Design in a Year – Accelerating Capital Design
How might we fast-track capital design whilst balancing risk, value and innovation?
THE TIME TAKEN TO COMMENCE CONSTRUCTION FOLLOWING APPROVAL OF THE OUTLINE BUSINESS CASE AND ITS HANDOVER TO CAPITAL DELIVERY IS EXCESSIVE. THE CORE CHALLENGE IS TO ASSESS HOW DESIGN MATURITY CAN BE INCREASED EARLIER - SPECIFICALLY THROUGH THE CONCEPT AND DEFINITION STAGES WITHIN 12 MONTHS - AND TO IDENTIFY WHAT MUST CHANGE ACROSS THE END-TO-END PROCESS TO ENABLE THIS.
WHILE THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOLUTIONS TO MEET BUSINESS NEEDS FOLLOWS AN ESTABLISHED PROCESS, IT IS CURRENTLY NOT EFFICIENT AND RESULTS IN UNNECESSARY DELAYS. THE CHALLENGE IS TO REDESIGN THIS PROCESS TO BE SIMPLER, MORE STREAMLINED, AND ENABLED BY TECHNOLOGY AND IMPROVED WAYS OF WORKING. THE OBJECTIVE IS TO CREATE A DESIGN DELIVERY MODEL THAT ACCELERATES THE PROGRESSION OF CAPITAL PROJECTS FROM INCEPTION TO CONSTRUCTION, WITHOUT COMPROMISING QUALITY OR GOVERNANCE.
The progress of projects through concept and definition stages are hard to make at pace across the scale of our portfolio. There are often many stakeholders involved, with different opinions, lack of or inconsistent information, completing needs and looking at things differently.
This is against a backdrop of needing to balance Capex based decisions (which is how we are primarily funded, and how the LWE incentive model works) with Totex thinking, as higher capex solutions may be in the longer term interest of NWG (balanced with our ability to afford that short term), whilst the reverse may be true.
This sprint is not intended to be a theoretical discussion on established frameworks, nor a reflection of “textbook” approaches.
Instead, it is deliberately pragmatic and action-oriented, focused on embedding innovation and new ways of working to improve design across the portfolio.
Recognising that design is currently constrained by complexity, fragmented information, and multiple stakeholder perspectives, this sprint will focus on simplifying how options are developed, presented, and reviewed to enable faster, more effective outcomes.
The primary objective is to design, prototype, and establish a simple, intuitive methodology that supports clear, consistent, and efficient decision-making - enabling teams to move at pace while maintaining alignment and governance.
Together, we will:
- Map a process flow
- Review existing artefacts
- Consider the practicalities of Who / How / When / What are considered
- Consider how digital tools could assist
- Consider how risk & value and innovation are introduced/how/what
- Identify what data sources are missing and who holds the datasets
- Produce a plan for implementation
Participants will collaborate through a series of structured and interactive sessions to:
- Quickly align on the core requirements of Design in a year
- Review the existing artefacts
- Understand the existing problems
- Map out a new process
- Identify what needs to be true to make a step change
- Bring it all together
By the end of the sprint, we aim to deliver:
- A Process Document
- Identification of new technologies that would assist
- A plan ahead to implement
- Project management in asset investment delivery
- LWE Partners
- Sponsors & Operational colleagues
- Heads of Service
- PMO
- Engineering
