and I'm a fool to do. Good morning everyone and welcome to our webinar on mega projects. My name is Helle Fallhold. I'm a specialist and partner in implement on large scale transformations that mega projects also are. And we're really delighted that you've taken the time to join us this morning because mega projects are very close to our hearts and we worked with it for many years and develop an approach and a comprehensive framework that we work with. And this morning we have like three points on the agenda. As you can see here. First of all, I would I will welcome my colleague, Jacob Meyer, who's an expert on mega projects and has worked a lot with developing our framework for mega projects. And then we are really thrilled to welcome Mikkel K. Jensen from Mitroselskabel. Mikkel has been a project director for the M4 project, which is something as rare as a success. a mega project that has come in on time to budget and actually delivered the expected benefits. And Mikkel is going to talk about what really made the difference for that project. And that might not be what you expect. So how's that for a cliffhanger? But anyway, what we will welcome is if you would like to ask questions, please put them in the chat. We might not be able to answer all of the questions during the session, but we do promise to do a question and answer sheet that we will be able to answer all of the questions during the session. We will send out after the webinar. So we will choose some of the webinar. So we will choose some of the questions, time permitting a lot, but probably not. We won't. We expect to have more than we can handle while we're working here. So Jacob is going to go first and he's going to talk about what constitutes a mega project and the challenges that we see mega projects very often face when we work with our clients. Then Mikkel is going to come and talk about the M4. And at the end, we are going to have a question and answer session where your questions will come into play. And I think that will be the intro that we will do. So we will give more time to our guest speakers. So please join me, Jacob. Thank you, Helle. Yes. So hello, everyone. And as Helle said, I will give you a chance. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we've put up four dimensions of where you can score the complexity of your mega project. First of all, we talk about mega projects having a transformational scope. It can both be that the scope of the mega project changes because mega projects are often done over 10, 50, maybe even 20 years. So the demands for the mega projects might change. And mega projects also have a transformational scope in the sense that they can transform societies of the organization. that are executing them. Then we also see that mega projects that are executing them. Then we also see that mega projects often have what we call innovative solutions. So maybe new technical solutions or solutions that have never been seen before in that exact combination or context. We also see that mega projects, they impact the society. And they are dependent on approvals, regulatory agencies, and so on. So you need to be very active in engaging, involving, and managing your stakeholders because there are stakeholders because there are stakeholders because there are a lot of them. And the last part is what we call the human side. Because mega projects are these large scale endeavors, you have a lot of people working on them across companies, across cultures, and even across countries. And let's look at the performance of mega projects. What we see is mega projects, they are over budget, over time, and under benefits again and again and again. And that is what we call the iron door of mega projects. And if we dive into the data, we can see that half of mega projects, we can see that half of them actually manage to stay on budget. But if we combine that and also look on the schedule and the timely delivery, we see that only 8.7% of them actually delivers on budget and schedule. And if we also look at the expected benefits, we see that only 0.4% delivers on budget, time, and expected benefits. So when we talk about mega projects, it's all about reducing the complexity and uncertainty and uncertainty and uncertainty and on the other hand, trying to enhance simplicity and predictability as much as possible. And I will talk a bit about risk management. That's a crucial part. Stakeholder engagement. And also how to handle and manage the uncertainty around your mega projects. If we look first at risk management, and if you have a risk matrix, and that is what you think is risk management, then you're already on your way to failure. You need to think of risk management in a more broader and a more holistic way. So you integrate risk management in every process, every decision in your mega projects. The second part is stakeholder engagement. As I said before, there are a lot of stakeholders when executing mega projects. You both have stakeholders at a societal level, can be citizens, NGO, civil organization, local communities, and therefore also media attention. You can also have or you have a lot of market actors. It can be global vendors that you need to be able to do. You can also have to do. You can also have to do. You can also have to do. You can also have to do. You can also have a lot of political actors. As I said before, regulatory bodies that need to give you the exact approvals that you need or legislation, governments, and so on that you need to handle. And then the last part is to handle the uncertainty around your mega projects. Because you cannot remove it at all. It is surrounded by uncertainty and you need to figure out how to do. How to handle and manage that. And one way could be that you accept as a premise that you