Prescience Technology and Sydney Metro Partner to Deliver Projects Efficiently and Effectively with Deltek Acumen

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An interview with Loretta Bayliss, Group CEO at Prescience Technology & Josh Watkin, Deputy Executive Director of PMO at Sydney Metro

This year’s recipient of Deltek’s 2021 Most Valuable Project Partner Award goes to Prescience Technology and Sydney Metro. With three metro projects in delivery and one in operation, Sydney Metro is Australia’s biggest public transport project. This innovative project is delivering the necessary step change in rail infrastructure to support Sydney’s vision of three connected cities and safe, fast, frequent, turn-up-and-go services. Working with Prescience Technology, Sydney Metro implemented Deltek Acumen resulting in significant time and cost savings. By leveraging Deltek, Sydney Metro has improved resource allocation and effort prioritization through risk-managed scheduling, allowing for successful management of their mega projects

The Journey

A Deltek Acumen user for nearly seven years, Sydney Metro has grown from a single capital mega program into three capital mega programs, with roughly 70-80,000 unique activities per program in delivery. During this time, as Sydney Metro matured, they developed a better understanding of how to deliver a solid, credible and risk-adjusted schedule to their many teams. Their journey with Deltek has been one of growth and understanding of how integration works at mega-scale, and also a more sophisticated understanding of their teams and how they can best sequence their activities to minimize overall risk and optimize delivery. Josh Watkin, Deputy Executive Director of PMO at Sydney Metro, describes Deltek Acumen as “a powerful part of their day-today business.”

Shifting with the Pandemic

As COVID-19 upended processes and practices worldwide, the impact of the pandemic also resulted in lockdowns in Australia, where Sydney Metro’s team of over 200 project management professionals−including approximately 30 schedulers and planners requiring access to Deltek solutions−were forced to work from home.

Sydney Metro worked internally with their technology partners to understand what capabilities were available to help them adapt and model as many scenarios as possible. Keeping true to their two core values−trust and transparency−to show how and why they arrived at their conclusions. Through the use of Deltek’s Acumen suite, they were able to demonstrate transparency, creditability and allow Sydney Metro to run as many scenarios as needed to optimize outcomes for taxpayers and future customers, while delivering a fantastic end product. Additionally, Acumen allowed for continuity and ease while operating remotely.

Ultimately, Sydney Metro’s long-term relationship with Prescience allowed them to access specialist advice regarding the best configuration, as well as respond in real-time to the government, contractors, and the community. 

Prescience Relationship

The relationship Sydney Metro has with Prescience Technology, Deltek’s exclusive Australian Acumen partner, and Deltek has been a long standing one. It dates back to before the establishment of Sydney Metro as a separate agency in 2018, and from the commencement of the Northwest Rail Link project with rapid transit in 2013. Initially, Prescience worked directly with the individual project teams, however, now they work with the PMO on a broader scale to support schedule quality, risk leadership, and risk management in terms of people, processes, and technology. According to Loretta Bayliss, Group CEO at Prescience Technology, “it is quite a material relationship across both business and technology and it has been a delight to see their (Sydney Metro’s) growth with the Deltek Acumen suite over this period of time”. 

Award Winning Duo

Sydney Metro’s mission is to deliver a world class metro system, for the city and to support Sydney’s vision of three connected cities with safe, fast, frequent, turn-up-and-go metro rail services. Deltek’s MVP award not only recognizes their mission, but also recognizes their value and drive for consistent improvement within their own client organization. Similarly, one of the major challenges their PMO faces when trying to deliver projects at speed and at scale is becoming very narrow minded and fixated on the day-to-day deliverables. Prescience provided ongoing support for continuous improvement; this included the best products, best configurations and how to tailor processes to continue the journey of continuous improvement. Their partnership was mutually beneficial in terms of understanding mutual problems and challenges, where Prescience is in the forefront of exploring new technology for Sydney Metro, in turn, helping Sydney Metro stay in the forefront of the industry.