How Essential It Is That the Owner Team Has Sufficient Project Experience For Project Success

In the same manner as successful projects require adequate governance, we also consistently observe that project success requires sufficiently experienced Owner organisations. Irrespective of the professionalism of the contractors, projects that are run with inexperienced or not sufficiently staffed Owners will often lead to inadequate delivery, delays and ultimately in disappointing results. In our new White Paper 2020-06 ‘How Essential It Is That the Owner Team Has Sufficient Project Experience For Project Success’ we investigate more in detail the causes of this phenomenon and what can be done to avoid it.

Inadequate Owner experience will translate into inadequate Owner supervision of the project, and substantial delays in taking decisions.

Relying on the experience of execution contractors to compensate for inadequate Owner experience is often not sufficient and the temptation of contractors to take advantage of the situation may be irresistible. Owners lacking experience may not be willing to delegate actual decision-making to contractors fearing commercial consequences, but may not actually take decisions either, or only very slowly, leading to very difficult situations. The issue is compounded when the Owner employs many contracted personnel of diverse origin rather than staff personnel in its project supervision team.

Owners may lack either of technical expertise, or project execution expertise, or both. Sometimes the Owner team budget is too restricted for proper quality personnel and associated capacity.

Projects conducted with inexperienced or insufficient Owner project management teams are often nightmares for all parties involved and often lead to substantial schedule and cost overruns. A sufficient level of experience on the Owner side – and the capability to take decisions based on this experience, is an essential success factor. A sufficient Owner team budget and agreement that properly experienced key resources must be hired staff personnel even if that bends usual HR policy are essential factors to achieve success. Read our new White Paper 2020-06 ‘How Essential It Is That the Owner Team Has Sufficient Project Experience For Project Success’ to understand more about this important issue.

If you can’t access the link to the white paper, copy and paste the following link in your browser: https://www.projectvaluedelivery.com/_library/2020-06_Owner_team_sufficient_project_experience_v0.pdf

Project Management: How to Overcome the Limitations of the Traditional Methods from the Industrial Age

Today more and more activities are carried out in project mode. However, the traditional project management approaches developed in the second half of the 20th century show strong limitations related to the complexity of the systems where projects take place. Well-identified practices related to complexity can be implemented to improve strategic piloting and project delivery management. This new White paper 2020-05 ‘Project Management: How to Overcome the Limitations of the Traditional Methods from the Industrial Age’ is a translation from a position paper developed for Welcome Complexity, a Non-Profit organisation based in France and focused on accounting for increased complexity in all human activities.

Project management, even if it has always existed, is a discipline formalised in the middle of the twentieth century, particularly within major defence projects, which required the coordination of multiple contributors (PERT approach: Program Evaluation and Review Technique). During the 1980s and 1990s, formal bodies of project management methods were institutionalised (Project Management Institute, International Project Management Association, etc.) with certifications based on standard project management approaches. Today, there is a profession of project managers around these standards, thus creating a “consensual professional ontology” (basic principles stabilised and not questioned), even though more and more activities are carried out in project mode.

Notwithstanding the formalisation of the approach and the increased professional development of project management specialists, all studies show that more than the majority of development projects, and often up to two thirds, significantly fail to deliver the expected benefits. They often cost much more or last much longer than expected; and sometimes deliver a facility that does not meet the initial production targets at all. This statistic applies to projects of all types and sizes and has not improved significantly in recent decades. It applies even when the context or measures of success of the project have not changed: the problem is intrinsic to the implementation of the projects.

These deviations are also much more significant when the project involves a large number of contributors and active stakeholders interacting with each other; this is often correlated with the size and ambition of the project. In this case, the deviations, if they exist, are generally very significant: major projects succeed or fail significantly. This observation highlights the role of complexity in the project deviation rate: complexity of the project system and the system around the project.

This traditional framework, which has strong limitations in the context of traditional development projects, is even more unsuitable for exploration or innovation projects. These observations are directly related to paradigm shifts in complexity.

