INTERVIEW | ANDY ALDER
Other projects followed, some
successful, some less so: “The engineering was good but either the projects were running late or weren’t particularly organised, or were not financially as good as they should have been. It was frustrating. I thought: ‘There’s got to be a better way of managing these projects, and I’ve got to try to find out what it is.’ Which is curious because when I first joined Halcrow it was the technical stuff I liked. Managing projects and teams did not particularly motivate me then. But times change, and people grow. “So I did a part-time Master’s degree in
Project Management at Reading, which was construction-oriented, and at the same time I was managing the design for Dublin Tram. That was out of the tunnelling world: it was street-running light rail, and integrating the railway system with the tram stops and how that integrated with the road layout and the surrounding buildings and the urban landscape, and the power system, the signalling system and the drainage system. Everything had to be integrated, so it was a good project to be working on while I did the degree. “After every week of the course I would
come back to Dublin Tram with a ‘these are some things I want to try out’ list, and that was great. “Project management is about people
and systems: how do you organise all the bits that have got to come together. There’s a lot of iteration between things, particularly in design, so progressing work while keeping components coordinated is challenging. That’s part of what makes project management so interesting. Leading people through this is a massive part of the enjoyment. “After that Halcrow won a project
to design the Docklands Light Railway extension to City Airport. Because a lot of tunnelling projects were also railway projects I took on a role as project manager. Alan Runacres was project director. That was one of our biggest jobs; so to be project manager for it at that stage in my career was a big step. Alan put quite a lot of trust in me to do that, but he was always there as a support and I remember putting everything into it to make sure it successful. “This was 3 kilometres of overhead
Top: Crossrail station tunnels, in London Centre: Crossrail tunnels
Bottom: Crossrail TBM launch 40 | November 2024
viaducts, four new stations (three of which were elevated), all the railway systems and how they would integrate. Again it was design and build, so it was pretty high pressure and high intensity and again it was just great fun.
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