Games for a digital age

The last region in the switchover plan, London, moves to digital terrestrial television in April 2012. Bronwyn Austin, PMO manager Ofcom Olympic Programme, explains how PMOs across the board are working to clear the airwaves in time for the worlds greatest sporting spectacle the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

As part of the bid for the London 2012 Games, the UK government committed to providing all spectrum requirements (thats radio frequencies for the uninitiated) for the Games. This task falls to Ofcom who manage the already heavily congested London airwaves.

Programme governance is always important but in this programme it has an even greater relevance. Senior management of Ofcom, aware of the need to deliver the government guarantees to specification, within budget and of course to an immovable deadline, are rightly watching the programme like a hawk meaning rigorous planning, risk management and reporting are required. Ofcom already operates dedicated PMOs for several of their significant programmes of work, and, recognising the value of this approach, put in place a dedicated PMO.

The programme needs by necessity to work collaboratively with a wide variety of stakeholders. This is a challenge at the best of times, but is compounded by the profile all things Olympic demand and command. Ofcom is one piece of a colossal puzzle and bringing all these pieces together into a coherent programme of work requires extensive programme management by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).

Strong PMOs have an umbrella view of the programmes and projects they support. PMO professionals, by the very essence of their roles, do not work in the often problematic silos seen in individual workstreams. Instead, they are able to identify the links and dependencies across workstreams, programmes and indeed organisations.

Strong ties

This role is proving very valuable in the multilayered PMO environment of the London 2012 Games. The Ofcom Olympic Programme PMO has developed strong ties with PMOs across interdependent Ofcom projects, within LOCOG, into the Government Olympic Executive and beyond that into programmes supporting Digital Britain for both LOCOG and the government are aiming to stage a Games for a Digital Age.

A key link for the Ofcom programme is that developed with the Digital Switchover programme run by Digital UK. The switchover will be complete before the Games begin and this allows Ofcom to maximise the supply of spectrum for key applications for the London 2012 Games. Responsibility for monitoring this key dependency lies with the PMOs within the Digital UK and Ofcom Olympic Programme. Regular reviews with relevant parties feed into dependency matrixes, risk management processes, programme reporting and stakeholder communications well beyond the two core programmes.

Regular communication between PMOs brings an understanding of when the planning of various activities is taking place, and therefore when Ofcom should feed in or extract information and support. This co-ordinated planning effort reduces duplication, and helps avoid rework that occurs when gaps or inaccurate assumptions are uncovered later. In a programme such as this there simply isnt room for over-runs in time or budget.

It takes an army of dedicated and motivated professionals to bring the Games together. No one programme can do it alone and the role PMOs are playing across the board in linking the programme plans and processes is critical in this diverse environment.

Now how can we plan for gold medals?