have uncertainty and therefore you need to base your decisions or some of them on assumptions rather than facts. And when you do that, you need also to lock your assumptions so you know if that assumption doesn't hold true, then you need to redo or remake some of the decision that lies upon that assumption. So these are three crucial parts and you need to integrate them into all processes and all your focus areas in your projects. And we've come up with five central focus areas in mega projects. First is you need to realize your benefits and your business objectives. So ensure that your benefits are aligned to your overall business objective and that you've also designed the target operating model for your mega projects and you know what capabilities do we need to do what capabilities do we need to operate the mega project afterwards. Then you also need to set up your governance framework and manage your project properly. So ensure that you have end-to-end responsibility, ensure that you have the right mandates and that you can actually make the crucial decisions within the time needed in your mega project. Then you also need to design your solutions to be resilient and ensure quality in them. So when you think about your solutions or deliverables, make sure that you are resilient to change or adaptable to change because as I said, your mega project will probably go on for a lot of years and they will be changing demand for the mega projects. So ensure that they can adapt to the changes or be resilient to them. Then you also need to ensure sourcing, contracting and we call timely delivery. So sourcing is all about getting the resources that you need because you're probably at some point need to need to scale up your mega project really fast. Maybe you need to scale up your mega project really fast. Maybe you start out with 5, 10, 15 people analyzing, planning, investigating and suddenly you need 50, 60, 70 people to complete your mega project. And on the other hand, you also need to, as I said before, negotiate with global vendors. So how do you do that? How do you procure when you think your mega project is the biggest thing in the whole world, but for these global vendors, is just a part of their portfolio is just a part of their portfolio. And then lastly, you need to lead your project and create a culture. So you need to set up a vision. You need to find a narrative and the core story for your mega projects and look at your mega project as a new company. And what would you do if it was a new company? That is what you should actually do to lead it and create a culture in your mega project. And now we will actually like to hear you and get your perspective on these five central focus areas. And in a few seconds, a poll will pop up on your screen. And we want you to reflect for a second or two, which one of these do you find most challenging when executing mega projects. And the poll will go on. So you can also vote while Mikkel is presenting. And then we'll follow up on this poll in the debate that we're going to have afterwards. And now to something that I've been waiting for. So Mikkel, will you please join me here on stage? Mikkel was the project director for the recent M4 line extension of the metro in Copenhagen. So you could say a true mega project in the middle of Copenhagen. And not only that, Mikkel actually managed to stay on budget, stay on time and deliver the expected benefits. So you could say Mikkel is a kind of unicorn in the world of mega projects, or at least you are to me. So would you please give it a go? Thanks a lot, Jakob. I have been part of the M4 Sydhavn line from the very, very beginning when we started the design. And just to start off, I'd like to tell you a little bit about what it actually is that we did. The M4 Sydhavn project is a new extension to the current metro system in Copenhagen. The metro system consists of an M4 M4, an M3, an M1, an M2 line. And this is an extension to the M4 line in Copenhagen. And it's a 5.7 meter long stretch, new alignment in here. We have five stations. And the end of the line is actually a new transport hub where we connect to all the different, let's say, international train lines. We have regional trains and commuter trains and now also a metro train. So five new stations and a new transport hub at Copenhagen South. The project was started. It went into, let's say, into the ground in 2018. And when we started up, we had an ambition. Our goal was to open up in 24. And in our own, let's say, timescale, the timescale set summer of 24. And our project opened for operation the 22nd of June, 2024. So basically right on time. Our budget for our project when we started up was 10.4 billion Danish kroner, including all the reserves that we have. And when we ended up doing the final account this last fall, the budget came in at 8.6 billion Danish kroner. So on time and on budget. And we as a client, Metro Salescape, we actually design, we also build, and very important, we also operate the metro. And as part of our business model, we have to generate our income by getting passengers into our system. So a big part of the delivery and a big part of the success of this is if we get passengers into our systems. And for the time being now, since we opened in 2024 in June, we'd had more or less twice the amount of passengers as we expected in our system. So we actually got the value that we were hoping for and a bit more on our project. And for a big project like this, I'll get into it a little bit later on, you're always faced with challenges. This has a long, long time span, mega projects. And of course, you enter into challenges here. And for the M4 Sudhavn line, we had quite a few huge challenges. One of them is in, we went into the ground in 2018. And in 