M a n a g e m e n t o f e n gi n e e r i n g P rojects

Chapter 5 ! overview
This chapter is about how a well-planned and properly executed project assurance process can
provide significant support to the project and its sponsors. The key to success is that the process
is fully risk scaled and that it is applied in an integrated manner. Targeting the windows of oppor-
tunity when decisions are taken and leveraging external insights and experience is most valuable.
Hence ‘real time’ involvement requires a high trust environment to be created, where behaviours
are conducive for knowledge transfer and continuous improvement.

Chapter 5 ! outline
5.1 How to set up an effective assurance framework
5.2 Executing assurance
5.3 The human element in delivering effective assurance
5.4 The Wind Farm

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Chapter 5
Value and project
assurance
by Guus Kessler

5.1 ! How to set up an effective assurance framework

5.1.1 What is assurance?

Project assurance is a key ingredient of a well-functioning project management process. There
are various definitions to help describe exactly what we mean by assurance. The Office of
Government Commerce (OGC, 2012) provides a very comprehensive definition by stating that
‘Project Assurance helps manage risk and improves delivery confidence. Project Assurance sup-
ports the project manager and others responsible for successful delivery whilst providing funders
and other stakeholders with the confidence that the project could deliver to time, budget and
quality.’

In setting the definition, it is important to make a clear differentiation between ‘controls’ and
‘assurance’. In the common language, we talk about ‘assurance’ when we really mean controls.
With the ‘controls’ in the domain of engineering project management, the integrated checks and
balances are meant to help the manager ensure that she stays in control of the core engineer-
ing and project management process and drives towards desired outcomes. Assurance builds
thereupon. It primarily covers the process of checking the strengths and completeness of those
controls by a respected and credible party that is external to the project team.

Unfortunately, there are very few hard data on the impact of the assurance process and its
effectiveness on project outcomes. The Independent Project Analysis (IPA) company and other
institutes have plenty of data showing the correlation between (and the need for) appropriate
front-end loading in the project definition and planning, and the resulting project performance
and predictability. However, there are very few statistical data that show the impact of the assur-
ance activities on the project outcomes. One of the reasons for this may be its integrated and
advisory nature, where the process of ‘executing assurance’ is not seen as a specific and meas-
urable activity and often carries a wide overlap with the core delivery process. Nevertheless,
experience shows that the independent assurance of projects has helped project managers to
avoid, or at least better navigate, the very complex risk spectrum that they often face.

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5.1.2 Assurance at the project realisation gates

Most engineering projects will be executed within the boundaries of a pre-described control and
assurance framework. Frequently, the scope complexity and financial stakes are too high to rely
on the project manager to keep full control and oversight without having some independent
verification and hold points integrated as controls in the delivery process. The primary purpose
of the framework is therefore to ensure that the manager stays truly ‘in control’ and in doing so
maximise the likelihood of predictable and positive outcomes.
In order to be in control, the manager needs to have both an accurate understanding of the reality
and status of the project, including the uncertainty and risk landscape, and to work according to
a credible and executable plan to achieve the desired outcomes in a predictable manner. Projects
that are no longer in control are usually characterised by lack of predictability or a clear trajectory
to failure.
Most control points are fully integrated in the project execution and engineering processes. For
example, if engineering documents must be signed off by a person who is assessed as technically
qualified to do so, this is ‘exercising control’ and hence the requirement for document sign-off is a
‘control point’. The strength and rigour of that control point will be set by the actual working prac-
tice around this sign-off process. A rigorous system will describe the actual competence level of
the technically qualified person, and may even include strict guidance on which other functions
(both technical and non-technical) should become involved and consulted before the approval.
For large and complex projects, most companies have adopted a phased and milestone-based
process to develop and define the project and take it to a final investment decision. This typi-
cal stage gate process is already dealt with in Chapter 1. The assurance framework is designed
around this project engineering and execution process and often uses the stage gates as critical
checkpoints to hold up the mirror to the project manager and provide independent reflection on
project status and decision quality. At these checkpoints, it is important to make an assessment
about the readiness to proceed to the next phase. To make this assessment accurately and con-
sistently, it is key to have a precise and mutually upheld definition of what the gate acceptance
criteria entail. The mental model should be that the gate is initially closed, and only when the
project management process demonstrates satisfactory compliance with the gate acceptance
criteria, then the gate should open.
While the assurance processes are designed to honour this principle, there is ample evidence
(Merrow, 2011) that in reality the gates are leaking and projects are slipping through based on
unrealistic promises and gap closure plans. In many cases, the presence and magnitude of the
performance gap is not even identified and hence the gate keeper is virtually blind. The main
role of the assurance provision is to ensure that the gatekeeper can take business decisions with
eyes wide open, i.e. with good understanding of the true performance gaps as verified by an
independent party.

