How do you start a project well when the real world is messy, teams form gradually and not everything is ready on day one? In this episode, Emma speaks to Lindsey Brown from the V&A, Kerry Daly from Balfour Beatty and Anita Suji from AECOM about project launches, kick-off meetings and building momentum. They discuss readiness checks, stakeholder alignment, psychological safety, team culture, optimism bias, roles, responsibilities and the human relationships that keep projects moving. Their advice: invest time up front, get the right people together and make expectations clear.

Want more? Read the Project magazine feature ‘How to start a project (brilliantly)’: https://www.apm.org.uk/blog/how-to-start-a-project-brilliantly/

Change fatigue is the weariness teams feel when faced with yet another change initiative. It creates scepticism and leaves everyone with a ‘here we go again’ feeling.

To discuss how to overcome change fatigue, Emma is joined by Sharon Davies, Director of Infrastructure at Turner & Townsend, who led the implementation of the MOD project that won APM’s 2025 Transformation Project of the Year Award; Dawn Temme, an executive coach, change practitioner and Capability Development Lead at Health Determinants Research Collaboration for Greater Essex; and Kate Ward, Head of Change Management at King’s College London.

Emma chats all things tennis with Stephen Frame, Head of Project Delivery at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, better known as Wimbledon, about project management there, as well as about its ambitious future expansion plans. This episode was recorded in the second week of the 2026 championships, where it wasn’t only the heatwave hotting things up, but also the fact that Briton Arthur Fery was through to the semi-finals.