From 2015, Crossrail Ltd managed the railway programme against an aspirational plan designed to push suppliers along, presenting it as the critical path to completion. Yet the National Audit Office’s 2019 report found that work on a detailed, realistic plan built from the tasks themselves didn’t begin until late 2018.
The central London section had been due to open in December 2018. Crossrail Ltd announced that August that it couldn’t meet the date. According to the NAO’s account, the plan hadn’t adequately accounted for dependencies across the programme, leaving an unreliable picture of the remaining work and the risk of missing the opening.
A target can press people to move faster, but a plan also needs to explain how they’ll finish. Crossrail’s schedule was doing the first while being presented as evidence of the second.
The reset repeated the assumption
The NAO’s 2021 update found the April 2019 schedule and budget unachievable. The programme was less complete than Crossrail Ltd and its sponsors understood, and the new management team had to start largely from scratch. Contractors met around 30% of milestones through 2019 and early 2020, while plans assumed higher productivity.
The pandemic added cost and delay. Crossrail Ltd used the construction pause to improve planning with contractors, who met around 90% of milestones between September 2020 and April 2021. The different conditions mean these figures can’t establish how much of the improvement came from planning.
They do give a smaller team a reason to question a finish date that depends on delivering faster than it has managed so far. Compare the milestones due in a recent, relevant period with those accepted on time, then examine the missed ones and any additional tasks discovered along the way. Does the proposed date allow for those difficulties, or does it assume they’ll disappear?
Last month’s percentage won’t give you a reliable forecast for a different mix of tasks. It can, however, expose a schedule that depends on an unexplained increase in the team’s pace.
Completion includes the joins
Crossrail Ltd and its contractors underestimated integration and assurance. The 2021 report described around 500,000 physical and digital assets requiring checks individually and together, alongside operating manuals and processes for the whole railway.
A list of finished components can leave that effort out of the estimate. Each item may have been produced while the person taking over still needs access, instructions and time to test the combined result. Before accepting a finish date, include those tasks and allow time to correct whatever the tests reveal.
The question is whether the people receiving the result can use it for its intended purpose, with the checks and instructions they need.
The person who can change the promise
The Department for Transport and Transport for London set Crossrail’s scope, budget and timetable as sponsors. Crossrail Ltd delivered the programme, but the 2019 report found that the autonomy granted to it left the sponsors with few effective contractual levers late in delivery. Governance changed in October 2020, giving TfL’s Transport Commissioner ultimate accountability for completion, according to the 2021 update.
On a smaller project, the person managing delivery can show why the date is no longer credible and recommend a course. Agreeing a change to the date, scope, funding or acceptance conditions requires the people with authority over those commitments. If nobody knows who can make that decision, finding out belongs in the remaining tasks too.
Opening the railway also required a decision about what could follow later. In 2021, the NAO reported agreed post-opening tasks whose cost and necessity remained uncertain. It recommended a handover plan recording deferred tasks, responsibility and progress monitoring. TfL records that the central section opened on 24 May 2022.
At the next progress review, put the promised date beside the tasks accepted in a comparable recent period and the tests still to be run. Where they don’t support the date, take the evidence to the person who can change the commitment, showing what remains unfinished and the decision you need.