RACER Team Pushing to the Finish Line
Acorn’s involvement in the Repository Asset Care Enhancements and Remediation (RACER) programme for Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) is scheduled for completion in the summer and as covered in our last update, the trajectory of this project continues to rise.
Jacobs is the delivery partner for NWS on RACER, a programme which focuses on the delivery of key regulatory commitments and strategic infrastructure to develop and operate the site in West Cumbria.
Acorn’s Keith Longney has worked closely with the RACER team throughout and reflects back on the programme: “It’s no secret that, in the early days, there was a degree of reluctance from some personnel to be part of RACER.”
“Scepticism was quite high and one person – who shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons – referred to the project as having the potential to be ‘death by a thousand cuts’.”
Acorn’s collaboration questionnaire has been deployed as part of the coaching process throughout and proving to be incredibly insightful, not just as a method of reporting but providing the data that would shape the direction of Acorn’s work.
“The charts generated by the questionnaire tell some of the story, but it was – and continues to be – the nature and content of the free comments that were most telling and evidenced the progress made.”
“These comments have informed each subsequent piece of work; through their honest and open feedback, the team was setting the direction for RACER and establishing the culture that would set the pace, maintain momentum and underpin how they conducted themselves.”
“There’s no denying that we now have a high performing team, one which has garnered high praise from the leadership team at NWS and, tellingly, is still looking for areas of improvement.”
At a recent team coaching workshop, one of the RACER team suggested that ‘…regardless of the achievements thus far, it’s the last six months of the programme that we’ll be judged on and remembered for’.
Rather than being daunted by this proposition, the team themselves are committed to focusing their efforts on these latter stages of the project and, as another put it, ‘…pushing the pace right through to the finish line’.
An area they are always looking to improve upon is that of meeting etiquette: “Here we are, nearly four years through the programme, and they are still holding themselves to account and being challenged about their behaviours. This isn’t looking retrospectively and the need to find fault, this is solely focused on ways to improve.”
“They identified meetings as being a cause of frustration and are keen to ensure that there are no opportunities for slipping back into unwanted practices.”
“Irrespective of the raw figures from the questionnaire, this is a team that actively welcomes challenges because they are emboldened and ready. They have seen a shift right across the team and through their own doing have created an incredibly strong culture of openness, honesty and trust.”
“Comments from the team have in some instances been a complete sea change, from ‘help – get me out of here’ type requests to ‘please don’t move me off the site’. The feeling across all involved is that this change is quite remarkable.”
