Who
A $625 million project alliance between a state government-owned statutory authority that controls much of the water system in the state, two leading global private design engineering companies, and a major construction, contracting and services provider to the infrastructure industry.
Challenge
To design and build a 70 km pipeline capable of transferring up to75 billion litres of water per annum from the Goulburn River to Melbourne Water’s Sugarloaf Reservoir against pressure from a cost and schedule perspective. In addition, this complex project had to be delivered through some of Australia’s most sensitive ecosystems, and required significant community relations and consultation due to strong community opposition (including intense protests of landowners), and significant additional cost to ensure the highest environmental standards (including stringent bio-security) requirements were met.
Solution
To establishing a values-based culture of collaboration, safety and high performance throughout the alliance, coupled with a clear and energetic stakeholder relations program. This also included conducting a range of organisational development interventions, such as:
- Design and deliver a leadership development program for all team leaders.
- Develop and communicate clear key result areas (KRAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs) for the project.
- Design and deliver sessions on the principles of extraordinary performance for all the alliance teams.
- Conduct one-to-one performance coaching sessions throughout the project across the alliance.
Results
- The approach adopted succeeded in an environment threatened by intense public and media interest.
- New benchmarks were set and the extra effort helped the alliance achieve a completion date five months earlier than scheduled and under budget.
- This project became the Alliance Contracting Excellence (ACE) Award winner.