Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the childhood body for the project profession. Hi, I'm Emma, defeated. The editor project apm's quarterly Journal this. Our crisis talk season of podcasts. I'm asking project professionals to share their stories of managing adapting and pivoting their projects through lockdown and now during this next phase, as restrictions are, he's, so thanks for joining me in this episode. We'll be meeting Joanna Roland director of Her Majesty's,
revenue and customs. Covid-19 Response, Unit responsible for the Department's strategic approach. The pandemic. Joanna, is the senior responsible officer in charge of delivering the Chancellor's Flagship economic interventions. The job retention self-employment Income Support schemes as well as the new eat out help out and job retention bonus schemes. Joanna is also the head of the project delivery profession for a channel C and is a fellow of the association for project
management. She's been at the very heart of the government's response to the pandemic. So it was a privilege to get some time with her to ask what it's been like to be in the thick of it. If you want a detailed blow-by-blow account of how Joanna approach the photo project, please watch out for y'all to miss your project which will be landing with you in the middle of September. I spoke to Joanna and early August just after the eat app to help out scheme launch.
We pick up the conversation when she tells me a bit about what she was working on at the start of 2020. Joe, welcome. I'm not sure how you've managed to find the time to speak to me, but we're hugely grateful. Let's begin with. You. Tell me a bit about what you were doing at the beginning of the year. What projects are you working on? At the sort of 2020 which seems like a lifetime ago now? Sure. And it does seem like a lifetime ago. So 2020. I was leading making tax digital
for business. That's hmrc's Flagship program, which is intending to And all tax registrations digital, collect all the information digitally, but also more importantly, help small businesses, particularly manage their tax Affairs, more easily. And how was that going at the time? It's going really well. In fact, since I've left and been doing something different. They've just announced the new phase where they'll start to mandate the use of digital technology for income tax
registrations. So, so, it's picked up a lot of pace actually since I left, although it was busy at that time. So anything to do with the results of the projects, you've been working on as well at the moment. The success of those has that accelerated that those projects, one of the things working on these projects has really shown us is sometimes the limitations of the data we hold and certainly making tax digital has shown that the more Records. We hold the more instant access
to information. There is the more responsive the tax system can be. So undoubtedly, it strengthened the business case for making tax digital covid-19 struck, I guess March maybe earlier for you, but can you tell us what it was like in the early days of the crisis? I got a call, I think on a Thursday night from my then boss to ask whether I would Go and Lead, one of the projects that was coming out of the
Chancellor's office. That project was actually the self-employment Income Support scheme and the next morning. It emerged. There were actually two projects. The other one was the furlough scheme, as it's generally known, although it's their ctrs coronavirus job, retention scheme. Is its official name, had this phone call. I then by the Friday morning had a new boss, Melissa Tatton who's
been A supportive. And it emerged, there was a third part to this role as well, which was to coordinate the whole of the response to coronavirus across the department. So it wasn't just to project manage the schemes. There was also quite a leadership challenge in in, just at the coordination.
Everything from getting 67,000, people working from home to updating our policies and guidance and also to an extent Stopping some of the usual activity of the tax system, that just were not appropriate to do such as sending our compliance teams out to do home visits, Etc. So was it primarily about crisis management?
Then there were a few elements in the early days that was certainly crisis management, but I think the first thing I recognize coming into the Rival, was actually this was going to stay with us for While. And in a way, the last thing we needed was Crisis management. And what instead what we needed was very controlled leadership and management of this being a project person through. And through, I love a bit of governance. We all do governance is your best friend. It keeps you in control.
So one of the first jobs of that Friday, was to set up the governance structures both for the projects, but also the wider. Our organization to make sure that we could coordinate this in a way that was very controlled and not reactive or crisis management. Can sometimes mean that you know, you're all headless chickens and and and the high octane and and that generally doesn't drive the best decision making that said, the governance was kept light touch. So it was really important.
