Jon Ager, programme director at the British Antarctic Survey, reports from an ambitious modernisation programme in Antarctica (leopard seals, international rescues and Boaty McBoatface included).

Having spent most of my life travelling the globe at the request of Her Majesty’s Government, I have experienced some unique locations under some very interesting conditions. Flying larger aircraft in the RAF, there was little of the world that I did not get to see – yet no place fascinated me more than Antarctica. My curiosity was piqued during several deployments to the Falkland Islands, when I would fly further south into the Antarctic Circle. Yet Antarctica itself seemed tantalisingly out of reach.

After leaving the Armed Forces, it took me several years to remember that what I really enjoyed was the challenge of project management. In the latter part of my Service career, I had become increasingly involved in portfolio, programme and project management. This culminated in me becoming the senior responsible owner for the RAF’s A400M Atlas airlifter programme at a time when delivery of the first aircraft was imminent.

After a few years out of uniform, serendipity brought me to Cambridge, home of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a small organisation of about 450 people, comprising scientists, operations and engineering personnel, corporate services, an innovation team and a capital works project management team. I eventually joined the team as director of the UK Antarctic Infrastructure Modernisation Programme (AIMP), a programme of work to modernise the facilities and equipment used by BAS in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic.

What’s it all about?

The AIMP programme began in 2013 with an announcement that the UK would replace its existing Royal Research Vessels with a new vessel, the Sir David Attenborough (aka Boaty McBoatface). Almost twice the size of any ship operated by BAS before, it brought a requirement to enlarge and enhance the infrastructure to support it. New wharves were commissioned for the research stations at King Edward Point in South Georgia and Rothera in Antarctica. Subsequently, a further major project was commissioned to re-provide the facilities of six buildings at Rothera in a new science and operations building, along with an ambitious target to reduce fossil fuel usage on-station by over 30 per cent.

As if the challenge was not daunting enough, a further phase of modernisation was proposed that will replace the largest BAS aircraft, enhance the runway at Rothera, construct a new hangar and make an even larger contribution to reaching net zero carbon in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic.

A very special environment

While commercial aviation can get you to the very tip of South America, Africa or Australasia, that last haul to Antarctica over the southern oceans, sea ice and towering mountains brings home how far away from civilisation you are.

This remoteness has many implications for programme planning, beside the simple logistical ones. In an environment where temperatures dip to something you might reasonably expect on the edge of space, with winds as strong as anywhere on the planet and with leopard seals and orca thrown in for good measure, we put the safety of the team first. The implications of an accident are magnified by the fact that, at best, the nearest proper hospital is a five-hour flight away. Even then, that supposes that an aircraft is available and the weather good enough to fly in.

Active risk management is key, and while we mitigate to a tolerable and ‘as low as reasonably practicable’ (ALARP) level, we are all human and accidents happen. Post-incident actions are layered from triage of a casualty in our own medical facility through to a multinational response, as was the case when the Australian Antarctic Division evacuated an expeditioner from their base at Davis on Christmas Eve 2020, with Chinese and US support.

It is also a very long way to go for a missing bolt or spare part, or to find someone with a particular skill set. In planning the new wharves, our construction partner BAM Nuttall elected to pre-assemble the steel framework in the UK, before disassembling and transporting the structures to Rothera and King Edward Point. The result was that both wharves were completed to schedule and on budget.

When risks become issues

When COVID-19 arrived, I was just returning from my last review of Rothera and the island stations. BAS took an operational decision to return our Antarctic summer team earlier than planned, which curtailed the activity to lay the floor and foundations for the new science and operations building, the Discovery Building. It was the right decision, but it left an even bigger challenge – to complete the floor and outer structure to a weatherproof state in a single season. The implications of not completing a planned build before winter snow arrives is substantial. Snow will penetrate even the smallest opening and has the potential to destroy a building or vehicle from the inside.

Fortunately, by returning our team to the UK in April 2020 by ship rather than plane, we had proved that this means of transport was feasible. Yes, it is more expensive, takes longer and people costs are higher, but it is an ultimate form of self-isolation, both safe and controllable. By the end of March 2021, against all the odds, we will have completed the groundwork for construction of the new building to start in November 2021, limiting the delay to a single year, minimising the associated risks and bounding costs.

Environmental sensitivities

We are in Antarctica because the continent has been largely untouched by human intervention. We study the environment to unlock its secrets. A great example is ice core drilling. By drilling through accumulations of undisturbed ice, it is possible to analyse the carbon and gases contained in each ice slice to gain an insight into the environment at that point in time. So far, we have travelled back almost one million years by drilling over 800m, but a new project by the ice dynamics and palaeoclimate team aims to go further still.

The impact of our construction work on the local environment and wildlife is at the heart of our planning. Site investigations and surveys help me work with our technical advisers to mature concepts and initial designs. This is followed by rigorous environmental approval through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and then the international Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP).

This process is necessary to protect the unique status of Antarctica, but it is lengthy, with some approvals taking two or more years. Only once an environmental permit is issued can work be committed to, making long-term scheduling complex. In any normal project, this would be less of a factor, because the supply chain is close at hand and work could begin in reasonable order; this is clearly not the case in Antarctica.

No ordinary job

As an aside, a little-known point is that, as no one country owns Antarctica, it is essentially unregulated other than by the consensus that COMNAP creates. While UK laws and regulations do not apply to our claim on the British Antarctic Territory, we strive to ensure that what we do meets UK standards. A good example is how our safety governance board has challenged us to define a fire strategy for the Discovery Building and to test cladding, to demonstrate that we have learned lessons from Grenfell Tower, and that we are both tolerable and ALARP in our safety case.

