As the water sector works through a raft of complex transitions – including resource recovery, climate adaptation and decarbonisation – the rise of program management has the potential to unlock more beneficial outcomes with the same level of investment.
While a project-by-project approach is nothing new to industry, AECOM Global Business Program Management Chief Executive Drew Jeter said program management offers more clout to large-scale transitional works involving multiple moving parts.
“Program management is a disciplined, systematic approach to orchestrating resources, including time, money, people and information, across a collection of projects that have something in common,” he said.
"The purpose of program management is to realise benefits that otherwise wouldn't be achieved if projects were implemented individually.
"Industries of all types are pretty comfortable with doing projects, and if delivering a set of projects is going to get us where we need to be, then we don't really need to take a program management approach.
“Program management really comes to the fore when there is a higher calling to achieve something much more that is not business as usual. And this type of work is on the rise.”
Jeter said that, in the Australian marketplace, organisational leaders are realising that achieving multiple benefits across various areas of business is going to require a different approach to how works are organised and delivered.
“This is why we are seeing a big interest in approaching all this work differently; it’s why program management is getting a lot more interest these days than it did about five years ago,” he said.
AECOM Water Business Line Director Laura Fluck said program management is showing up in pockets around the Australian water sector, with the development of integrated water management in Sydney’s west a key example.
"Some of the issues facing cities like Sydney go beyond service levels and costs, but also involve the key role water will play in the facilitation of urban cooling and livability. Achieving these extra benefits really requires an integrated water management approach,” she said.
“In Australia, we know that achieving sustainable water management will require a more holistic approach that considers all the elements of water together, rather than in silos. We need to look at all of the elements together if we are going to achieve better outcomes.”
“Utilities have never before been asked to deliver more for communities and the environment. At AECOM, we believe we can achieve more of these benefits if we take a more programmatic approach, rather than looking at all of these objectives in isolation.”
While opportunities to lead with a program management approach abound across various industries, Jeter said the Australian water sector is particularly well suited to programmatic thinking due to the cyclical nature of regulatory accountability and action.
“In general, the water market lends itself better to ongoing program management than any other market, especially when it comes to municipal water improvement plans and programs. Especially in places like Australia that have a regulatory cycle," he said.
“There has always been an embedded, cyclical nature to planning infrastructure investment in assets in order to keep service levels where they need to be, as well as keeping up with things like growth.
"Mandatory regulatory requirements tend to cut across multiple projects and can’t be achieved by doing one project, which means they needs to be embedded in how Australian water service providers do all of their work.”
The great thing about regulatory requirements and expectations around service levels and accountability in Australia is that programmatic approaches are already in the mix, Jeter said.
“Australia is well positioned to take on more of a program management approach to new and complex challenges because it’s not going to be hugely disruptive. We’re not starting from scratch,” he said.
“It’s really all about improving the delivery of projects and linking everything up – taking masterplans and considering the benefits of delivering those multiple projects in a programmatic way. It is all about being more cost-effective and doing more with less.”
Jeter said infrastructure investment is not going down in Australia, nor anywhere else in the world, as sectors work hard to keep up with population growth, increased urbanisation and environmental concerns.
“We are going to see an increasing number of opportunities to take advantage of a program management approach to deliver value for infrastructure owners that need to make big investments,” he said.
"Another key driver is the increasing awareness of the need to lead all of our work with ESG principles, which is driving folks to have bigger aspirations other than delivering projects on time and within budget.
“All of this is adding complexity to what constitutes success in how we are managing the funding we have available. In the face of this complexity, program management is our strong suit – it’s about utilising the right experience and tools to integrate these complexities.”
Jeter said program management is also hugely beneficial when integrating across sectors, like water and energy, while also meeting the ESG expectations of communities and governments.
“Sustainability, social equity and all of the great aspirations we now have are things that the old project management approach just can't really meet. It’s tougher to do on singular projects than it is to do on a big program,” he said.
“I always tell clients: if you are going to spend $5 billion doing some work over the next 10 years, you won’t notice the additional cost of spending a bit of time thinking about how you can also achieve other benefits, while you are still getting return on investment.”
All of these issues are exactly why AECOM made a conscious decision three years ago to marshal its deep technical expertise and global reach to have a greater impact in society through program management, Jeter said.
“We firmly believe that committing to better program management is a way we can really contribute, not just to our direct clients but to society as a whole,” he said.
“With our global scale and expertise, we are uniquely positioned to lead this approach. We won’t be the only ones doing it, but it has been very intentional for us to commit to this space in order to help lead industry in providing much more value.”
"We are committing to a higher value use of our technical expertise and to become known as a complex integrator and advisory firm, rather than just a professional provider of services.”
While Jeter speaks to AECOM’s global presence, Fluck said the same goes in Australia.
“From a local perspective, I am lucky enough to wear both hats in terms of working across program management and water. And it is a really neat fit,” she said.
“We have lots of utilities in Australia that already think programmatically. The outcomes and benefits our Australian utilities want to achieve for customers and shareholders support a program management approach.
“The more we can apply program principles, the better outcomes we will have. And the water sector is uniquely placed within our community to bring added benefits, including facilitating circular economy more productively, tackling waste issues, and supporting environments.
“The water sector is involved in all of it. It’s not just a conversation about turning on a tap, it’s about creating better health and environmental outcomes and supporting prosperity for everyone. It’s exciting to be able to bring these things together to achieve much bigger impacts.”