Six months of programme definition delivered in six weeks

Overview

This was a programme scoping phase for a potential UK-wide thermal treatment capability within the civil nuclear sector. The value of reducing legacy nuclear waste volume was already well understood across the industry. Thermal treatment offered the potential to reduce volume and improve stability, with downstream impacts on storage and handling costs at national scale, and the system-level opportunity was estimated at up to £10Bn. What had not been established was how to realise it.

With strategic decisions approaching, a programme of this scale and complexity could not be defined through a standard approach in the time available. The work needed to move at a pace the programme could not afford to wait for.

The Challenge

Standard programme identification approaches would have taken four to six months. The window was four to six weeks. The opportunity involved multiple complex variables, none of which could be resolved in isolation: technology selection, waste type, location, cost, risk, and safety case all needed to be worked through together.

Strategic decisions at senior and executive level were imminent. The task was to develop a view of the programme that was credible enough to underpin those decisions, in a fraction of the time a conventional approach would require.

Solution Approach

The first question was what working model could actually operate at that pace without sacrificing the rigour the decisions would require. A standard sequential approach, where each workstream developed its view before handing to the next, would not work within the timeframe and would not surface the interdependencies between technology, location, waste type, and safety case quickly enough to be useful. What was needed was a model that kept all of those threads in the room at the same time.

The core team had already been identified. Stuart led that multidisciplinary group, spanning engineering, design, commercial, economics, project delivery, safety case, and waste technology, and identified the additional capability it needed. Alongside the technical facilitator, he led the programme definition, the approach, and the delivery pathway. The team worked as a tiger team through intensive, co-located sprints, which meant specialist knowledge was directly accessible at the point decisions needed to be made, and iterations could happen within hours rather than across weeks of handoffs.

The work moved through three stages. The first built a shared understanding of the opportunity and its context, covering economic drivers, strategic timing, and environmental considerations alongside early modelling of technology, location, and waste options. The second validated that understanding and developed a set of credible programme options, mapping decision points, key uncertainties, and the evidence required to progress. The third developed those options into a structured case for investment, with a clear pathway for how the programme could be explored and de-risked over time. Because the team was working collectively across all three stages rather than sequentially, the case that emerged was already internally consistent and stress-tested before it reached executive sponsors.

Outcome and Impact

A robust programme case was developed and presented to executive sponsors in six weeks, a fraction of the typical timeframe. Senior stakeholders had a clear, credible view of the opportunity and a structured pathway for moving it forward. £20M in initial investment was secured to progress to the next phase. The output stood up when the decisions were made.