The permanent Way Company is a global player in the construction and mainten - ance of railway infrastructure - lines , signalling and communications systems. The work relies on the formation of teams to carry out projects and these are drawn from different divivsions of the company . The divisions of the firm are based aronud the different relevant specialisms, mechanical , electrical, electronics and signalling,construction and surveying. Within each of the different divisions of the firm there are different specialisms - for instance, designers, cost engineers, marketing engin- eers and IT specialists. Most project involve Working across several divisions , often drawn from geographically diverse locations. As a result of major worldwide growth in the market for their services the firm undertook a review of their processes. Key weaknesses identified included their ability to deliver projects on time. This was consistently the main complaint of their clients ( usually national rail operators) Who were becoming increasingly conerned with the ability of their sippliers to delivr. A new project system had been put in place that stated the documentaion requirements for large projects, but this had not been well implemented, and its use was very inconsistent within the firm. A project Management improvement team convened and tasked with improving the processes of the firm with a nominal 12 months to see some results The question the that faced at the first meeting was where do we start? Everybody had their own ideas-we should start training people straightaway, we should employ a firm of consultants to find our needs, we should write a report to the board. The meeting broke up with no agreement of the way forward, other than that another meeting should be held