2020, in March 2020, our Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, went on the TV and basically closed down Denmark because of a corona or COVID-19. This, of course, created an enormous amount of challenges for the projects. And despite of this, we ended up where we were on our project. So when we finished this project, we looked at ourselves and said, this was actually, we were quite, let's say, content with the results of this. So to make sure that we learn from what we do right and also what we do not right, we asked Implement to come and do, let's say, a third-party assessment and evaluation of what actually went on into the project. And Implement came up with a report that is available for all of you. But the five critical success factors that they are pointing at is, one, the cooperation based on trust. And the project also had a flexible and solution-oriented attitude to our partners. And third, they were talking about experience and competence in the organization. Fourth, also, this is something that Jacob was speaking about before. The company structure is actually in, let's say, supporting all of these ways of working and getting competences in here. And the last but not least, the steering and governance that Jacob also mentioned before. So before going into the details, I would like to just turn it around a little bit by starting my own reflections on this. Based on this, it starts with the company structure and incentives. As I said before, we build or design, build and operate. This means that our main goal is to deliver something not just on time and on a budget, but also something which creates the value for our customers. And it also makes sure that we continue and we actually have a company structure where we continue to build new projects. And we had earlier projects. We built the M3 and M4 line. And we were still building when we were starting up the new material line to Sydhavn. This meant that we can actually get the benefits and we can make sure we get the lessons learned from everything we learned from the earlier projects and built into the new projects. We also get the information from our customers, what works and what does not work, so we can implement that into our design. This is a key factor to supporting our, let's say, new projects. What also is that based on this experience and based on making sure that we have continuous projects, we can keep key competences in our own staff in our own staff in the client organization. And this is a key factor to making sure that we can make this a success, to have competent people who can support, challenge and discuss with our partners when we do these projects. And then for me, a really, really essential part of this is we jump up to this because if we don't go into these projects, we have a lot of partners and each one of those are a key element into making sure that we can make this a success. This means that if we have one main contractor, which, let's say, doesn't perform, everybody in the project and the whole project suffers. And the same with any other partners and us as a client as well. So getting all these competences into the house, including contractors, suppliers, our owners, and a big part of it is also the authorities to make sure that we all work for the common goal is key to the success. So what did we do in the project? We spent an enormous amount of time in the beginning of our projects to make sure that we were aligned on the common goal. We know and we understand that the, let's say, the interest of our partners, the contractors, the suppliers are not exactly the same as us as client. But we spent some time on finding out how do we make sure that we can find some mutual benefits for all parties in the way we'd like to work. And this required us and the competences for us to change our attitude a little bit, to actually change the way that we'd like to do some of the small designs. So we had to make, be flexible and we had to be, let's say, solution oriented. And also to try to listen to our partners, what value they brought into the project. So what we did is, is to make sure that we had a focus always on, on, on the common goal, not what was built into the project as contract requirements, but we were flexible enough to say, okay, this contract requirement, we can be flexible on if it serves the final purpose of actually delivering on time, a quality project, a product, and also, within the budget. And this trust is something that you can only, let's say, establish if you give a little bit from the client side as well. So we, of course, have to make sure that once we enter into challenges and we have to find solutions in here, you need to be trustworthy. You need to make sure that we understand the interest of our partners, that they have to be, let's say, in order to be cooperative and to, and help us find solutions. And especially for, for example, when Corona 19, 19, uh, 19, uh, hit that we would be, let's say active in supporting them to find these, uh, solutions. So our, let's say, competent own in client, uh, client organization, we're able to take discussions up, find new solutions. We redesigned stations. We redesigned, let's say the, the, the, the time schedule to accommodate and find solutions for, let's say, being stopped for more than, uh, four or five months because of the Corona. So we have to change the virus, or we have to change a lot of this in here. So this trust based thing with our, uh, contractors is what actually enabled us to overcome these big challenges we had in our organization. The same trust based was what, what, what, what we used to have our discussions with the stakeholders, as Jakob mentioned before. This means, uh, that for example, the authorities, that they had to change some