Celebration of success at the APM Awards

Leading project management professionals came together for an evening of celebration at the annual APM Awards dinner on 20 October 2011. The APM Project Management Awards, superbly hosted by award-winning journalist and TV presenter Angela Rippon, is known for being the most glamorous event of the year and has been celebrating achievement in project management for over 16 years.

The spectacular London setting of ‘The Brewery’ saw 12 worthy winners walk away with the much coveted APM awards trophy for their achievements in the last year. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) took the prestigious BNFL Award and won International Relief and Development Project of the Year for their ‘RUMAKI’ seascape project in Tanzania’s coastal districts of Rufiji, Mafia and Kilwa, covering a marine area of almost 10,000 km2. The project, supported financially by the Department for International Development (DFID), Barclays Bank, the European Commission, JSDF, NORAD, GEF and WWF-Switzerland, aimed to improve the socio-economic well-being of coastal communities by empowering them to govern local fisheries resources.

David Tanner (on the left of the picture) from WWF UK said: “This project was all about community involvement and as part of that we had to introduce some fairly new concepts such as locals’ rights over resources. Education was a big part of the project.

“It’s a great honour, it’s fairly unusual for environmental and conservational organisations to be part of the project management awards and I think it’s great recognition of our team’s work.”

The Ministry of Defence won Programme of the Year for their regional command Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) transformation program. The strategic objective of “Transition”, handing the lead in the fight against the insurgency to the Afghans, was dependent upon first building capable ANSF. This Initiation Phase of the program was the response to the growing realisation that effective ANSF would only be achieved by developing all aspects of the organisation in a co-ordinated manner.

Lieutenant Colonel Martin Sturgeon (pictured holding the trophy), who has been an officer in the Royal Engineers for over 20 years, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to win the award it is a great honour, particularly given the calibre of all the contenders. I think we’ve started a process here that now needs to continue and if there is one thing I had to highlight about what the programme achieved it is about getting real Afghan involvement in shaping their own future.

“It was very much a team effort, not just from the small core team running the programme, but also from the wider team of all the British and American service men out in Afghanistan risking everything to ensure success.”

Pioneering project manager Professor Eddie Obeng (on the left of the picture), who was opening speaker at the APM Conference earlier the same day, was awarded the ‘lifetime achievement’ Sir Monty Finniston Award. Described as an \’agent provocateur\’ and a \’leading revolutionary\’ by the Financial Times, Professor Eddie Obeng, also awarded an Honorary Fellowship on the evening, said: “I am really honoured to receive the award. I hope I live up to Sir Monty’s heritage of trying to move things forward. I look forward to helping the APM to thrive and generate even more project managers in the future.

“The APM represents an opportunity globally for project managers to look at how they do things and I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to make sure project management moves forward and this is just fantastic recognition. I am really pleased.”

Speaking about the future he said: “I always have a couple of plans, but at the moment I am trying to get people to look at how project managers can help solve the bigger global problems and challenges to get all economies going again.”

Consultancy Turner & Townsend were triple winners taking the Overseas Project of the Year, Community Project of the Year and the coveted Project of the Year award for the construction of a new £14m business school at the University of Exeter. Nathan Moss from Turner & Townsend said: “I am completely overwhelmed to receive the award on behalf of the team. This was the most challenging project I have ever been involved in, it had a number of complex issues that we had to deal with as a team in order to make it a success.

“We’ve learned never to underestimate the positive effect that good teamwork can have.”

Other winners on the night were Moorhouse (Project Management Company of the Year); Paul Arnold, NATS (Project Manager of the Year); William Sargeant, Qedis (Young Project Manager of the Year); James Kemp, BAE Systems (Brian Willis Award) and Howard Dickel, British Telecom (Geoffrey Trimble Award).

Howard Shiplee was also awarded with the prestigious President’s Medal for his significant contribution to the construction of the entire London Olympic project. Such an eminent honour is not handed out every year and was personally presented to Howard by APM president Dr Martin Barnes CBE.

The APM Awards was the ideal stage to showcase the wealth of expertise and talent that is clear for all to see within the industry. Further confirmation of the strides the profession is making was seen by the judges of the awards through the commendable entries that were unlucky not to be shortlisted.