But neither was there time for for Or meetings, so I needed to put in place the governance structure that was able to be highly adaptive really, really efficient fairly light touch but have a iron grip of control around our projects and responses. How did you prioritize things there? Because a lot of new things were kind of landed on your desk and as you mentioned the whole shift
of working from I'm home. Plus those adrenaline-fueled days and also a lot of fear around what was happening. How did you manage to prioritize things so well, and how did you feel at the time? First of all, I I felt brilliant. It was, you know, it's what I love to do. You don't often get something so important, but such a blank canvas as well. All of this was brand new and needed setting up.
Scratch. And that was an amazing opportunity and certainly a bit of a career highlight for me the priority it was it was risk-based. So clearly the chancellor schemes were the highest priority and the furlough scheme was the highest of that because it was the most needed for the economy. So we had only four weeks to get that one designed set up delivered and then operational. The governance to allow the department to take the weight of the work.
But in a way that was coordinated, was the second highest priority for me. And then, to be really Frank about it. The rest was just really, really long hours. It's not the way you can work for long and it's not anything, I endorse but it was just necessary at that time. So I was 16 hour days was just The norm for the first few weeks. Tell me a bit about how the team came together.
You wrote a really great feature for the Autumn issue project explaining in detail, the approach you took to the project and something that impressed me from that was the sense of collaboration, you know, with many different kind of stakeholders inside. And outside. Was that something that just came about? Spontaneously, you had something called ruthlessly simple, which sounds a brilliant idea but was it for?
But she all had a very clear purpose in mind and kept things simple that they needed everyone to collaborate. There were three things that were very deliberate choices in those early days. So the first was to set up what I call a hub-and-spoke model. And this is where I literally grabbed from all corners of hmrc.
Just a handful. I think no more than about 10 or 15. Asked people to run the central project for see duress and then the equivalent for self-employment, but then we reached out across hmrc to get what I called accountable owners for all the different specialisms. So, you'd get somebody who specialized in compliance. You did someone who specialized in operating, our contact centers.
You'd get a lawyer. You'd have obviously the very important, very talented, digital teams all Those accountable owners, were were responsible for doing their bit completely empowered, completely trusted, but they could not make decisions anywhere other than, as part of that Central project. If they were designing an element. They would need to come back to the project just to make sure it
matches the other elements. So that was the first thing, this Hub and spoke model where the the people actually doing the delivery, we're empowered, but the control remained with the A central project was that of an approach you to used before in other major projects. I have in the past. Not with hmrc. I'm a great believer that projects should transcend normal structures and therefore not be pigeonholed into structures that they should work across an
organization. Because that's where you get the whole organization. Partaking as head of project, profession for hmrc. It's been a long-running ambition of mine to set up projects in that way. And here was my chance. It was my opportunity, the, the other two elements to how we approach. This was the ruthlessly simple. That was actually a phrase coined by our CIO, very talented, man, and to whom a lot of the successes Duty and who certain what's his name, Mark.
Denny. He was fantastic at keeping us, all on that principle of ruthlessly simple. And it meant that we did not get scope. Creep. What we did notice is in the early days, when four weeks to set up a major multibillion-pound scheme like this felt impossible, keeping. It ruthlessly simple was actually quite easy. People got the concept as we started to sort of, you know, make astounding leaps in progress. That's when people started to that sort of.
Can you just syndrome? Started to Nippon Mark and I had to be all over that. And actually, that was our third principle. You need to bulldoze out the way the blockers and sometimes that is sometimes you know, it's a ask politely sometimes. It's actually just really quite assertive structures in place to make sure that you are not letting anything distract you from getting the job done. Done. How did you feel you daunted? Or were you excited in that four weeks, running up to the
furlough scheme? And then of course, the self employment, scheme went live three weeks after that. I think I had every emotion that a human being could possibly have. It was I you know, it ranged from thoroughly, daunted, even terrified actually thinking, you know, how can the logic Of being able to do this successfully in such a short period of time. Sometimes just didn't stack up.