Some alternate approaches can then be implemented:

• Facing the perceived complexity of the project and the complexity of project execution organisation
• Keeping execution flexibility
• Beyond reverse engineering and linear thinking, formally introducing project requirements into the system engineering process
• Accounting for resource constraints and overall project portfolio management
• Including upfront the requirements related to implementation
• Implementing the “agile” approach when suitable
• Implementing multi-scale approaches
• Implementing an efficient governance
• Using new different tools for project management and governance
• Implementing systemic design at the strategic level

Discover those strategies and more in our new White paper 2020-05 ‘Project Management: How to Overcome the Limitations of the Traditional Methods from the Industrial Age’

If you can’t access the link to the white paper, copy and paste the following link in your browser: https://www.projectvaluedelivery.com/_library/2020-05_Project_Management_complexity_methods_v0.pdf

How To Implement Licensing Requirements During Project Execution Phase

Following on from our previous White Paper ‘How To Manage Licensing Requirements in Project Definition and Execution’, another challenge is to implement licensing and regulatory requirements during project execution. Some projects derail because of non-compliances which, once identified, strongly impair the start-up and operability of the project deliverable. In our new White Paper 2020-04 ‘How To Implement Licensing Requirements During Project Execution Phase’ we examine more particularly how to transfer licensing requirements into project execution to ensure conformity.

Licensing conditions will arise from the interactions between the Owner and the licensing body during the licensing case instruction and will be formalised in the formal license terms. Main licensing conditions are ideally formalised just prior the Final Investment Decision for large projects, or shortly thereafter for smaller projects.

However, some additional licenses might be required during the course of the project e.g. building permits, operating permits that will also contain a set of conditions and terms. Ongoing surveillance by the licensing authority of the construction works will also create another list of demands and requirements.

All those license conditions will apply both to the project phase (execution plan) and to the design of the facility. We observe that projects often have difficulties in including those conditions and requirements in their design and project execution. This demonstrates that a comprehensive regulatory requirement management process must be put in place. Requirements must be applied through Management of Change and be flowed down to the workers.

In addition, in order to build the licensing case, a number of assumptions are being taken by the design team that are not always formalised and verbalised. However, the licensing body will also require compliance with those assumptions underlying the licensing case. It is essential to formalise those requirements during the production of the safety case to ensure they are properly accounted for during the project definition phase.

Implementing licensing conditions in a project is a critical aspect and is not always performed properly. The recommended approach is to deal with those conditions as requirements and run a full cycle of application and verification to build a compliance dossier, including formal Management of Change in case of any update or new licensing conditions.

The associated organisation needs to be considered carefully. Substantial resources may be required in highly regulated industries, and the interface with the operator must be carefully designed. Understand better about those challenges and how to resolve them in our new White Paper 2020-04 ‘How To Implement Licensing Requirements During Project Execution Phase’

If you can’t access the link to the white paper, copy and paste the following link in your browser: https://www.projectvaluedelivery.com/_library/2020-04_implement_licensing_requirements_project_execution_phase_v0.pdf

What Processes and Systems Must be Setup by the Operator During Owner Project Execution

Following our previous White Paper on how best to involve the future operator during a project to improve its chances of success, our new White Paper 2019-02 ‘What Processes and Systems Must be Setup by the Operator During Owner Project Execution’ delves more precisely on those deliverables which need to be setup during the project by the operating organisation, to ensure a smooth start-up of the facility.

Certain processes that are needed for project execution will also be used for facility operation; therefore, it is certainly more efficient to set them up from the start in a way that will be useful for the operation phase. Therefore, the setup of those processes and systems are better led by the operating organisation to ensure they will respond to its long-term needs.

Such systems include in particular:

• accounting
• procurement
• logistics
• warehousing and preservation
• preventive maintenance system
• spare parts management
• facility technical documentation and configuration management

In particular for greenfield projects, those processes and systems may have to be set up from scratch and the time required to implement those systems should not be underestimated. It should be included in the project schedule to make sure that the systems and process delivery schedule fits with the project needs. Some of the work will have to start already from the Final Investment Decision onwards, and sometimes even earlier than that, the project control system is ready for execution.

The setup of systems and processes suitable for the future operation of the facility is an essential part of project success. Yet this activity is often underestimated in terms of effort and time and not included in the project scope and schedule. It is essential that those activities be properly assessed, defined and considered by projects even if the responsibility of their implementation lies with the operating teams. Read more details and recommendations in our new White Paper 2019-02 ‘What Processes and Systems Must be Setup by the Operator During Owner Project Execution’

If you can’t access the link to the white paper, copy and paste the following link in your browser: https://www.projectvaluedelivery.com/_library/2020-02_Processes_and_systems_setup_by_operator_v0.pdf