5.1.3 Describing the various ‘lines of defence’

A well-designed and decently executed control and assurance framework comprises of a tiered
process where the ‘lines of defence’ are building on and complementing each other. This creates
a strong continuous improvement process that drives better decision quality and outcomes.
The first layer of the control and assurance framework is made up of the integrated process con-
trols that are built into the delivery process. These controls are mostly exercised by the project
team itself. The controls can be somewhat silo focused and hence for larger and more complex
projects, project managers often introduce a monitoring layer (still in the first line of defence)

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conveniently called control effectiveness reviews. These reviews are operated on a more the-
matic basis, encompassing a number of relevant and interrelated controls and then verify their
collective effectiveness.
The second line of defence provides independent project assurance over the total project delivery
process, including its integrated controls. This assurance provision is usually milestone-based
and it is used to safeguard the quality of the decisions and readiness to pass the milestone. Often
the assurance provider reports out to the project manager and at the same time also to the spon-
sors of the project.
The final line of defence is made up by the auditors. They study the design and operational
effectiveness of the assurance and control framework. They check compliance, mostly in a rath-
er mechanistic and very focused manner, looking for hard evidence, without too much further
diagnostics. Auditors can be very powerful because they look for conclusive evidence and do
not rely on experience or opinions. As such auditors’ results are often indisputable, triggering the
required reaction and follow-up, but they are also quite inefficient and ‘expensive’ given the need
to find conclusive evidence.
Clearly if the control layer functions as well as the first line of defence, there is reduced need for
assurance and audit. One would therefore expect that the manager focuses primarily on this. In
reality the exact opposite often occurs. Due to poor understanding by the project team of the
value of appropriately designed and executed controls, the manager often decides to minimise
them for the sake of efficiency. This then leads to increasing reliance on the other layers of
defence, with a much higher risk of recycle, because the controls are by definition much more
integrated in the work process than the assurance provision.
A good framework achieves the balance where assurance provision keeps the control providers
sharp. It provides an external perspective, making sure that there are no blind spots and the
project does not fall in some sort of a ‘boiling frog’ type of trap where due to the intimacy and
closeness of the project control providers, they allow the project to drift away from the optimal
outcomes and decision quality.

Independent assurance
LOD 3 under a specific mandate
of the Board
LOD 2

Business
Assurance Management
in Control
LOD 1
Control Effectiveness
Monitoring

Peer Review and Self-Assessment

Management Controls

Operational Control and Processes

Figure 5.1: The ‘Lines of Defence’ model

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5.1.4 The difference between value assurance and project assurance

Engineering projects are the means to deliver a desired business objective. It is critically impor-
tant to focus on the actual business objective and corresponding key value drivers. The downside
from a stage gate process is that it may erode the required lifecycle ownership and end-to-end
value focus. It is in this respect important to recognise the difference between value assurance
and project assurance.
Value assurance is primarily focused on the question ‘is this the right project?’, while the project
assurance is looking at ‘is this project planned or executed right?’. Generally, the value focus
reduces during the project execution in favour of execution of the project plans. Maintaining a
healthy value focus throughout the project execution phase is particularly important if the exter-
nal environment is volatile. Such changes may merit a major rethink of the project objectives and
scope, to realign the project with the core business objectives. Best practice promotes some level
of value tracking, throughout the execution phase, as part of the change management process.
This should be bolstered with some predefined trigger points where an external assessment or
reassessment of the business case will be warranted.
Value assurance is therefore conducted in the earlier phases of the project maturation before the
scope and execution plans are fixed. It needs to support the decision to commit to the project as
an attractive means to develop business opportunity. Once this commitment is made, and the
value promise is locked in, the focus of the assurance providers shifts towards assuring the pro-
ject execution, while ensuring that the value promise is kept and threats are closely monitored
and adequately mitigated.
Value focus and value delivery is not easy. Decisions are often biased towards a shorter time
horizon rather than taking the lifecycle value perspective into consideration. The true quality
of a decision often only emerges after a sustained period of operating the new asset with cor-
responding cash flows. Improvement ideas that were introduced during the design phase of the
project, in order to reduce cost and make it a more attractive investment proposal, may now
turn out to become liabilities, requiring expensive brownfield retrofits. A decision analysis model
that captures the various risks and uncertainties, and allows decision quality to be analysed on
a lifecycle basis, has proven to be a very powerful aid. Some of the most successful companies
spend significant time building project-specific decision analysis models in the earlier phases of
the project lifecycle, and then keep those ‘evergreen’ as a means of managing project alignment
with the changing business environment.