Even though the evidence was thankfully, before us I had Elation excitement, you know, it was the whole Gambit of emotional response in that time that period of extreme crisis has passed a bit in business in general, but do you feel you bonded quite closely with the people you are working? Beyond that. It's somehow changed that level of collaboration. Oh, incredibly. Absolutely. Yeah. Really close. And there is people that I've
never physically met. That's the other in credit because hmrc's such a massive organization. And of course, we had our suppliers capgemini as well as very close partners with us, and there are people that I had never actually physically been in the same room with that. Now feel like close friends because You bombed, everything was done at PACE, including, you know, bonding with friends. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Hopefully you'll meet them soon. Yes, indeed. Well, we always joked about.
This is going to be one big party. Yeah, normally and projects, you know, after a successful launch of something, you know, as a program director or SRO one of your duties is them to buy the round. Selena celebrate. So I can tell you. I owe a lot to drink. I'll be bankrupt. I'll need a team to bailed. My financial situation out. I owe that many drinks to that, many people.
So you've told us about the way you approach the projects and I'd like to pin you down to find out how you are able to get them off the ground so quickly because a month start to finish is pretty amazing. So with a little bit of hindsight, and I know you're still in there. Thick of things. But what would you say worked in your favor? What were the things that the success factors and helping you to get them off the ground. First of all, most was the senior sponsorship right up to
our permanent? Secretary Jim Hera and the chancellor himself. They were crystal clear. This was the number one priority in no way was this competing for time or attention from other things? Secondly, somebody who's much better at maths and I am worked out that the cumulative hours. We all worked. Actually, it was an equivalent of something like a 12-week project because just the evenings weekends extra overtime, the we were running red hot every single one of us
on that scheme. And you can't sustain that that is reserved for crisis only and should be reserved for crisis. Only. The other thing is we used agile. To its absolute best effect. And that was quite new, was it? We've used agile as an approach in hmrc and and indeed my other programs from previous roles that I've done used agile a lot. I do assert though that very often and I include some of my previous programs. We don't use our job properly, though.
How do you mean agile when done? Well, is even more. UND than waterfall all too often agile is seen as enormously flexible and it is, but it's within controls. So, for example, we launched a minimum viable product. So on the 20th of April, when the fellow scheme went live and then 13th May when the self employment scheme went live. They were the the minimum viable products that we could put out to the public. Behind the scenes. There was still quite a lot build to do.
For example, our internal users, to be able to take manual claims, or for some of the post claim compliance to be done. So if it wasn't essential scope for day one, it was on a backlog. Ready to be developed on Day, 2, 3 4, Etc. That's good agile.
Good agile. Also, we didn't skimp on quality, the customer absolute came first and We even had time in our schedule to do highly limited private betas with customers so that we could always get their feedback and it absolutely had to control every step of the way. Every decision was recorded. And as I said before every decision came back to the project group to make so that if a decision was being made by the digital teams that had an impact on say the customer service team.
Is that decision was well known and discussed, but the proximity from decision to development was minimal. So sometimes I'd be in a Chancellor meeting. I'd get a decision from the chancellor and almost assumes that decision had been made. I've sent the message to someone who's developing the code. And so our proximity was really, really close and that's great agile, and the new person is
well with such seeing you. Support was decision-making, made easy for you was I kind of a clear line in decision-making. Could you make them quite fast? It was always a matter of judgment when to escalate a decision to the chancellor or to our executive committee rather than make it in program and that that judgment fell to me to make. Hopefully, I've got the balance right, what I would say though.
It is unusual in the Civil Service, particularly for delivery and project people to be in the room with the chancellor. Normally you would have the policy development do that, and then the, with a degree of sort of viability discussion, put in the room, but it's quite late down the line when people like me are engaged to say, right, how do we deliver this? Then what we do? Had here was the delivery right in the room and delivery considerations. Therefore were an influence on
policy design. I'm not going to say it always shaped it because ultimately the policy must do what the chancellor intended it to do. But the chancellor was able to hear first hand either, the risked time scale or the complexities. There were some things that we were just have to say, we can't do that. That's certainly shaped the Chancellor's thinking and decision-making. This is partly because delivery was the priority for that policy.
So that the delivery are you giving money to the people who needed it as fast as they could. That, that was really what this game was all about and that you needed to be in the room. Absolutely. So, normally government policy that delivery timeline is sufficiently. Far ahead to allow this a bit more.