of the requirements. We had to have an open discussion with them. So we have to, uh, what, what are the possibilities of changing the design, changing the time schedule and getting the permits that we need to operate a metro. So the whole thing around to make sure that everybody sees and understands the common goal of the project to make sure that you put your side on the other, uh, yourself on the other side of our partners to understand what are their interests and always to be able to, let's say, focus on the common goal instead of own interests. So that was the key part for our project. So in very, very short, from my own perspective, cooperation based on trust is key experience and skilled employees are the only thing that makes it possible to have, let's say, a mutual discussion on common solutions. And last but not least to, uh, to, uh, to be able to find these common solutions, we need to give the right roles and responsibilities. to people who actually know what they're doing. This means that people out on site were given the mandate to find the right solutions instead of pushing everything up to the management. So, so in turn, none of this could happen without a good cooperation with all our partners and to make sure that all our partners saw the benefit in helping us reach our goal. reach our goal. This is, uh, let's say, uh, let's say an update and a start for a discussion we will have over here later on with Jakob and Helle and I will move over there now. Welcome to the Q&A session. So, uh, so, uh, so right now we are first gonna pull up, uh, the result of your voting. And I'm gonna have to look over at the screen to, to see who the winner really is. And, uh, much to my surprise, actually, there's no clear winner in, uh, in your voting. There are three that are a little bit ahead of the, of the others, but, uh, they're pretty much equal. So, if you, if you see the, the ones that scored the most are the realized benefits, the two, the two, the two, the ones that scored the most are the realized benefits. top one, probably not surprising for a lot of you. And then the last two ensure the sourcing and finally lead the project and create a culture. So when we look at that, does that surprise you, Mikkel, that those are the three that scored the highest? No, I think all of them are really, really essential to make this work at all. But I'm quite sure. And I think we are blessed in Metro Salescape for the sourcing is that we have, let's say, we build and operate many things in here. So we have a lot of sourcing in-house as well. But I'm sure and I know that other mega projects are not blessed in the same way. So it's not a big surprise. So you talked a lot about experience when you told us about the M4 project. How did you actually deal with incorporating experience into the project? Because everybody says we need to learn from experience and it's really a lot harder than it sounds. Yes. I think, first of all, we have a systematic way of actually looking back at what went right and what went wrong. And this is part of what we're doing now also on the SIDHON project. So we do sit down and we discuss what went right and what went wrong. And it's actually quite, let's say, interesting to look at because what we do is that this didn't go right. So what do we do? We change the contract. Many times we often find it's not the contract and it's not the contract, the requirements. It's how we, let's say, implement the contract with the contract out, which is very often where we go wrong and not the actual requirements in here. So it's the approach in the construction phase where we look at what could be changed. That's part of it. But of course, one of the, let's say, the main part of the lessons learned is also design-wise. So we try because we have a, let's say, we have a lot of experience also to make sure that our partners trust us enough so we can give away this experience we have to our partners. So they actually buy into the experiences we have as well. So it also requires trust to make sure that they learn from our experiences as well. Oh, yes, absolutely. But Jacob, if you are not that fortunate to have extensive experience in your organization, what do you do? First of all, I would then go out and find the experience resources. So if you have them in your own organization, as Mikkel do, and you've done these projects before, use those people. If not, go out and then hire those experienced people from other mega projects out there because you will find out that airports and super hospitals and metro lines have a lot in common in regards to the characteristics of mega projects and the crucial challenges. And when you find that experienced people, or if you do not find them, then stop looking at your own mega project as something unique. As I said, these projects have a lot in common across sectors and types of constructions. So reach out to some of them, give them a call, set up a meeting and learn from their insights and experiences. Okay. Good advice. We have a really good question here from the audience. So I think this goes for you first, Mikkel. So how would you describe the decision structure in the organization? On what level were decisions made? Or to what degree is the organization top-down versus autonomous? I think it's very, very important because if you have skilled people, and we do, to put the mandate to make the decision to the part of the organization where the skills are. And for us as an organization, we need to bring these skills in for the design. We have some skills to give them the mandate. So our designers, our architects are giving a really, really broad mandate to the design. design them within the scope that they have. But actually, very, very often, what we did in the construction