We had the opportunity to be speaker at PC Expo in London in November 2023 and were requested to present our thoughts about dealing with extra-long duration industrial projects, including a nuclear industry case study. This presentation deals particularly about project control aspects and covers as well more generally the specifics of very long projects.
Very long projects are defined as projects which execution phase lasts more than 4-5 years. They are particularly frequent in nuclear and defence projects. This creates additional complexity and risks, as well as additional effort to be spent to counter obsolescence, implement preservation, deal with personnel career evolution and turn-over etc. Because of the significant direct and indirect impact of duration on such projects, we recommend to nominate a senior position within the project to deal with all those issues. Extra money and contingency also needs to be considered in the initial estimate for those issues.
In terms of project control, we recommend to split the project into phases of 2-3 years duration where the project configuration can be stable and allow all contributors to reach maximum productivity. Then, transition phases allow to reconfigure the project and restart another stable phase where the main project driver is well identified. Examples of possible phasings are shown for nuclear projects.
Read our latest presentation to understand better the specifics of very long projects!
If you cannot use the links above, just paste the following link in your browser: https://fr.slideshare.net/ProjectValueDelivery/dealing-with-extra-long-duration-megaprojects