Cascade approach of policy work and then delivery get hold of it. And then it's but actually that creates problems because inevitably by the time you go to deliver it, there are things that there are complexities in there that need navigating that creates later today. We couldn't afford for that to happen. So it made it faster and made it far more efficient. And I think you know, I can't speak of him, but I think the chancellor appreciated having that advice.
On hand, were there, any other success factors that you want to mention? I know for example that the it systems in place already and the hmrc service for for customers was already working very well. And that must have been some of the work you're involved with previous to these projects, but that must have contributed to the success to have that already in place. We've got a really, really good technical team. And as I say, Mark, Denny's, come in, and With a few colleagues.
Really shaken up the system for a long time. We've had an IT strategy to create a new platform of far more agile platform that we can develop microservices into and eventually also swap out some of our Legacy systems and head of Duty, we did to take the very deliberate design decision early to reuse existing technology not Got to go and buy and try
untested. We also took the decision not to integrate more than we had to into any of our heads of Duty system because it's the integration that takes the time but also it's the calling off different Services all ads load to the system and and the volumes. We were getting at one point on self-employment. I think on day two. We were getting so many thousands and thousands of hits every minute. It was actually more than Google get as a platform.
This platform needed to be an absolute Beast. We started calling it a Ferrari. I think we've just upgraded it to me a beast now, because the volumes it had to cope with, but our technical teams and our Architects were excellent. At really thinking through ways to minimize load, on the system. So that all the The power was pointing to coping with the volume. Did it fall over at all. Now, it had hadn't at also day two, at that really piqued mind.
We were a little bit worried. We had a about a scary half an hour where steam was starting to come out of the engine, but they got control of it really, really quickly. We used front-end tools, which allow people to queue for the And let them in an order. So we deployed that and that brought it under control. But, no, we've had, we've had a few external issues. I think an external service went down which had some minor impact on us, but no, their system
coped. Brilliantly everyone in our technical department is odor, huge amounts of congratulations, but didn't you receive some praise from Tim berners-lee? Yes. I think we Reduce. Yes, it's been incredible. Actually, although all the praise is slightly tinted with an element of shocked and surprised and there's been some brilliant comments about well, I never thought I'd be thanking the taxman and things like that.
So but we love it and everybody in hmrc is immensely, proud of everything that has been achieved. Well, I mean, I sit you're right and I think it's boosted the reputation of hmrc massively and we want to continue that at. So we were Launching just before all of this happened something
called a health of a tax system. So what does a healthy tax system looks like and it's one that's fair transparent and that the public trust and we know that the way we conduct ourselves with our customers is an important part of that trust in a tax system. So and it's really fortunate. That timing because now we do need to still be collecting tax. And there are many people out there who may default on their
tax payments. Just because of the economic circumstances are in. It's really important that we treat our customers with compassion on things like that. And and I think so the great reputation we've earned with proud of but we know we need to work. To maintain it. Have you measured the success of the covid-19 projects you've been working on, so we've got lots of the metrics you'd expect so usage. How much money is gone out the door?
And we'll do a lot of analysis particularly on tdrs later down the line when we can see, you know, how many businesses of sort of retained employees. And that's that's linked to the employment. Entre tension bonus that the Chancellor's announced what I would say though, my personal measure success has been the customer feedback. We've had some heartbreaking. Tales. There was one gentleman that called from his sick bed in
hospital. He was suffering with covid was unable to work and the self-employment Grant was a real lifeline and one of our advisors because he can access Computer took his claim over the phone and just when I heard that story, it brought tears, to my eyes. It's just things like that, make it worth it.
And that's the success for me. Well, if you don't from the whole experience has anything positive come from this or anything that surprised you lots is come from, there's lots and lots of and some of it's not surprising, some of it's actually what we've probably known for years, but need to just now get on with things like Like getting delivery advice upfront things like working more collaboratively. We are undertaking Lessons Learned in hmrc.
