How Auckland’s largest infrastructure programme used P3M3® to adopt a best practice culture.
Client
Industry
Transport and Rail, Capital Works and Infrastructure
Our Role
Co-design and deliver a programme and project management maturity assessment and roadmap for phased maturity uplift.
Services
Independent Assurance Advice, P3M3® Maturity Assessment, Project Health Check
Overview.
The largest transport infrastructure project in New Zealand’s history, is a game-changer for Auckland.
The Auckland ‘City Rail Link’ is a NZ$4.41billion programme and is the largest transport infrastructure programme ever to be undertaken in New Zealand, allowing the rail network to at least double current rail capacity.
Auckland rail transport growth statistics suggest that by 2035, City Rail Link stations will need to cope with 54,000 passengers an hour at peak travel times, rather than the original estimate of 36,000. The City Rail Link programme is being governed, managed and delivered by City Rail Link Limited, a joint venture vehicle established by New Zealand Commonwealth government and Auckland Council.
The new underground rail link is a 3.45km twin-tunnel up to 42 metres below the city centre transforming the downtown Britomart Transport Centre into a two-way through-station that better connects the Auckland rail network and the citizens of Auckland.
City Rail Link Limited engaged PM Solutions to undertake a customised P3M3® maturity assessment and a target deep-dive governance health check, which would provide the organisation to better understand its maturity and performance across portfolio management and project delivery and allow City Rail Link Limited to demonstrate its capability as the future mega- infrastructure ‘organisation of choice’ for New Zealand governments.
Business need.
Measure and improve maturity across the management of critical projects and organisational governance, processes and controls.
The business had an immediate need to both measure and improve its maturity across the management of critical projects and its overarching organisational governance, processes and controls, so as to better place the organisation in a position where it could be seen as the ‘organisation of choice’ for future New Zealand public infrastructure works for the New Zealand Commonwealth government, local councils and transport agencies – post delivery of the Auckland City Rail Link programme.
To enable the development of a ‘current state’ of maturity, the business required a maturity assessment across the key perspectives aligned with the Axelos P3M3® maturity model assessments. The business specifically required a maturity roadmap to enable the organisation to maturity to a mutually agreed and ‘realistic’ timetable.
Challenges.
The capability to be ‘organisation of choice’ for future New Zealand public infrastructure works.
The business and delivery programme were challenged in a number of areas, primarily as a consequence of its ‘uniqueness’ and its pure existence. The delivery vehicle was established as an exemplar model for the efficient and effective provision of public infrastructure through central and local government collaboration, and had adopted a number of existing practices for governance, management, reporting, controls and delivery, which we seen as optimal, considering the massive undertaking that confronted the programme.
The business required its maturity to be rapidly evolved to ensure it had the internal capabilities to successfully manage the ‘Link Alliance’ to deliver critical underground tunnelling, new stations, supporting infrastructure and long-term maintenance.
Results.
A customised P3M3® assessment that focused on programme and the project management levels of maturity – evaluated against global best practice for maturity assessments.
P3M3® Maturity Assessment
PM Solutions developed a customised approach to the facilitated P3M3® maturity assessment, which was co-designed with the newly established PMO and the Programme Performance and Controls Director.
The bespoke approach focused on the programme and the project levels of maturity, appling all seven P3M3® perspectives and vast majority of threads. The PM Solutions Australia assessment team undertook a detailed desktop study of the existing frameworks, documents, reports and processes and the, key delivery stakeholder interviews across seven in-flight projects, in addition to detail interviews with the senior leadership team, CEO, PMO and foundation Alliance Partners. Information gained from the framework and document analysis, was tested against participants in the interviews.
The PM Solutions team used gained information to confirm, or amend, the maturity assessment scores and delivery a very well received maturity assessment report that included a phase and prioritised maturity improvement roadmap.
