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Do it yourself. It will only take 20 years
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This anecdote is so good that I couldn’t resist. Apparently, a Brazilian steakhouse once took the US Government to court. It wanted to bring Brazilian chefs into the country because they knew how to prepare meat in a very particular way. They had not learned it at university. They had learned it growing up. At home. From their families. Inside their communities. Just as Spanish people learn how to appreciate the good jamón ibérico… Well… US immigration said that was culture. Not “specialised knowledge.” The court disagreed. Specialised knowledge does not need to come from a university, a professional qualification or a corporate training programme. It can come from experience. The test is much simpler: How much time and money would it take to teach someone else the same thing? That is a very good question. Particularly in infrastructure. How much would it cost to replicate what someone learned after 20 years working on PPP projects? You could go to university. Complete a master’s degree. Join a major contractor. Work on several bids. Manage a concession. Sit through a few disputes. Make some expensive mistakes. Get your *ss pelao of fighting with every single stakeholder, client, contractor, lender and unreasonable advisor, independent reviewer or financier advisor… And wait 20 years. Or you could listen to a 30-minute lesson from someone who has already done it. Then go outside and put it into practice. People like to say that both routes are equally valid. They are not. One takes 20 years. The other takes 30 minutes. My courses will not give you my experience. That would be impossible. But they can give you the conclusions. The mistakes. The questions you need to ask. The warning signs I wish someone had shown me before I encountered them on a live project. That is what specialised knowledge is worth. Not the time it takes to explain. The time, money and pain it can save you. Use this information at your own risk. Specialized knowledge, below. THE ROOM: 15 Great Lessons of a Successful PPP Project THE ROOM: The 15 Top Lessons of a PPP Project Nightmare THE ROOM: How to Break Into PPPs (Without the Bullshit) The ROOM: The ONLY way of doing a proper procurement process THE ROOM: Back-to-Back PPP Gap Analysis Explained THE ROOM: The Top 10 Errors That Kill Your PPP Deal THE ROOM: How to Deal with Frustrating Lenders' Approvals in PPPs. THE ROOM: THE ROOM: Minimum size for a PPP Project THE ROOM: Buildings in PPP - Discussions with an African colleague THE ROOM: Key Challenges and Solutions in PPP Highway Projects - 5 Clauses You Should Improve Or… of course, you can have them all… and many other interesting lessons in The Room. The Room PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day. PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below. |
Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
UK’s largest infrastructure project. In June 2018, High Speed 2 or HS2’s main civil contractors issued a warning. Their early estimates were showing significant cost increases. That was not a rumour. Not an anonymous complaint. Not some junior engineer being negative. It came from the contractors building the bloody thing. The project continued. Reviews followed. Committees met. Reports were written. PowerPoints were probably magnificent. As usually they are…specially when consultants are...
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I can see yesterday’s email hurt. Well, yes. I’ll say it again. You will never do well in life with a PowerPoint. Not long ago, I was involved in a process where the abuse of PowerPoint should have been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Sublime charts. Flourishes everywhere. Not a single letter was out of perfect alignment with the rest of its little letter friends. Like one of those choirs that goes on The X Factor, or any of the other crap they show on...