With the TV enjoyment of 65 million people at stake, any major work Arqiva carries out on our DTT infrastructure must run smoothly. Having skilled and experienced engineers on board certainly helps this, but for our teams to do their jobs effectively, a proven planning process is vital.

Most recently, the power of this planning process has been put to the test through our work on the 700MHz Clearance project. Initiated by Ofcom in 2012, this project seeks to free up spectrum for 4G and 5G mobile services. To do this, it must move a number of the nation’s favourite channels off the 700MHz spectrum, and onto another – with minimal disruption to the service. Easy, right?

The 700MHz Clearance is one of the biggest undertakings Arqiva has faced in recent years, and serves as the perfect example of a planning process we’ve spent decades refining. It’s success (to date) has relied on getting the right people, with the right resources, in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time. The planning has also had to be meticulous, especially as the programme end date advanced by 18 months and additional scope was added through the design stages.

But what have we learned about the process along the way? And what tips can we share for anyone planning a major infrastructure project themselves?

Assessing project scope
A project of this size will always be complex, but you do have some control over just how complex. One way of making work like this simpler is to break it down into basic components.

We always try to answer the same list of questions when starting any project. These fall into five simple categories – ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘when’ – which force us to address things like:

- Objectives and success criteria
- Scope and deliverables
- Project baseline
- Key project risks
- High-level process
- Key procedures
- Organisational structure
- Third-party involvement

Once all of these factors are addressed, you can move to more detailed planning, including mapping out approvals and putting together the right team.

Seeking approval
Often, one of the hardest things to unpick around a project is the chain of approvals necessary to progress key activities. Get this wrong and your project may slam to an abrupt halt with ruffled feathers to smooth.

For the 700MHz Clearance programme, the various parties include Ofcom, Arqiva, both television and radio broadcasters, plus a number of delivery partners. While Arqiva might be the main party responsible for delivering the project, every decision we make has the potential to affect others so we must tread carefully.

We’re essentially performing open-heart surgery on a live TV network. For us to touch that network, we need technical approval from the broadcasters; to get that, we need to produce design documents and proposals so they can see what the work will involve and how that will impact them. Only when they’re happy can we move ahead.

It is also a government-sponsored project, so we need budget approval from Ofcom, which means submitting grant applications and then being subject to the subsequent regulator audits.

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“We’re essentially performing open-heart surgery on a live TV network.”
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Adapting organisational structures
It took quite a team to plan the 700MHz Clearance, as is normal for any major infrastructure project. The basic organisational structure was much the same as it was for the Digital Switch-Over (DSO) programme we delivered from 2007-2012, however the team’s size is always reflective of the project’s scale (and requirements) – and this was a particularly large one.

Typically on such a project, there will be a programme management office handling the basic set-up, quality management and change management, and an engineering team responsible for designing the crucial elements of the project. There will also be an implementation team to make sure the project is delivering on its roadmap, a finance and commercial team ensuring it’s cost-effective, and a safety team to ensure everything is meeting relevant standards.

As you move through the project, certain teams will become more prominent so you need to build in flexibility to support this. You may also need to supplement your workforce with specialist skills or bring in third-party experts to tackle more niche elements.

Challenges to consider
Regardless of how well it is planned, projects of this magnitude always throw up unexpected surprises and navigating them requires constant work to adjust and balance competing priorities.

A prime example of this is the need to balance time, cost and quality. With the 700MHz Clearance project, the scale and locations of our infrastructure meant that many operations included the use of some significant lifting hardware, multiple helicopter lifts, and activity continuing during winter months.

There is a natural desire to want to complete the work in advance of the original deadline, however if this is to the detriment of other objectives such as quality, cost, safety or – in the case of 700MHz – minimal disruption to stakeholders, the project will fail.

To get it right, companies must keep stakeholders aligned with the current priorities, timelines and costs, so that expectations can be managed accordingly. For us, those stakeholders have included the regulator, the broadcasters and our delivery partners, as well as internal sponsors. It has also extended beyond borders – working with counterparts in Ireland, France, Belgium, Holland and Norway.

Roadmap
Planning a major infrastructure project takes time and a lot of careful attention, but it certainly pays off. Our initial roadmap consisted of 54 retune events, each affecting multiple main stations and relays, over a two and half-year period that coincided with huge televised events like the Royal Wedding and the FIFA World Cup. The first of our clearance events successfully took place in July 2017, and thanks to our understanding of the scope, ability to adapt, and preparation to handle challenges, we’re quickly moving towards the finishing line.

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Jason Harvey is programme director, 700MHz, at Arqiva

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