Case Studies

How Method Grid has enabled capital project delivery at Provelio


The User

Provelio is a UK-based project management consultancy with expertise in strategic, capital-asset-intensive projects (often involving building, people and technological change). Specifically, they have a hard-won reputation for their successful management of many large-scale construction schemes. Founded in 2002, they have offices in London and Bristol and a team of thirty plus dedicated consultants. Their driving purpose is to help change organisations for the better; their client list includes public and private organizations – large and small.


Their Challenge

Of their own concession, construction-centric project management has a reputation for being somewhat stale and traditional. There is an anachronistic view that every new construction is completely unique: every new build is a prototype. Provelio reject this common view and have always sought to have a more systemised, repeatable approach to their work.

“People take refuge in the ‘nothing can be repeated’ mantra”, says MD Paul Wilson, “but, of course, this is nonsense – 80% of what we do is repeatable – clients know that – hence their frustration when their advisors start from scratch each time. At Provelio, we have systemised the 80%, so we can focus on helping our clients with the difficult, anomalous 20%; that is how we bring value to our clients.”

It is clear that this view has been long-held at Provelio – but the challenge was to move from their static, manual-based approach (two voluminous ring binders) to a dynamically-maintained central platform. As Paul points out, “… maintaining and updating our capital project delivery method was hard work, a version-control nightmare and – of course – no one, nowadays, is going to realistically walk around with ring-binders under their arms. We desperately needed a dynamic, central system – a place where we could easily store and continuously curate our approach … a system that all of our team would find easy to use.” 


How Method Grid was used

With much of their approach already documented, it was really easy for Provelio to transition over to the Method Grid Platform. Alongside other grids (for example, a training programme for new staff), the priority was to transition over their capital project delivery methodology.

The stage-based structure was already there – this, largely based on the RIBA plan of work. The grid themes reference key project dimensions; for example, the client office, user group, project management, cost management and design management. Within this detailed grid framework, they then built out a rich toolbox of relevant control elements covering everything from the user brief and project execution plan through to asbestos management. There are now over 150 such control elements; of course, not all are needed on every project – rather it has become an invaluable go-to-resource for every project manager in their business.

Each element captures key templates and best practice examples (links to files in their Sharepoint system) alongside guidance notes, other related elements and tagged experts within Provelio.

Figure: Provelio Capital Projects Manual grid

Figure: Project Execution Plan element within the Provelio Capital Projects Manual grid

“Of course …”, Paul points out, “our capital project delivery model is now forever evolving, forever improving. At regular intervals, we survey the team to ask what recent best practice examples should be filtered into this grid, what new client-experiences can we bring back to our central library.”


Video Case Study


The Benefits

The benefits to a project-centric consultancy, such as Provelio, from harnessing Method Grid have been manifold but they specifically reference four key areas.

Firstly, staff engagement. Method Grid has enabled their methodology to come alive on a dynamic, graphical, collaborative platform – as very distinct from their old, flat file based approach. This, in turn, has got their consulting team re-engaged in the act of consistently referencing the Provelio project approach – and – supporting its continuous enhancement.

Secondly, it has translated into time savings. As Paul Wilson relays: “This has been a significant business accelerator for us … not only does it get new joiners to the company up to speed more quickly, it has freed up huge amounts of my senior team’s time … as all of the firm can now easily self-access the right tools and templates in any client situation”.

Thirdly, it helps Provelio sell work through the powerful demonstration of their deep subject-matter expertise. Paul continues: “Method Grid has enabled us to easily explain to clients what they can expect from Provelio if they commission us as their advisors … there is a welcome understanding of our structured roadmap.”

Finally, Paul believes a core benefit brought by their adoption of Method Grid is that of clarity: “… not only do clients get a real clarity as to the Provelio way and what they can expect to receive from us … our captured capital project method also provides delivery clarity to my team … so there is a real consistency to that delivery promise.” This is, perhaps, the most compelling summary benefit for Provelio: “… such clarity facilitates service consistency … a point of real comfort to our clients. Now ‘nothing gets forgotten’ when a Provelio consultant supports your project.”

 

Not only do clients get a real clarity as to the Provelio way and what they can expect to receive from us … our captured capital project method also provides delivery clarity to my team … so there is a real consistency to that delivery promise.

Paul Wilson / MD / Provelio

Thousands of organisations depend on Method Grid to manage and deliver their services

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