You opened the project on time. Construction is finished. The ribbon has been cut. The lenders are happy. The Board can finally breathe. And then operations begin. Good for you. This is what we want to be in a big project. A few months pass by, and suddenly you realize that you are handling a different kind of monster. The subcontractor starts interpreting the contract in its favour. Small issues become recurring issues. Performance reports say everything is fine, while cash is slowly leaking...
1 day ago • 1 min read
Everyone speaks confidently. Everyone uses acronyms. And you are trying to work out whether you have missed something obvious. Suddenly, someone expects you to have a view. Sh*t… The problem is not that you are not capable. The problem is that nobody ever taught deep how PPPs really work. Not the theory. The decisions, traps, negotiations and mistakes that can define an entire career. Stop trying to learn PPPs one painful meeting at a time. Start thinking like a leader. Not how to sound...
2 days ago • 1 min read
Your biggest challenge is probably not technical. It is getting everyone to listen to you. Then, make sure they agree on what the real problem is. Then making a decision. Then making sure that decision survives contact with lawyers, contractors, financiers, Boards and government. The project rarely fails because nobody knew what to do. It fails because nobody took control early enough. What are you waiting for? Speak up. Some ideas, below. THE ROOM: 15 Great Lessons of a Successful PPP...
3 days ago • 1 min read
Your client does not want another consultant. They want to walk into the next Board meeting knowing the project is under control. They want difficult decisions made early. Commercial risks understood. Contractors challenged. Stakeholders aligned. And no nasty surprises buried in a 200-page report. They do not aspire to manage complexity better. They aspire to make complexity disappear. That is the job. I learnt that the hard way… inspiration below. Once that you apply the lessons of those...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Gillette had taken razor technology to the point of absurdity. Five blades. Lubricating strips. Precision trimmers. Suspension technology. Even quantum anti-ageing effect on your skin. The biggest stars in sport and Hollywood to advertise them. And, of course, charged accordingly. Michael Dubin, today’s story hero, was tired of the whole thing. Tired of paying ridiculous prices for razor cartridges. Tired of having to ask a supermarket employee to unlock a glass cabinet every time he needed...
5 days ago • 2 min read
You arrive on Monday. You open your inbox. There are 63 unread emails. Three say “urgent.” Two contain decisions that should have been made six weeks ago. The contractor is waiting for an instruction. The public agency is waiting for more information… delaying an approval that you desperately need. The lenders are waiting for extra information to give you the blessing for a zero-cost unsubstantial change. And your team is waiting for you. You open the programme. The completion date has not...
6 days ago • 3 min read
In 1944, the predecessor of the CIA published a manual on sabotage in order to destroy enemy regimes. Not bombs. Not weapons. Meetings. Yes… meetings. The Simple Sabotage Field Manual, which was the name of the document, explained how ordinary people could quietly damage enemy regimes, organisations and whole countries from within. The instructions included: Cause delays. Insist on strict compliance with every procedure. Refer decisions to committees. Demand additional reviews and approvals....
7 days ago • 1 min read
Future-proofing infrastructure for the next two or three generations sounds responsible. It sounds visionary. It can also be a spectacular waste of money. Because the future rarely arrives exactly as predicted. Technology changes. Cities move. Demand shifts. Political priorities disappear. And yet, we keep designing enormous projects to solve every possible problem for the next 50 or 100 years. The result? One project eats the budget. It consumes the best people. It takes ten years to plan,...
8 days ago • 1 min read
There was already a port. The quays were there. The railway was there. The channel was there. The cranes were there. More or less. What was missing was cargo. In 2003, Mozambique handed the Port of Maputo to a public-private concessionaire. Yes… You know. PPP are not just roads and hospitals… It was a BOT model… where the B was probably more R of Rehabilitation. Well… At the time, the port was handling approximately 5 million tonnes per year. Last year, it handled around 32 million. Six times...
9 days ago • 1 min read