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Getting Crossrail UK back on track and into the station

Jun 30, 2021
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Rail
Transit Trends

Key lessons you can apply to any project large or small

You're Mark Wild. You're running The Tube in London after stints at transit agencies around the world. You're tracking the progress of the Crossrail project creating the Elizabeth Line running east-west to bring people into London. And you know things aren't going well over there.

It's big news. The largest project of its kind and it's over budget and three years behind schedule. So what do you do?

You take the job to get the project back on track of course!

This week on Transit Unplugged Paul talks with Mark Wild, CEO of Crossrail UK about his career and how he's gotten the Crossrail project back on track and nearing completion.

Not a typical job

Taking the helm of a such a high profile project that is, literally, off the rails isn't something many people would consider. But Mark did, and he turned it all around. Crossrail might still be over budget (there are somethings that just can't be fixed) and it's coming in years later than expected, but Mark got it on track.

Crossrail is currently running field trials and handing over new stations to Transport for London (TfL) as they are completed. If things go to plan, the new Elizabeth Line will open in early 2022. It's a herculean challenge to get a project years behind schedule delivered at all. So how did Mark pull this off?

Good project management. Mark goes into the details during his discussion with Paul, but I'll hit the highlights here.

Part 1: Get the right team

The Crossrail project might be one of the most complex systems ever built. And that's what tripped up the first project team. They couldn't grasp the scale of the integration challenges. Trying to get systems to work with each other is tough when you have just one or two. Now, mix in dozens and you have the potential for real problems.

Mark took the integration challenge, modularized it so each part was easier to manage and, most importantly, he brought in the people. He needed people who could wrangle the intense integration challenge. That was only the way to move forward.

Key lessons: Have the right team and break the project into manageable chunks that can sync together later.

Part 2: Don't pin to dates and expect uncertainty

The first project team pinned themselves to a very specific date for opening including pre-booking Her Majesty the Queen for the event. This didn't give them wiggle room. They didn't have windows to aim for, they hard dates. Pinning to dates and not having a team who could adapt to uncertainty, got them in trouble early on.

Mark moved from a hard dates to windows. A phase would complete during a window of time--for example the window to complete and open is early 2022, not a specific date. He also brought people in who could work with a lot of uncertainty and fuzziness. It's pretty rare to have a project as big as this not run into some kind of hitch. That's normal. You need to be able to roll with what happens and adapt.

I've built and launched close to 100 websites (and written a few books) over the past 25 years and none of them went as originally planned. Something happens and you have to adapt. Sometimes you can't make the time window you were aiming for no matter what, that's how it goes. But if you plan like Mark did with modular sections and windows for completion, you stand a much better chance of staying on schedule because you've planned for delays and have room.

Key lesson: Plan for uncertainty and give yourself space to adapt.

Part 3: Bring people in and communicate transparently

The third thing Mark did was to bring all his stakeholders--the operators and partners--into the conversation. He opened the lines of communication so everyone knew what was going on. When something isn't going to plan, it's much better to raise the issue early than wait until a crisis. There's a big difference between saying "Okay, we've run into some issues and we might not make the window as planned for this component. How will this cascade through the project..." and missing the window and surprising people with the bad news when there is nothing that can be done to recover.

Connecting your team with your stakeholders and building a culture of transparency gives you options. It gives people a sense of ownership and control. No one likes to be blindsided by a missed deadline.

No one.

Key lesson: Communicate openly and transparently with your stakeholders. Keep everyone in the loop and raise issues before they are crises.

Paul and I were discussing this episode recently and we agree it's a must-listen for anyone who is working on projects big or small. Mark talks about getting this project on track so matter of factly it belies the enormous challenge it must have been to actually do it.

Next week we travel to Brazil!

Next week marks the beginning the changes we've brought for Transit Unplugged. We're doing another in-depth interview next week July 7th, and then on July 14th we launch with the first Transit Unplugged: News and Views segment.

Next week's show features the first of two episodes from Latin America. Paul speaks with Mr. Dimas Barreira from SINDIONIBUS about his work organizing operators together to have a coherent, singular transit system in the city of Fortaleza and surrounding region.


 
Tris Hussey is the Blog and Podcast Manager at Trapeze and Producer/Editor of Transit Unplugged. Tris is a best-selling author and former tech blogger who turned a passion for technology into a career. After two decades working at various technology, internet, and social media companies, he loves being able to marry his love of technology with his love of public transit at Trapeze. A self-professed transit nerd, he'll take the train to get anywhere if given the chance.
 
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