phase was to make sure that the people on site were giving a very clear mandate. And also, it's very clear where the mandate is not. And that made it a bit more, let's say, comfortable for our organization to actually solve the issues on site. It is timely, really, really, let's say, It's not very good time-wise to make sure that everything goes up to the management. We lose time, we lose flexibility, and we also lose trust if we don't endorse our people on site to actually be able to solve these challenges we have there. So to make sure that it's clear what they can do and what they cannot do is an essential part of this. So, and this, of course, you can set out rules, but it has to be adjusted weekly when we get there. Was this right or not? Do we need to change it a little bit? It's very, very difficult to set out rules that will make it that will, let's say, last throughout the whole project. So continuous adjustments of these items in here. That sounds very ideal. Is that what you see all the time, Jacob? No, it's not. And it's often there where people face the greatest challenges when executing and planning mega projects. Because when we look at organizations, you can see that they all have some sort of governance and they have project models and so on. But when we talk about mega projects and the scale of them, we see that it's on a whole other level. So you need to make sure that your governance is actually geared to plan and execute. mega projects and have those clear mandates as Mikkel said. Because if you use your regular governance framework, for instance, then you might need to clear all the things up to the top level management in your organization because you have budgets of billions. So have those clear mandates so you ensure that decisions are made from the right people. And then you need to have a very short distance from your project to the top level management in your organization. So you also can, you say, put those decisions up and be made timely in order for you to progress with your mega project. But it's a challenge, I would say. Very often people perceive roles and responsibilities as something bureaucratic and we are just generating paper. Did you have access to management, Mikkel? Easy access? I did, yes. As a project director, you do have easy access to management in here. And it's also clear that you have a, and it goes away. It's not trust between the, let's say, the project and the contractors. It's also to the management, of course. So you need to make sure that you are aligned with the owners and the management and the board in the decisions that you do make to make sure that you keep and you continue to have this mandate, which is very necessary. And it's not just mandate at the construction level. It's a mandate at the project management level towards the board and towards the owners, which has to be, let's say, nursed and taken care. And that's what we're taking care of continuously. This is interesting. It's Lasse. He has asked us, how will you use the experience grains regarding trust-based cooperation on future contracts, for example, the newly approved M5? I don't know if you're going to manage the M5. But we are definitely looking into this one. And we're also looking into different, let's say, contract setups and what we're doing. Now, we have another project for the M4 going to the Nordhound at the moment, an extension, which is starting now. And because we really, really feel that this, let's say, collaboration model works well, that we've endorsed it even more. And we're trying into this early contractor involvement contract, which is starting up now on the M4 line Nordhound, which is actually really, really, let's say, based on collaboration and trust between the partners. Yeah. And I noticed that Mikkel didn't say whether or not he will be in charge of the M5. Maybe there will be a cliffhanger for later. Yeah. We will see about that. Yeah. So, how about making sure that new partners come on board and to create this trust-based environment so that you can create the autonomy that Mikkel is describing? How would you introduce new partners in such a way, Jacob? First of all, and I think that's something that Mikkel and the guys on the M4 extension did very well, was to sit down and talk about, so what are my incentives to be on these mega projects? And in that, find some common ground, some common goal between you and your partners. And also to be honest, so what do I want to achieve from this? And what do you want to achieve from this? And that should be the starting point for your cooperation together over the last few years. For the coming maybe 10, 15 years or so. And that must be really challenging if you're onboarding a new partner that you haven't worked with before. Because it goes both ways, as you say, Mikkel. Definitely. Okay. We have a peer has asked us, have your lessons learned been implemented in your management system? So I assume this is for you, Mikkel, as well. To which extent has management system processes been used or been helpful? I think for the project that we're talking about now, the Sydhavn project, we, let's say, changed the management system to this approach that we've done, we're using now. So it's more or less, we are more or less fixed on the management system now. And we are implementing a new management system for our new projects based on the experiences that we have from Sydhavn. So I would rather turn it around. So this is what we're doing onwards from now on. Yes. So what you're saying is you are actually adopting the management system for the concrete project that you're going to run in the future? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. So have you experienced that, Jekyll? Yes. So often we see, and I also mentioned before, that your regular governance and project management models and so on in organizations is not sufficient to manage maker projects. So you need to design and set up a governance that can actually make sure that you can succeed, you can plan and you can execute your maker projects. But because maker projects are rather rare in organizations and also can be in some way different from each other, you also need to tailor that, you can say, governance to the exact maker projects, to the local conditions, if you want. Yeah. Interesting. Laura here has given us a question as well. Given the scale and upfront planning typically required in maker projects, I assume a waterfall approach is often used. However, considering their long duration, the large number of stakeholders involved and the potential for significant changes over time, it is feasible to apply more agile or hybrid methodologies in such context. What has your experience been in managing this balance? So I think we're going to start with you again, Wigel. This is sort of business as usual now. Well, I think our main, let's say, when we look, the experience that we have, we can plan very much and we can have very detailed plans and schedules and contractual setups. We know from experience, we know from experience, we know from experience, it's that we have a lot of focus on interfaces between contractors and we have a lot of contractors on our maker projects in here and also correct alignment of buffer in each activity in here to put that in and to try to put it in the schedules and the planning is very essential. And it's actually, when you have maker projects, it's not just the activities within the construction, it's the approval processes, it's the approval processes, it's the owners, it's hearing notices from third parties, it's neighbors. All of these parts can have an impact, which is a little bit difficult to foresee completely in here, but you need to make allowance within your project to take care of these things in here. And you're completely correct. Allower is that none of this is possible to foresee completely in the beginning. So allowance for the unforeseen is so important. Jakob, what is your experience when you say agile or hybrid working practices in maker projects to clients? How do they look when you say something like that? They're a bit frightened, I would say, because if we talk about agility and so on, people often think of digital projects, so system development and so on. So I would rather not use the word agile in my conversations with the different project directors and maker projects, but see, okay, so how can we actually manage this, as I said before, uncertainty or changing demands and so on out there. And I think two things are crucial. The one thing I already mentioned is to work with these, work with the uncertainty and manage it through assumptions. So in order to progress, you need to make assumptions to say, I think the future will look like this and this is what I base my decision on. That's the first thing. And then you need to lock those so you can go back and redo it if you need to. And the other thing is scenario planning. So you need, when you have make a project, you need to plan for different kinds of scenarios and look at, so how will that affect my time schedule? How will that scenario affect my budget? And you could also combine that with the, you could say, the overall risk picture for your project. So we have, okay, we have these three different scenarios that we are working on in our mega projects. Okay. So that is not usually what people are thinking about when they look at mega projects. Oh, we need to be flexible. Yeah. So I think this, let's say here we have, has the Metro Salescape also evaluated the management style of the different contractors? With, with, with a goal as to learn also from this aspect. Well, I would rather say now, as I mentioned before, we are implementing this early contractor involvement, which is going on right now, the, the tendering process for the early. And this means that we will bring in the contractor and the consultants and the architects and the client in the same room very, very early in the contract. And we have a collaboration phase until we go into construction. So to answer your question, this is what we do now as part of this tendering phase to try to evaluate who would we see ourselves having a good collaboration with now. And it's actually what we base our tendering and our evaluation of the contractors on is their ability and our ability to collaborate with each other in this collaboration phase. That would be an interesting evaluation model. But we are running out of time. Final question. And you need to keep your answer short. So on your next mega project, what's the first thing you would do? And I'm going to start with Jacob. Okay. Then as much as possible, I would say, but jokes aside, I would make sure to have a very active and dedicated project owner to my mega project. So a project owner that works for the mega project and can give me easy access to decision power in my company. Okay. I think I'll take a little bit of a different perspective. I think we need an organization to set up an organization up and make sure that we all buy into our common goal and vision and make sure that this is really, really pushed down into every bone of every people and resources that we have in the organization. Thank you. Thank you. So thank you to all of you who joined. Thank you for all the great questions. We're going to have a long look at those and answer them and make sure that you will have the questions and answers in your email, the one that you signed up with when you joined us this morning. So thank you very much for joining and have a wonderful day. Thank you.