We always do after any project but I think this will be a bit of a Tipping Point for us to set our projects up slightly differently. How do you mean? So a to work agile properly as I described earlier, but be it's the way we set up the teams. It's The the role of a project leader and project, managers is about the control, the pace and the coordination, but it's the experts should do the delivery.
Sometimes the way we set up our programs means there's a lot of people standing between decision-maker and deliverer and it can slow the process down. So I think we need leaner more streamlined program structures one. Ones that are genuinely collaborative and ones that cross cut the organizational structure. There are some enduring lessons that will be your hope is that they will be subsumed within kind of normal work in practice in the future. Absolutely.
And indeed our lessons. Learn our intern, feeding the civil service reform agenda that cabinet office and indeed the Prime Minister himself is leading. What have been the hardest things you've had to contend with professionally? And personally, the hardest thing has been keeping you resilience up, i-i'm mentioned to you. There's this old adjective not
hearing the pilots cream. And and so therefore I think at the hardest points, it everyone else around me understandably was, you know, had their And of losing their nerve or getting a sort of the Jitters of just how enormous this was, and how risky it all was. And of course, as the leader of this, both of your teams, but you across the organization, you'll see, even your seniors. You're the one that has to stay Resolute and show complete confidence, even if inside your
knees are shaking a little bit. And that, that was, that's been the biggest challenge for out that because you need to look after yourself in it. And that's in a way working from home. At the time, was I think what really saved my resilience because I had my family around me, every given moment of the day and if I just needed a breather a couple of minutes to catch my breath on something, you know, you could go and sort of give you kids a cuddle or
find the cat. It brings you back down to the ground. Yes, absolutely. And my husband certainly needed his own fair share of resilience putting up with me. I'm sure what, what, what did you enjoy? The most from The Experience, Elder. People it without doubt. So when the service is go live, we actually for the first two, we put them live a couple of hours early because you start to just see a little bit of traffic come through even though, The
publish time was 8 a.m. And it's and we're using chat bars to sort of communicate all the time. And so I was up at 5:30. The sun's Rising as the services are launching and there are just a few of us that were got particularly close all on chat and it was like, you know, no feeling quite like it their sense of togetherness, but excitement and fear and It was just incredible.
I wanted to ask you more. Generally, if you think the experience of the past few months will give project managers and the project profession more of the recognition. It deserves within large organizations. I hope so. I really you know, and that's why I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak with you. I'm really, really Keen to promote the fact that it was project management disciplines that were Real part of this success and it was project
management advice, right? At the point of conceiving the policies that was part of the success. That isn't to distract when hugely talented policy teams and all the people who did The graft, but project management, coordinates it and and is the thing up, that turns the ingredients of success into success, but do you think the Civil Service? Has a way to go to Value delivery more and I think that Tipping Point has now come in the private sector delivery is everything because until it's
delivered. It's not making money or serving the customer or serving the purpose. We do need to have more of that in civil service and that's definitely something being recognized as part of the civil service reform. Finally. I'd like to ask you what you're working on right now. If you can tell us about the go live. That you're doing today and also the winding down on the furlough scheme, which will be in October. So just what do you think the next couple of months will hold
for you? So as you say the eat out to help out scheme is now live. I've used it myself plenty times this week, but businesses will need to claim back the money and it's important that we give them opportunity to do that quickly because of cash. Constraints. So, the first Claims can be made tomorrow. So today is the final testing checking and retesting of the
technology of the claim service. And we've got a few private beta customers using it as we speak, that will run to the end of August. But as you say, we've also got self-employment, second grant for that is available as of two weeks time, and then we've got the wind down. Town of both, the self employment scheme and the job retention scheme. That's going to keep us very busy until the end of this calendar year at least. Well, I just want to say thank you Joanna.
It's been brilliant. Talking to you. Thank you. Wish you good luck and some time off at the end of the year. Yes. Thank you. Thanks again to Joanna for joining us and to you for listening to this final episode of opm's Crisis talk series. Look out for the upcoming new podcast, season and project innovation. And restarting, the economy to come in. The following weeks. This podcast has been brought to you by APM the chartered body for the project profession.
For more information a p.m. Visit, a p.m. Dot org.uk.