfortable in that gets the best out of them
17:29
to deliver successful outputs and successful outcomes.
17:32
So I think that's that's really important in the leaders for
17:35
today. They don't need to be the best
17:36
technical experts. They don't need to have the most
17:39
commercial acumen. They don't need to have the most
17:42
construction experience. They need to have a mixture.
17:46
But I think it's important that they can engage across the
17:49
profession and engage the right people such that the project is
17:53
successful in delivering its output and the programme is
17:57
successful in delivering its outcomes.
18:00
Yeah, no, that, that, that makes sense.
18:02
And, and, and I suppose if I, you know, if I play devil's
18:04
advocate, I listen to what you've just said.
18:06
And with the exception of the bit where you talk about a
18:08
project and a programme at the end, you could say what you've
18:11
talked about. It's just good leadership
18:13
generally. I mean, is there a difference in
18:15
your mind between, you know, really impactful and effective
18:20
leadership in a kind of project or programme sense versus, you
18:24
know, just good and effective leadership full stop or are they
18:27
the same? I think the similarities, but
18:30
they're not directly the same and this is what I said earlier
18:33
about the the profession and how the professions really garnered
18:37
respect. I think historically someone who
18:40
was perhaps a good organiser, who understood the technical
18:44
aspects was put into a role as the project manager, but didn't
18:48
really have the core skills of project management in pulling
18:51
A-Team together to get the sick most, the best from everywhere.
18:55
So I think that is a skill that you use around.
18:58
And there's tools and techniques obviously that we use in
18:59
projects around how we measure, manage scope, how we deliver a
19:04
schedule, how we manage risk, how we manage cost and so how we
19:08
manage stakeholders. So they are tools and techniques
19:12
that people need to know, need people need to deploy.
19:16
They're not just something that people pick up as a secondary to
19:20
the day job. So I think yes, there's a real
19:23
connection with good leadership, but you need to have the skills
19:26
and techniques to deliver successful projects.
19:30
Yeah, that's, that's interesting.
19:31
And, and and you know, one of the things I've observed because
19:33
sometimes we talk about the kind of image problem that project
19:37
management has or the project profession has.
19:40
And, and I think it don't think it's actually the project
19:42
profession that has an image problem.
19:44
I think it's project management. And I don't think that's
19:46
actually to do with projects. I think it's to do with
19:48
management. I, everyone I meet wants to be a
19:52
leader, Gareth, but nobody wants to be a manager, right?
19:54
Because that's, that's the bit that has all of the, the
19:57
technical things that you have to learn and all the difficult
20:00
people issues and all of that type of stuff.
20:03
And everyone wants to kind of leapfrog that bit to become a
20:05
leader. In my experience, the best
20:08
leaders I've met and worked with over the years.
20:11
They're often the people who've done the hard yards in
20:14
management somewhere. And so I've got this theory.
20:16
I'm just going to sound this out now.
20:18
You can tell me whether you think this is sensible or not,
20:20
that if you've been a project professional, probably a project
20:24
manager at some point in that journey.
20:26
I think that is probably one of the best groundings you can get
20:30
for being a really effective leader at some point in the
20:32
future because you you learn these techniques, these skills,
20:38
these approaches, you've got all these tools that you described
20:41
just a moment ago. And just having those in your,
20:44
in your toolbox, as it were, as as a leader, I think just makes
20:48
you a more effective leader. Am I on to something here, or am
20:51
I just down the yellow brick road somewhere in another world?
20:55
No, I think you're right and I think it's an example of what we
20:57
spoke about earlier about learning and how you put
21:00
learning into practise. So I've been involved in lots of
21:02
different projects, some really quite large projects, multi
21:06
billion # projects. What have been involved in some
21:09
projects that were hundreds of thousands of pounds were much
21:11
smaller scale. And with size becomes scale and
21:16
it's how you manage the scale. But with the complexity is
21:20
really something that is challenging in projects.
21:23
And so I think that's really important because I've learned
21:26
probably the most from the projects that have not gone so
21:29
well. And I've been involved in a few
21:31
of those where we may have sometimes delivered the output
21:34
at the end, but we had some bumps along the way, perhaps in
21:36
terms of how we contracted it, perhaps how we manage the scope.
