Project Cost Control is a discipline applicable to all projects. Its criticality and the complication of its implementation will vary significantly with the size of the project, its international nature, and the number of different contributors (which relates directly to the project’s intrinsic complexity). In our new White Paper 2014-03 we examine what are the critical aspects of Large, Complex projects in the field of Cost Control and how leading international project-driven organizations resolve these particular challenges.

As consultants we often visit companies that have the ambition to take on large, complex projects (or, even worse, have contracted or have been contracted for such a project) but do not have this minimum infrastructure in place. This leads to wide-open gaps that inevitably translate into loss of control. Examples include:

• US companies which systems are often purely in USD without the possibility to include any other currency and take on an international project,
• Companies that believe they can control a billion dollars project with an Excel spreadsheet,
• Or, companies do have cost tracking systems for past cost but no real data-base Cost Control system including forecast data, i.e. cannot maintain a full project cycle cost model of the project.

In fact, the ability to deal with native currency, time-phasing and multi-entity is also a highly discriminating parameter when dealing with large, complex projects.

Almost always, not taking the time or making the effort to implement a proper set of processes and systems will inevitably lead to difficult situations later where the organization might not keep sufficient control over its operations, and forensic investigation might be required even in the midst of project execution to really understand the actual cost situation of the project. To avoid these situations, read our new White Paper 2014-03 “What Differentiates Cost Control for Large, Complex Projects”.