The Municipality of Gävle and Semcon have been collaborating on XLPM project methodology for many years. By 2017, the Gävle Living Environment sector had reached a level of project maturity in which the methodology could be linked to how the organisation actually carried out investment projects in practice.
I'm very proud of the organisation’s efforts and the commitment we’ve seen. And Semcon has provided tremendous support in this work.
The Living Environment sector is connected to the Gävle Planning and Development Committee, which has the political responsibility for community planning and development activities such as surveying and building permits, public spaces, roads and traffic safety. The sector had already acquired the theoretical knowledge on Semcon’s XLPM project methodology. The challenge now was to translate that knowledge into a concrete way to work with the methodology in practice.
A holistic perspective
Christina Lindvall Sumar is the senior project management consultant at Semcon and has been working for the municipality for almost ten years. Her role this time was to guide the Gävle Living Environment sector during the development work, supporting the organisation in the early stages as they worked to build initiatives, perform feasibility studies based on requirements and needs, and ensure quality in the process. The sector worked with Semcon to bring together the entire flow – their investment process and link to XLPM as well as creating lasting change in the organisation.
The purpose of this work was to clarify what the organisation can accomplish and to help management gain a holistic perspective. It is important that there is coordinated planning of finances, of resources – of all work that is part of an investment and has dependencies.
Bringing together theory and practice
An important part of this effort has revolved around the support systems that the sector has implemented and made available throughout the organisation. The systems are now playing a very important role in communicating the application of the methodology, its roles and every project phase – as well as making the documentation for each project easily accessible.
Semcon provided support to the sector in the form of:
- Audited (quality-assured) mapped processes, interfaces and stakeholders
- Tailored internal training
- Customisations to XLPM methodology
- Ongoing advising and coaching
- Follow-up
