…which is a word that we came to understand only slowly, particularly as a counterpart to the word “challenge”.

As we worked we inevitably came across problems; Nigel, our indefatigable programme manager, would insist on calling them “challenges”, and casting possible actions as “opportunities”, to the point that it became a running joke. But problems — sorry, challenges — are chances to raise your game, and opportunities are chances to resolve two issues with one action.

One very early challenge was to deliver our video platform without disrupting the R2 project. Delivering video was itself a major project, requiring CMS integration and embedded advertising. Our opportunity was to do that and at the same time prove that our “business as usual” team (which ran alongside the R2 team and tended to deal with small, one-off tasks) could produce work at least as complex and high-profile as anything the R2 team could.

Our video technology has been a great success. The team produced something which enshrined good principles of web publishing, and integrated perfectly with the content management system (allowing keywording, search findability, etc) built from the R2 project. Taking the opportunity to prove the capability of the business as usual team provided everyone — both inside and outside the team — with even more confidence in what we could do.