The new Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), which brings together the Major Projects Authority and Infrastructure UK, provides expert support for the government’s major economic projects.
The Project Initiation Routemap is a product of government working collaboratively with industry and the University of Leeds, through the Infrastructure Client Group. It provides a framework for the delivery of large or complex infrastructure projects.
It provides an objective and systemic approach to project initiation founded on a set of assessment tools that help determine:
- Complexity and context of the delivery environment.
- Capability of current and required sponsor, client, asset manager and market.
- Key considerations to enhance capability where complexity-capability gaps are identified.
Building on its success with economic infrastructure, the Routemap is being expanded to cover all construction projects and longer-term transformation projects as well. As part of this expansion two new modules are being added, for Risk Management and Asset Management alongside the existing topics on Requirements, Governance, Procurement, Execution Strategy and Organisational Design & Development.
A useful decision tree on page 12 provides a framework for deciding whether the Routemap is appropriate for a specific project.