At around seven months (at best), the window to build is finite at Rothera, so project management, planning, procurement and shipping must be sharp – a delay can cost not just a lost week, but a lost year. And therein lies the real challenge. Time taken to achieve approvals can have a disproportionate impact on the programme schedule. Miss the application window in the annual process, and you may not have lost one season, but two or more. So, our work needs to go on in parallel.

For construction projects, we follow the RIBA Plan of Work, which organises the process of briefing, designing, constructing and operating building projects into eight stages. This allows us to continue to progress each project within the programme and also provides the framework for governance sign-off between stages, consistent with the Government Soft Landings approach. In this area, we are maturing our processes, having learned from earlier projects, and taking this experience into Phase 2 will be key to mitigate risks associated with environmental approvals, government spending plans and operational deployment restrictions. Another interesting aspect of a fixed construction period is that, between build seasons, plant requires ‘winterisation’ and the wharves need to be protected to resist sea ice and icebergs in the spring. Construction in the Antarctic is no ordinary job.

Everyone is a stakeholder

At BAS, the whole organisation is unified by a common purpose. This is inspiring as a member of the team, because you don’t need to sell what you are trying to do – everyone is committed to the cause. However, everyone also has a view, because they are so passionate about the outcome and benefits from all that we do, not just the construction, equipment or change projects we deliver.

The old adage that you can never communicate enough certainly holds true within BAS and our parent organisations, UK Research and Innovation and the Natural Environment Research Council. A significant part of my role is to try and gain clarity and consensus on the user requirement, and there can be tensions between the parent organisations as the capability owner and BAS as the operator. This challenge is made more complex when the requirement for BAS to represent the UK’s interest in Antarctica, rather than just carrying out its role as a science organisation, is overlayed. To overcome these internal challenges, good processes and governance are key, with clear accountability, helping those who want to contribute to projects to do so through key focal points.

In it together

While BAS has a small but maturing project management capability, with its own PMO of around 20 people, it alone cannot deliver the totality of the construction and equipment projects planned over the next decade, so we have established long-term partnering relationships with a polar technical advisor, Ramboll, and a construction partner, BAM Nuttall, for Phase 1 projects. Together we have a core team that is completely integrated. There is total transparency in all that we do, and we critique each other through a monthly KPI process. While COVID-19 has caused us to change our ways of working, the core team from all three parties and subcontractors, SWECO and Turner & Townsend, remains totally integrated.

Before we deploy south, each season we undertake structured team-building and induct those who have not been to Antarctica before into the challenges of the environment and the culture of BAS. It is this close and collaborative relationship that not only delivers the best team member for the job, but also helps address emerging challenges in the office or on deployment and enables successful project delivery. Our experience of this close and collaborative way of working has led us to sign up to the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Project 13, where we are sharing our experience and learning from others.

Lessons from experience

I could wax lyrical about my programme of works, but I would identify three key points from my experience. First, no plan withstands first contact with the enemy. While it is impractical to ‘what if’ every scenario, doing the hard work to identify your vulnerabilities early will at least attune you so that you are alert to the risks. Don’t do so in isolation; include the team who will have to work with you to resolve the challenge when it comes – and if you can, practise that ‘fast ball’.

Second, it’s more than stakeholder engagement – it is about true collaboration. Having worked in a military organisation, I thought that I could never find another one that would have such a common purpose. If you can instil that purpose in your partners and your sponsors, then there is no challenge that cannot be overcome, and there will be no issue with getting support for your project.

And finally, keep it real. One thing that delivering projects in Antarctica has taught me already is that even a pragmatic plan is probably overly optimistic. Being realistic and having contingency (schedule, scope and cost) is essential, but also remember who you are delivering for and be sure that the legacy you leave is fit for the future.

8 tips on dealing with isolation, Antarctica-style

1. Prepare if you can. While COVID-19 plunged us into self-isolation, preparing for a period of isolation is preferable. We induct all those who deploy into this extreme environment with the skills needed to keep them safe and to prepare them psychologically.
2. Build the team before deployment. Your key relationships will always be with those whom you deploy with, your own team and others who will share your remote world. We use specific team-building events, but the military call this ‘pre-deployment training’. ‘Forming, storming, norming, performing’ remains as true today as when Bruce Tuckman identified it in 1965.
3. Cultural and contextual sensitivity. When you join others who have been isolated from the rest of the world for almost a year, respecting their evolved culture and norms is important. Equally, the Antarctic environment itself needs to be respected, not just in terms of extremes of weather, but in protecting its pristine status.
4. Goal clarity. Being clear about what is required of the whole team before work starts brings a focus on what needs to be achieved. The team can be effective from day one, maximising its effectiveness.
5. Empower the team. Goal clarity empowers the team to operate dynamically to overcome challenges and deliver in the most appropriate way. No one is better placed to understand the challenge than the team on the ground who face it, but being able to get support when it is needed is also key.
6. Have a heartbeat. Planned catch-ups and feedback sets the weekly rhythm. It prevents distractions from the challenge of delivery, further empowers the team, and manages expectation about upward reporting.
7. Stay connected. Keep the deployed team included in routine business. Even though they may be at the end of the earth, they are still connected and location is no longer a blocker to team inclusion and participation.
8. Share in success. We have a local award called the ‘Elephant Seal of Excellence’. It’s corny, and the award itself is an unremarkable model of an elephant seal on a rock, yet it is coveted by all. Everyone knows what it stands for, and it unifies the team, wherever they are, to strive to be the best.

by Jon Ager

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU FROM THE SPRING 2021 ISSUE OF PROJECT JOURNAL, WHICH IS FREE FOR APM MEMBERS.

_{Images: Think publishing; Hugh Broughton Architects; Bav Sasikandarajah}