During June we’ve seen the G7 summit come to the UK, particularly Cornwall.
Have you ever wondered at how this might be approached from the perspective of managing a Programme of works?
Here at Serocor Projects, we have taken the time to have a think about it and come up with a summary of what we think would be key features and products that need to be delivered as a result of it.
We’ve split these into two categories:
• Strategic – a project opportunity to showcase or deliver a product or message
• Transactional – a needed service, required as part of a large scale operation.
Let’s start with the Strategic:
Part of the reason our Government get excited about having the G7 on our shores is that it’s an opportunity to put the UK in the world spotlight from a tourism, environmental sustainability and trade perspective.
But how do you bring this together?
Bringing the G7 together as a programme is never going to be easy;
• Environmental targets set as part of our commitment to being ISO20121 and carbon neutral by 2050 has an entire host of subproject commitments that need to be covered off.
• Ensuring the summit itself is delivered in the most environmentally sustainable way, using local resources to supply the food, transport, services and people will have been a high priority.
• The G7 response to the Covid – 19 pandemic global crisis and how we move the world forward in opening up borders again.
• Leading the conversation and highlighting the need for global gender equality.
• Huge global tax reform in ensuring global companies are required to pay at least 15% tax in the countries in which they operate.
• Planning the economic recovery of the nations, ensuring it’s driven forward in a globally conscientious without trying to cut environmental or health standards.
Thinking transactional:
Bringing together the G7 summit is a series of moving parts, goalposts that constantly move, and of course dependant on so many variable factors.
We know some factors can be managed from a risk perspective, such as:
• Accommodation for the guests.
• Transport to and from.
• Meeting venues
But actually, when you think about the broader logistics it starts to open up into significant risk profiles:
• Security – where is the threat? What is the threat? What do we know about the threat (more importantly what don’t we know about the threat?)
• Accommodation – for the thousands of support staff required to ensure that such a high profile event goes without a hitch!
• The weather!! Media and photo opportunities in the sun – what if it rains?
• Food, anyone having worked in catering will tell you of all the things that can go wrong in food prep or the supply chain.
• Ensuring every location visited and every photo taken represents the UK in the most positive light, ensuring that it’s an advert/an opportunity to sell the virtues of the UK. It takes logistics and housekeeping to a whole new level!
We’ve only really touched on a very small number of subjects required to make an event like the G7 happen.
It will massively depend on your point of view but we suspect a great deal of this summit will have been pulled together using a waterfall approach (trying to predict the outcome of everything on time). We think there will have been space for a hybrid approach, areas such as the constant security threat changing will have needed a slightly more adaptive approach as well as media coverage items.
If you’re interested in understanding how a hybrid approach might support your organisation then drop us a line, we’d be happy to listen to the complexities you’re facing and offer support.
Comments are closed.