What they asked
Our client was the Dutch national road and waterway authority, who manage a portfolio of annual works on national roads and waterways worth approximately € 5 billion. They reached out to us to simplify the process of annually updating their five-year portfolio and quarterly updating their eighteen-month portfolio. They also wanted help in resource planning for these activities. In essence: they needed to simplify their existing bottom-up process of capturing and matching demand and supply for over 4,000 projects and contracts. This simplification also needed to be underpinned with new and appropriate ways of working.
What we did
We designed and created multidisciplinary portfolio teams per region (7x) and per network (sea, waterways and road). We implemented ways of working for each team to drive a five-year integrated agenda of works, budget, timing and resources. We also reduced incoming inputs to the overall 5 year portfolio from several hundreds to twenty.
What we accomplished
We established integrated portfolio teams in all seven regions. Regional portfolio managers and financial planners – as well as portfolio managers from construction and maintenance production units – now cooperate within these integrated teams. We also closed the gaps between works planning, financial planning and resource planning. And we successfully split mid-term plan adherence from short-term scheduling flexibility.