Project Description:
Council’s Gateway Review program was implemented to objectively assess project status and quality in all disciplines, and provide support and advice to project owners and managers to assist them to deliver successful outcomes.
The program required that each significant capital works project be assessed by a panel including experienced independent project practitioners against a series of defined gates designed to ensure that the project was appropriately developed prior to passage through to its next phase. The assessments followed a rigorous procedure and timeline. As well as the obvious need for sound understanding and appreciation of all stages of project development and its critical success factors and characteristics, panel members required strong inter-personal relationship and communication skills, considering the wide range of interviewees for each project.
Project Details
Client: Brisbane City Council
The Challenge:
- In a compressed time frame, assess project status and fitness for passage through its gate
- Gates included: project proposal – strategic assessment; project mandate – business justification; pre-market business case – delivery strategy; post market – investment decision; and post-project outcome assessment
- Interview contributors and stakeholders to obtain information enabling objective and informed assessment
- Interviewees included environmentalists, communicators, general public, politicians and project participants
- Form view on project state and debate this through with review team-members. Reach joint conclusion on project status in the form of Council’s assessment classification standard
- State findings in logical and verifiable joint team reports
- Provide close out interview to project owners and managers on review findings and positive feedback on project strengths, together with identification of weaknesses, the grounds and basis for their identification, and suggestions for their resolution
- Strict observation of confidentiality obligations, especially between interviewees with varied vested interests
- True independence from Council’s operations
The Outcome:
Flagstaff participated as team-members in Gateway Reviews for a diverse range of projects including:
- Roads
- Iconic buildings rehabilitation and modernising
- Laboratories
- Sewerage reticulation schemes
- Public space developments
- Council program delivery processes
Review outcomes spanned the full spectrum from first rate projects to others for which improvements were recommended prior to passage through their target gate.
