APM Podcast

Emma meets Steve Gilligan, a programme manager who’s playing a critical role in the world's first decommissioning of a nuclear fusion machine. He works at Culham Campus, just outside Oxford, home to the Joint European Taurus, or JET, a tokamak machine where some of the world’s most important nuclear fusion experiments have taken place. But now JET’s days are over and Gilligan is tasked with taking apart and reusing and retrieving valuable resources from the tokamak. Using robots through remote handling is a key part of his focus. Steve shares what it’s like working on such an exciting and world-leading project, why humour is key when it comes to high-risk project management environments and why it’s always worth celebrating those project successes. Get in touch: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Professor Adam Boddison in conversation with the Head of the Government Property Profession, Lynda Rawsthorne. Sitting within the Cabinet Office, Lynda is responsible for the strategy for the whole government estate, which covers everything from hospitals to courts and offices. She describes her role as engaging, encouraging and motivating the 7,000-plus professionals who make up the property profession in government. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

In the third and final part of our series on the National Trust, Emma is back at Dyrham Park near Bath to meet three project management apprentices who all started at the Trust in October 2022 and are nearing the end of their 18-month apprenticeship programme after sitting APM’s Project Management Qualification. So, what’s it like to be an apprentice in an organisation that puts project management at the heart of what it does? What have they learnt so far, what projects have they worked on and where might their future career take them? Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

In episode 2 of our three-part series on the National Trust, an APM Corporate Partner, Emma finds out about the Trust’s urban programmes and its work in renewables. As well as visiting Stoneford Community Garden in Dagenham, East London, she meets Jo Dmitri, a Senior Programme Manager leading a team of nine project professionals as part of the strategy work the Trust is doing in London to connect green spaces. Finally, Emma speaks to Dee Nunn, who works on the charity’s renewable energy investment programme, which is focused on achieving net zero by 2030. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

In our three-part series on the National Trust, an APM Corporate Partner, we find out how the charity has brought project management close to its organisational heart. In episode 1, Emma goes behind the scenes at Dyrham Park, a 17th-century mansion near Bath, which recently underwent a multimillion-pound transformation project. She meets Mike Hudson, Head of Strategic Planning, Project and Programme Management at the National Trust, and Senior Project Manager Tim Cambourne, who takes her on a tour of the house. Find out more about APM’s Corporate Partnership Programme at www.apm.org.uk/corporate-partnership-programme Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Rachel Baldwin is Head of Programme and Project Delivery at the BBC, where she leads a team of 115 people tasked with a huge variety of IT and technology programmes – including a brand‑new home for the Beeb in Birmingham and creating the largest orchestral recording space in Europe in East London. But while Rachel is now a seasoned project professional, she started her career as a documentary film maker. Among her credits are One Life: Pregnant in Two Wombs and Mr Trebus’ Life of Grime, which was nominated for a Broadcast Award. But how did Rachel make the career switch and what lessons did she learn along the way? Listen on to hear her chat with Project writer Andrew Saunders for the upcoming spring issue… Resources: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/gtsKdROi1Gbhttps://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/yQIpeyRi1Gbapmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

What’s it like to deliver life-changing medical research projects that address health problems facing communities, change health options and outcomes for patients, and improve the lives of people living with disease? That’s the remit of Dr Karen Skinner, Chief Project and Portfolio Officer at not-for-profit Life Arc. Join us as she sits down with Professor Adam Boddison, Chief Executive of APM, for an in-depth conversation about project management in the charity sector. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Emma meets Dame Inga Beale, portfolio director and former CEO of global insurance giant Lloyd’s of London. Dame Inga was keynote speaker at APM’s 2023 Women in Project Management Conference. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Ever wondered how to balance work and family, how to strategise your career and how to network effectively? In this episode, we’ve compiled some of our highlights from APM’s Women in Project Management Conference 2023. These sessions focused on how project professionals – women in particular – can take their career to the next level. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Professor Adam Boddison meets Baroness Valentine. Having started out working in corporate finance in the City in the 1980s, in recent years Baroness Valentine has had what she describes as a “portfolio career”. Her current roles include Chair of Heathrow Southern Railway and Co-Director of Place at Business in the Community. As of 2005, she also sits in the House of Lords as a cross-bench member, with a current focus on levelling up. She was also formerly on the boards of both Crossrail and HS2. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

