Stop Starting CapEx Projects without First Having a Process to Complete Them

Starting CapEx Projects without having a process to complete them is the riskiest way to deliver capital projects.

This is not anyone’s fault – this is an outdated industry norm that has plagued the construction industry for decades. When 9 out of 10 projects are late and over-budget, project teams certainly want better outcomes for their projects, with a new way to improve their project performance, it’s just that very few project teams understand the project completion process.

And it’s a shame, because there is so much time and money wasted on projects that are started, but then drag on for longer than necessary to be completed, since project teams aren’t following project completion processes.

I’ll show you how the project management literature that you know is misguiding your CapEx Projects.

Project Management Institute

Take this figure for example – Plan-Do-Check-Act

Link to Figure: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/know-status-project-monitoring-controlling-5982

This is an infinite loop – where is the exit to actually complete your project? When Project Managers are indoctrinated with this type of literature, it provides no practical information on how to complete projects. While it’s great that you can monitor and control your project, you’re not actually able to complete your project. A project by definition has a definite start and a definite finish, but this figure does not help you get from start to finish, you end up stuck in the middle monitoring, doing, checking, and acting…

Review any of the PMBOK revisions and there is no mention of completing projects – do a search and the word completion or commissioning is not mentioned once. There must be a missing section, since completing projects is the most important part. While it’s great that there is literature on starting projects, writing charters, preparing schedules, risk registers, etc, there is no guidance in the world’s largest body of project management knowledge on completing projects. I think you can agree this is a huge gap in the literature, and one of the reasons many projects are stuck with industry norms to start projects without a process to finish them.

Big Consulting Firms

Read any of the literature from the big management consulting firms and you’ll find lots of great information about starting and managing projects – portfolio optimization, value assurance, market sounding, early risk detection, best-in-class thinking, effective governance, etc. But very few (if any) talk about processes to complete CapEx Projects. Your portfolio can be perfectly optimized, you can have the best value assurance, and the best-in-class thinking, but none of these matter if you can’t finish projects efficiently. While these are certainly important aspects of projects, they’re missing one key framework – completing CapEx Projects. And again, this is not anyone’s fault. There are lots of super smart people in the industry. But the narratives we are stuck within the industry focus on getting projects started and the project management oversight to execute projects, but the frameworks to finish CapEx Projects are missing. And while we need to have processes to start projects, just as importantly we need processes to actually finish projects.

Project Delivery Strategies

Two common project models are Design-Bid-Build and Design-Build (EPC), or slight variations of these. But observe these acronyms:

• Design-Bid-Build – if you complete these activities on your project – your engineering design packages are created, and you then bid the work to get it built, is there anything missing? The missing stage is completing the project – construction completions and commissioning.
• Design-Build or EPC – the same applies for this delivery model. It’s great that your project is engineered, procured, and constructed, but a bunch of installed equipment is not much use unless it also functions correctly and meets your operational needs.

None of the project delivery strategy acronyms include any reference to completing projects. Each of these acronyms requires another letter at the end to represent completing projects. With this missing stage, it’s no wonder project teams are unaware of how to complete projects – they may not even be aware that a process is required to complete projects!

Missing CapEx Project Completions

So it’s not a surprise that project teams struggle to complete projects. The information available in the industry has not guided them in the right direction and the industry norms cause project teams to be stuck. They are indoctrinated to complete the project the way it’s always been done. But when 9 out of 10 projects are late and over-budget, this is clearly not a good idea to stick with industry-norms.

Starting CapEx Projects without having a process to complete them is risky. Without an established process to complete projects, you can never be sure how and when the capital expenditures will stop.

Completion processes guide project teams so that all earlier design and construction activities come together in the end for successful completion, rather than ending up 6 months late and 20% over-budget.

If your projects are not being completed as you expect them to be, you may be missing processes to complete your CapEx Projects. Contact us to see if we can help fill this gap to establish completion processes on your projects.