21:40
I've also been involved where the project has gone very
21:42
smoothly, but the output at the end didn't always meet the
21:46
expectations. And so we needed to make some
21:48
adaptations. So I think it is both, and you
21:50
learn a lot from that. And I think knowing that you've
21:53
been there and managed it and been in the shoes of the people
21:58
who are leading the work and knowing how they feel, I think
22:01
is an in vital ingredient of project leadership.
22:04
It's not something you can just learn from a textbook.
22:07
You're learning through doing. And I think that's really
22:09
important point for the profession and in terms of how
22:12
we charter our people in the evidence that we that we provide
22:16
to give it that credentials and that real respect that it's now
22:20
got. Yeah, Yeah.
22:21
That makes sense there. Thank you.
22:23
Now thinking about the profession more broadly, now we
22:27
we know the profession, we love the profession, we're part of
22:30
it, but there's lots of people out there that that either don't
22:34
know it or they think it's something different.
22:36
I mean, for example, you mentioned earlier on that
22:39
sometimes people who are good organisers end up kind of being
22:43
the project manager, you know, because they can get stuff done
22:45
or something like that, which is almost a, a misrepresentation of
22:48
like the real skills and, and, and competencies that it takes
22:53
to be an effective project professional.
22:56
And, and many people I talk to and if I ask them, how did you
22:59
get, how did you become a project professional?
23:01
And they tell me things like, Oh, you know, I, I started as a
23:05
structural engineer or I started as a, an architect or, or, or
23:11
something like that. And then they woke up one day
23:14
and discovered they weren't doing that anymore.
23:15
They were actually managing projects.
23:17
People seem to fall into this profession leaders, you know,
23:22
I've met people who are kind of, you know, keep finance officers
23:25
and then all of a sudden they found they were delivering
23:28
digital transformation projects and things like this.
23:30
So it seems to be one of these professions that people fall
23:34
into rather than plan to go into.
23:36
You know, I don't hear children in school saying when I grow up
23:39
I want to be a project manager or project professional.
23:41
I don't hear that is, is, is, you know, does the profession
23:46
have enough of a public profile and how did it work for you?
23:49
Did you, you know, you're obviously a project professional
23:51
now, Did you plan for that from the beginning or are you one of
23:54
those people that fell into it as well?
23:56
From my own perspective, I was brought up in a household that
24:01
it was an engineering background.
24:03
I lived in an area where where industrial area where where
24:07
engineering was quite prevalent. So, so I thought around what
24:12
that I want to do in my career and I was encouraged to do what
24:15
I felt brought the best out of me and what I enjoyed.
24:19
So for me, I probably didn't label it project management then
24:23
as I probably would now, but I kind of quickly knew that I
24:29
wanted to be involved in an end to end delivery of an output and
24:33
that I wanted to see more than just one part of it.
24:36
And that's what project management gives you.
24:39
But I don't think at the time, 25-6 years ago when I started my
24:44
career, it was probably as obvious and as prominent as it
24:49
is now. So I think people now are
24:52
starting their career as project managers.
24:54
I think it's important that people understand what the
24:56
project management community brings and I think through the
25:00
APM I think there is opportunities for people to get
25:03
close to that early on now. So we have graduates that join
25:06
our schemes and they are keen to do projects from the outset and
25:10
they have an understanding of what project management is from
25:13
the outset. So I think through working in
25:15
schools, through working in universities, we are seeing
25:18
graduates that come now with a better understanding of the
25:22
profession, eager to get the qualifications, eager to learn
25:26
and then eager to deploy. More so than perhaps.
25:30
So I think it's evolved since I've been through my career.
25:35
I think it's continued, it can continue to progress and I think
25:38
through the chartership and the recognition and respect that
25:43
that brings, I think it really can make the profession stand
25:48
stand strongly on its own. Yeah, you're quite, you're quite
25:51
right actually. As you were talking, I was
25:52
thinking, you know, actually we do have a lot of student members
25:54
at APM and I meet a lot of apprentices at events and so on
26:00
who are exactly in the category that we're talking about here
26:03
where they've come straight out of school or, or the even degree
26:06
apprenticeships, you know, where people are, are, are kind of
26:09
learning and getting these qualifications on the on the job
26:12
as it were as well. So yeah, maybe we've got reason
26:15
to be optimistic actually about this.
