David Whitmore

CEO Advisor, MIGSO-PCUBED

David is a project & programme management practitioner with a unique mix of safety critical design, procurement and safety case expertise. He has a proven track record of transforming organisations and leading teams of people engaged in complex high technology projects. Prior to joining MIGSO-PCUBED and following 7 years in the high voltage power transmission industry, David held director level positions with Rolls-Royce, Horizon Nuclear Power and Atkins working on a range of major projects including design, manufacture, construction and in-service support projects. He led the project and programme management function for Rolls-Royce’s Submarines business and introduced innovative collaborative working arrangements with client organisations and supply chain companies. In Atkins David led the nuclear engineering function including a secondment to Horizon Nuclear Power as Engineering Director. He then established and ran the Nuclear Major Projects business for Atkins. In MI-GSO|PCUBED he is a Strategic Advisor to the CEO and is developing new thinking in the delivery of major and complex projects.

Session: The four reasons why modern projects fail and what to do about it

Nuclear power stations at Wylfa and Moorside; HS2’s Northern leg; the NHS's National Program for IT; the Scottish Police Authority’s IT system: they all never saw the light of day. Even projects that are delivered are often branded failures – seriously over cost and late: Edinburgh Trams, the Scottish Parliament Building, Crossrail. Why are modern projects so hard to deliver? Is there a common thread? Based on research carried out by MIGSO-PCUBED we think there is and four root causes consistently come through when looking at the difference between successful and unsuccessful projects: the quality of business-to-business relationships across the project’s organisations, the speed of decision making to address critical risks, the adoption of modular design solutions and finally, the extent of digital integration leading to improved collaboration. In this presentation I’ll delve into these topics in more detail and present suggestions on what the project team can do to address them.