WET News

ALLIANCES 2016 7 Brothers in alliance: L-R - Sean Murphy, Adam Gosnold, Paul Gibbs and Andy Flowerday Meet the partners PARTNER Kier MG NAME Sean Murphy JOB TITLE Integrated alliance lead (project manager at Kier) " Anglian went through a very test- ing behavioural assessment. As much as it was to do with the written bid and the commercials, very big emphasis was placed on the person and the people. We went through a comprehensive behavioural as- sessment to get the right people, the right companies, the right values. It was very intense with psychological tests and role plays. It was about how you worked, really getting under the skin. It was decided the three IDL leads would be given to the partners so they were instrumental in the management team. That was given on the basis of the assessments. I'm now into the heart of their organisation, part of a management team trying to understand what Anglian Water are wanting. It's been very clear in the ODIs, in the determination, what's come down from Ofwat. They've been very clear in what their expectations are and they're getting into the detail of the governance of how you think that's going to work and under- standing that. It's a 15-year journey and it can get challenging as people keep reminding you. You're on a six-month journey of 15 years so calm down because you're all trying to get things to work. We've been invited as the partners into Anglian Water to go on the journey with them. They've taken a big step by committing to potentially 15 years. The objective is to move away from man- marking. Over time you get a hybrid of the two cultures that is able to deliver what Anglian want. The benefit of this is the efficiencies in the size of the structure. You could have an Anglian guy who gets to a point and hands off to a contractor but actually you could get the one person to do the two functions. It's that bold step. We've taken a bold leap in trying to go on this journey learning from what the @ One Alliance has done for ten years. We've taken that learning and we're six months in going straight there first off. Anglian has their ODIs that determine how they interact with Ofwat but it's the alliance that's deciding what the KPIs are. Our alli- ance is made up of a board which is made up of directors from Anglian and three directors from the partners. At the end of the day you've got a combination of the two that will run the business so some of the KPIs are commercial, some of them are programme and others will link back into what Anglian's ODIs are. What the three partners bring is a lot more commercial governance. We're much more commercially aware of what our expenditure is because we have to report that back to our board, but that starts to drive behaviours into Anglian of identifying what things cost so we can start to put a challenge into 'this is what it's costing you'. From a client base you probably look at it slightly differently. We can bring more cost certainty in. The partners also bring in learning from the interaction we have with the other water authorities. We talk to Scot- tish, UU and others and Anglian is happy for us to spread any good practice within their own organisation because they want to see any good practice brought back into us. You forget what the outside world is. You become what is IOS and it's very easy. I have to be careful that I don't solely detach myself from Kier. For me it's the driver now of what IOS is all about so I don't see them [Barhale and Morrison] as opposition. The commercial model drives us in such a way that if Morrison's are in trouble I feel that pain commer- cially so it's in my interest to go and help them. Saying that it has its challenges but I don't see them as competition." "Over time you get a hybrid of the two cultures that is able to deliver what Anglian want" Sean Murphy, Kier MG

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