26:17
So yeah, that that's that is quite exciting.
26:20
And I think we have and I think I can really get back, sorry, I
26:23
don't by me just improved outputs that I have seen in my
26:29
career who people who have become project professionals.
26:34
So at my time with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, we
26:36
really promoted the chartership. We really promoted people
26:40
getting qualified through EAPA and that correlated with
26:44
improved performance. You know, we improved the
26:46
project performance in the NDA group significantly in the time
26:51
I was there and that went in parallel with people becoming
26:55
more qualified, more able. And we, as I said, we increased
26:59
the profession qualified professionals by 60% and we saw
27:03
milestone attainment improved by 70%.
27:06
So that's a fairly close correlation.
27:08
It wasn't the only thing that we did, but we knew and had
27:12
confidence in our team and because of the training and
27:15
experience that they gained, how to equip them to deliver
27:18
successful projects. Yeah.
27:21
Well, that's the, you know, that's a great statistic there.
27:24
So 60% investment in the in upskilling the capability in the
27:31
organisation, the people side and you saw 70% impact on the
27:36
milestones. That's yeah.
27:37
Powerful, powerful stuff. I.
27:39
Can see. And Taylor and Townsend is a
27:41
world leader in project delivery.
27:43
We have hundreds of qualified professionals and so it's a real
27:47
requirement for us to get a sort of established programme project
27:51
management role. So again, that proof is there
27:56
for all to see. Yeah, makes sense.
27:58
So final thing from me then, Gareth, is there are a lot of
28:01
people who'll be listening to this podcast who might be early
28:04
on in their career. And you have the benefit of
28:07
being, you know, having lots of experience to this point.
28:12
And I suppose you've got the benefits of hindsight as where I
28:15
was going with this. And if you were kind of either
28:19
talking to your younger self or talking to some of these, you
28:23
know, emerging project professionals who are right at
28:26
the beginning of their career, just starting out, and you were
28:28
going to give some advice for how they could be as successful
28:32
as you've been, even better maybe what what advice would you
28:35
give? I think understand it and then
28:40
deploy it. There's nothing quite like
28:43
learning as you are delivering and I think I really want the
28:47
project professionals of the future to have the opportunities
28:50
that I had and to really test themselves in delivering
28:54
successful outputs. It's not about the theory, it's
28:59
not about the desktop exercise, it's about delivering.
29:04
And I think if the project professional of today goes about
29:08
their work in that manner, that says it's the outcome and the
29:11
output that we're focused on and the process and the procedures
29:15
there to guide you. I think that's what's going to
29:18
create a vibrant project profession for the future.
29:20
So don't expect to learn it straight away.
29:24
Don't expect to get it right first time, but learn from it
29:28
and don't be fearful. You know there'll be people
29:30
there to support you. Be curious, be curious, have
29:35
ambition and really own your career because it can be really
29:39
varied and really extensive in projects.
29:42
You could be building a nuclear power station, you could be
29:45
building the next hospital for the NHS, you could be building a
29:50
new railway link through Eastern Europe.
29:55
You could be building anything you wish around the world.
29:58
You could creating a solution for the future so the
30:00
opportunities are plentiful. Take it with both hands and
30:04
enjoy it. Yeah, enjoy.
30:07
That's definitely good advice. I love that it's all about
30:09
learning and growth, and I think it's been a theme through the
30:11
conversation today. I always remember someone saying
30:14
to me, Adam, where growth stops, decay begins.
30:17
Maybe that's a a suitable quote to share in this nuclear focused
30:22
discussion that we've had. Gareth, thanks so much for
30:26
joining us and thanks to everybody for listening and
30:29
watching and or watching. We'll be back in a couple of
30:32
weeks, but in the meantime, you can get in touch with us at
30:35
apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk or if you're watching on Spotify
30:40
or YouTube, do leave us a comment directly under the
30:42
video. So that's it for this episode
30:44
and we'll see you next time. Music.