The RailStaff Awards 2024

Lloyd Harriman

telent Technology Services Ltd

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Nominations for Graduate of the Year

Sara Carnduff

Said the following about Lloyd Harriman:

“Completing his master’s degree in programme and project management, Lloyd joined telent as part of the 2016 graduate intake. His talent was soon recognised and within a year, Lloyd took over the project management lead of the complex, multi-disciplined ‘Superfast Wi-Fi In-carriage for future travel’ (SWIFT) project between Edinburgh and Glasgow, a first of its kind and part of the UK Government’s strategy for connecting trains.

Since starting the graduate scheme, Lloyd has led several complex, high-profile, high value projects, in both heavy and light rail, working across the UK from Kent to Scotland. Collaborating with a multitude of stakeholders including Network Rail, ScotRail and Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), Lloyd has acted as the interface between product suppliers and asset owners and has been the key point of contact for the customer.

Embracing numerous challenges has given Lloyd the opportunity to gain a wealth of hands-on experience, which he has used to support others, sharing lessons learnt, best practice and has contributed to various Association for Project Management (APM) thought leaderships papers.

As part of delivering the high profile, technically innovative and multi-functional SWIFT project including networking telecoms, electrical and civils disciplines, Lloyd had to negotiate his way through the project lifecycle whilst supporting telent’s customer Cisco to understand the rail industry’s working practices and collaborating with complex stakeholder groups including Network Rail, ScotRail and local communities. Working with those around him, Lloyd has built trusted relationships that have enabled him to reprogram works to meet the tight timescales and budgets, managing the various design iterations, gaining approvals for the build from various stakeholders which involved booking possessions and organising equipment across 15 distinct sites.

“I have had the pleasure of working with Lloyd over the past year on a challenging and complex project where he has consistently delivered and gone the extra mile. He excels in communication management by bringing a fresh and unjaded approach to project delivery. He is able to identify and resolve issues quickly to the benefit of all parties.” Richard Varnden, Project Manager – Network Rail Telecoms.

“As programme manager for Cisco working on the ScotRail Innovation projects, I have been working closely with Lloyd over the past 15 months and have found Lloyd to be a very enthusiastic, determined and agile project manager. As with most innovation projects, the plans change on a regular basis and Lloyd has been able to adapt to the constant changes to scope, dependency and scheduling in a calm, responsive and methodical manner. He has coped very well in dealing with many stakeholders who have required him to meet both the compliance that working on the UK Railways demands and the finesse required when working in a dynamic innovation project.” Lee Byrne, Programme Manager – Cisco.

Delivering the SWIFT project successfully, Lloyd is now leading the work to collate the information to form the critical business case for the wider roll out of Cisco equipment across 97 locations, which is testament to his ability and the relationships he has built with the complex stakeholder group involved.

During the SWIFT project, due to the positive impact he had, Lloyd, while still a graduate project manager, inherited a challenging £21m legacy project which he is now successfully delivering. Making frequent visits to the sites in Scotland, Lloyd quickly got to grips with the technical and delivery challenges. Continuing to build and nurture relationships with the site staff, he soon started to manage the resources to deliver both projects, instigating significant efficiencies for both telent and the workforce, as well as providing stability within the work bank and improving the team’s work life balance.

“Lloyd's introduction to the telent project team has injected a new lease of life to the tail end of a long project. He has demonstrated that he is willing the go the extra mile to ensure that the client requirements are met.” Iain Whiteley, Project Manager – Network Rail.

“Whilst from a non-technical background Lloyd quickly adapted to the environment on a large complex project and I was very impressed with his management of a diverse group of stakeholders. He demonstrated that he has tenacity, is able to remain calm and focused under pressure and will escalate issues only where he really needed assistance. This was recognised both within telent as well as by the customer.” Scott Burt, Programme Director – telent.

Managing two significant projects in Scotland, Lloyd became the point of contact for both the customer and workforce providing continuity for all parties involved. After proving himself, Lloyd has gone on to secure further work in Scotland and is now heavily involved in building a portfolio of future works and building the team to deliver the works going forward.

“Lloyd is very approachable, diligent in what he does, very responsive and positive to requests made by Network Rail or his clients to deliver a solution to the issues timeously. I believe that Lloyds resourcefulness and eagerness to get things resolved makes him an outstanding Project Manager now and for the future, his freshness and positive outlook to all issues that he confronts will endear him to the rail industry and all its future issues.” William Neill, Project Manager - Network Rail Telecoms.

As part of his development of stakeholder relationships and the Scottish portfolio, Lloyd has been instrumental in integrating client and delivery teams, facilitating safety tours, step ups, progress meetings and lessons learnt workshops.

Passionate about continuous improvement, Lloyd is an active member of the APM. He attends events and writes thought leadership articles for their publication using the hands-on experience he has gained through his relatively short but challenging and hugely rewarding career.

Arranging working lunches with his fellow project management graduates, Lloyd encourages discussions on best practice, lessons learnt and new material from the APM as an interactive and supportive way to share knowledge in an informal environment so his peers, including himself, are comfortable to discuss any challenges they may be facing.

“As a business we put a high premium on team players. Lloyd is a natural fit within the organisation, has received very good feedback from our customers, and gained the respect and trust of colleagues who note his reliability and collaborative spirit.” Surinder Khuttan - Senior Project Manager, telent.

Since joining telent, Lloyd has been involved in delivering the annual graduate intake assessment events, providing an overview of the programme, discussing his experiences, interviewing potential candidates and feeding back to the group at the end.

“Considering Lloyd was new to project delivery and the railway only two years ago, he has embraced every challenge, engaged complex and diverse stakeholders building trusted relationships with customers and colleagues and has already delivered significant benefits for rail passengers and the industry – we are all very proud of Lloyd here at telent. A shining light to all those around him with a huge amount already accomplished, we feel Lloyd is an outstanding nominee for the 2018 Rail Staff Award Graduate of the year category.” Steve Dalton, Managing Director – Transport, telent.“