We look back at our favourite moments from the podcast in 2023. It’s been another action-packed year in which we’ve welcomed guests from across the international project management community. We kicked off 2023 with an episode on bringing empathy into the workplace, and since then we’ve covered topics ranging from the rise of artificial intelligence to the can-do mindset of Icelandic project managers. But there have been a few episodes that really stood out to us and which performed particularly well with listeners. So in this episode, we share our ‘top five lessons from the year’ in the form of short extracts from these episodes. Contact: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

In this episode, Emma meets three project professionals with a deep interest in artificial intelligence (AI) to consider what impact this technology is having right now on projects, what it might hold for the future and what project managers should be doing to adapt to this brave new world. Joining Emma are: Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

In this episode, Emma is joined once again by Professor Darren Dalcher of the University of Lancaster. Few people have studied project management as closely or for as long as Darren. In a career spanning more than 25 years, he has become very interested in the reasons for project failure. When it comes to agile, Darren was there from the start when it was being experimented with in software development. Who better, then, to explore the origins of agile and its impact on projects? Contact: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Emma meets three women to talk about menopause in the workplace. Two of them are project professionals – Rachel Jackson of Anglo American and Jo Roberts of the DfT – while the third, Aly Dilks of Simply Menopausal, is a nurse specialising in menopause. The guests share experience and advice for those wanting to find out how to best deal with being menopausal, and how to support colleagues going through menopause. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Professor Adam Boddison meets Martina Blake of the UK Space Agency. Martina heads up the agency’s Office for Project and Programme Management, which she set up in November 2021. She explains that you don’t have to be an astronaut or scientist to work in the space sector – there is a huge variety of roles in project delivery and beyond. And as with other government departments, the UK Space Agency has signalled its commitment to enabling its project professionals to gain formal accreditation and meet their career ambitions. Contact: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Professor Adam Boddison (APM Chief Executive) in conversation with Kris Baldy, Army Portfolio Director at the UK Ministry of Defence. Kris shares his journey through the ranks of the civil service, including his rise from admin assistant to portfolio director, and how he, in his own words, "stumbled into project management". Projects and programmes, Kris says, are central to tackling the main challenges facing the Army, including the modernisation of vital equipment. None of that is possible without a pipeline of talented project professionals entering the Ministry of Defence, and Kris tells Adam about the department’s approach to growing and developing its project talent base, while reminding us that you don’t have to be in uniform to deliver projects in the Army. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Emma meets Peter Simon, a Director at Lucidus Consulting and a member of the APM Risk SIG Committee. He is co-author of a new APM report looking into opportunity management as part of the overall project risk management process. The findings reveal notable areas where what is defined in textbooks and standards do not match what’s happening in practice. Contact: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

In June, APM held its annual conference in Birmingham under the heading of ‘Change Changes’. The event explored how the project profession must adapt to the changing nature of change itself in a world of increasing uncertainty and complexity. It emphasised the enormous contribution that projects can, and do, make to forging a cleaner, safer, more prosperous and more inclusive society. In this podcast, we’ve compiled some of the key insights that emerged from the first stream of sessions at the conference, which was focused on the transformative impact that projects can have both on individual lives as well as economic, social and physical landscapes. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

Emma meets Beth West, CEO of East West Rail, a transport project that will open up a corridor from Oxford, through Milton Keynes and Bedford, to Cambridge and connect the UK’s two leading life sciences and tech hot spots. Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk

In this episode, Emma meets Jo Jolly, Deputy Director and Head of Project Futures at the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, who recently spoke at APM's Change Changes conference. Everything is touched by projects, Jo told the audience. The UN Sustainable Development Goals should be actions for all our projects: we can do these things if we want to. Listen to hear Jo share how project delivery can be transformed for the better by embracing data and human collaboration and so improve society and all our lives. Resources: Project Data Analytics Community Solutions Portal: https://www.solutions.projectingsuccess.co.uk/ Transforming Infrastructure Performance: Roadmap to 2030: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transforming-infrastructure-performance-roadmap-to-2030 ‘Boston tidal barrier, UK: adapting to climate change and delivering social outcomes’, https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/full/10.1680/jcien.20.00069 Contact us: apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk