Neurodiversity in Major Projects

Major Projects Association

With Inclusion Moments now integrated into all Major Projects Association events and with many members actively involved in our Inclusion Hub, we are delighted to shine a light on the topic of neurodiversity and inclusion in this podcast.

Our guest host Al Simmonite, Managing Director of the Advance Consultancy and member of the MPA Inclusion Hub, is in conversation with Helen Buckingham of WSP, Caroline Keep of UCLAN and Anthony Newman of Projecting Success who share their experiences of living and working with neurodivergence.

The guests discuss the use and meanings of terminology like 'spectrum', 'neurodiversity' and 'neurodivergence', and openly share their personal stories about living and working with autism, ADHD and other neurodivergent conditions.

The conversation delves into how technology helps them, what useful resources, strategies and hacks they use and, importantly, they share insight into what employers and teams can do to make the workplace better and more inclusive.

Download the transcript.
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Neuro Cards mentioned by Helen are available on Etsy.

You may find this list of Neurodiversity terms and definitions by Dr Nick Walker helpful.

Al Simmonite
Al is the Managing Director of the Advance Consultancy, a SME consultancy business who have operated for over 30 years focusing on challenging and supporting individuals, teams and projects in complex organisations through effective collaboration and leadership. Al has a career founded in working in complex teams where relationships and leadership are key. Advance are long standing members of the Major Projects Association and Al has been involved with the MPA’s inclusion hub team focusing on the role of the ally and the concept of allyship.
Caroline Keep
Caroline Keep, a data scientist and educator pursuing her PhD in digitalization in education at the University of Central Lancaster, specializes in the application of advanced technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence within educational settings. Her contributions to this field have been acknowledged by several national awards, including the National TES Award for Teaching. Caroline's background in engineering has been instrumental in shaping her approach to digital transformation in education, making her an asset in the realm of project management within educational technology. In addition to her academic and consulting roles, Caroline is an active disability advocate across the UK. She is enthusiastic about organizing STEM events, reinforcing her commitment to creating inclusive and accessible educational environments.

See Caroline's awards, research, interviews and more here.

Helen Buckingham

It was as a direct result of being involved in a Major Project during lockdown that Helen sought a formal diagnosis for her ADHD. Previously she would often use the phrase ‘I’m wired differently’ to explain to friends and colleagues her experience of the world. Her success in Engineering and Project Delivery has been because of this thinking differently not despite it however having the diagnosis and gaining greater understanding of managing symptoms has been great. She was promoted to Technical Director of Pharmaceuticals at WSP in 2023 which is testament to their support and commitment to D&I – previously to get to the next rung Helen felt she had to moved companies.

Anthony Newman
Since starting out wet behind his ears building machine learning models for the supercomputer at QinetiQ two decades ago, Ant’s entire career has been focused on machine learning, data science and data product development, both stand alone and in concert with sensor technology. He was probably in an office full of neurodiverse colleagues back then, but he didn't know as we never used to discuss this stuff.
For the past decade, Ant has been leading on data science/engineering and data product strategy, which has led him to his present role as the Chief Data Officer at Projecting Success. Passionate about data driven delivery, Ant yearns not just to release the power of data, but to build a collaborative approach to tackling the problems we face, together.

Connect with Ant on LinkedIn.