5.1.5 The importance of clear roles and responsibilities

Assurance requires to be delivered to the party that is accountable for the activity. Hence, it is
important to better understand in that context how delivery accountabilities are normally set up
in a project organisation. For all organisations, but for project teams in particular, clarity around
the organisational structure and the single point accountability is critical for success (see also
Chapter 4 for the RACI charts). This applies to all aspects of the project delivery and manage-
ment process, including each of its sub-processes. While this may sound obvious and simple
to achieve, in many organisations this basic principle is not strictly honoured. While the project
manager may be held accountable, there are various parties that can exercise negative authority
in the delivery processes, without holding any direct delivery accountability themselves. Often
these may be senior executives rather than the project manager (e.g. executive board). A proac-
tive project manager will therefore conduct a very comprehensive mapping of all its internal (and
external) stakeholders to better understand their respective level of influence (power) as well as

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their anticipated level of support. After this mapping, it is important to proactively seek alignment
with them and establish a form of ‘contract’ on which the project delivery can be conditioned.
Understanding and respecting accountabilities is also very important in the assurance domain,
as assurance holds the potential to dilute the single point accountability principle that is critical
to project success. This is particularly the case when the assurance provider becomes a ’sign-off’
signature on a milestone event or key decision. While clearly it is important that the assurance
provision has sufficient impact, it should always leave the final accountability intact. Figure 5.2
illustrates this point, where the manager is accountable for the controls and the assurance pro-
vider only verifies the strength of those controls.
In adopting this principle, it is expected that assurance providers assess the decision quality and
recommend the decision to be re-evaluated by the accountable person in case of significant
shortfalls, but it would not be acceptable for the assurance providers to require a specific decision
outcome.

Check please, but I’ll stay

accountable!

Assurance Control

Figure 5.2: Assurance provision to support control accountability

5.2 ! Executing Assurance

5.2.1 The planning and scheduling of the assurance provision

The assurance plan needs to be developed with all key stakeholders present, shortly after the
project has been framed and key objectives, risks and decisions established. This activity is cri-
tical, and should be treated as a formal ‘process’ step with endorsement of the resulting plan by
the project sponsor. Getting the right attendees to this planning meeting is important. Specific
attention is needed to ensure appropriate representation of the external support functions that
could exercise a level of influence over the project outcome, and should not be limited to the
key internal project players. This gives these functions an opportunity to co-create the assurance
plan, providing an important overlay of functional experience on the project plan and the key
decisions to be taken.
During the planning session, the discussion needs to take place both at a strategic level, i.e. ‘what’
should be assured and ‘why’ this is required, and also at the activity level, i.e. the ‘when and who’.

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A confident and well-functioning project team should approach this meeting as an opportunity
to seek help early, by being honest and open about their own strengths and weaknesses, rela-
tive to the project objectives and risk management needs. The assurance plan then formalises
this ‘help request’ and turns it into an aligned agreement between the project and the wider
functions (who are mostly external to the project). Once complete, the plan is shared with those
involved in providing assurance, with the necessary backup documentation to facilitate correct
interpretation. This process provides the assurance community the opportunity to engage pro-
actively, and combines their formal role of exercising independent assessment with a level of
constructive peer support. It sets up the project for success early on.
The assurance plan needs to be scaled and balanced appropriate to the specific project, both in
terms of the risks it aims to mitigate versus the cost and time required to exercise the assurance,
but also in terms of the organisational capacity that is required and upon which it relies. The
impact and effectiveness of the plan will be strongly affected by its complexity and the effort
needed for administration and (document) management of it. Making the plan truly ‘fit for pur-
pose’ is critical to its success. Less is more in this context.

Assurance is still often seen as a ‘policing function’ that is conducted at the back end of a pro-
ject delivery activity. In some cases, assurance is only called for when there are already strong
indications that the project is running off the rails. This rather reactive application of assurance is
suboptimal, as the possibility to influence the outcomes is often severely compromised by that
time. Instead, the assurance and control provision should really be treated as an integral part of
the core project delivery process and planned in detail to achieve this.
Specific care is to be taken with quality of the control points that are designed for sign-off by
authorities external to the project team. The project team should be resourced appropriately
to deliver its objectives with only a limited amount of external control and assurance. Typically,
anything over 30 control points per phase, rapidly becomes a game of diminishing returns and
can be detrimental to project success. Delegation of functional authorities to some of the key
project team members is often preferred to keep the data management and sign-off process
manageable. Furthermore, it is important that the entire assurance provision does not end up in a
massive administrative burden and ‘a tick the box’ exercise. This is particularly true when dealing
with contractors, for example during the detailed design or construction phases.

In general, it is better to conduct a number of controls well, than to have a heap of controls
that are a drag on the project and undermine the sense of ownership by the project team. Each
of these controls needs to have accountabilities assigned as part of the plan, and those people
need to be involved early, helping to focus the engineering activities and indicating where in the
maturation process the technical authority can exercise positive influence and knowledge.
The project initiation note provides a critical input into the assurance planning process by con-
cisely and clearly articulating the project’s key risks, objectives and decisions. The document also
sets targets around competitiveness and affordability based on the inherent characteristics of
the project and relevant benchmarks. This document guides and bounds the solution space and
creates alignment between internal and external stakeholders on the objectives and the degree
of risk management, plus corresponding front-end loading that must be achieved. The docu-
ment also needs to prioritise the value drivers, as in many cases these are not compatible (as is
illustrated in Figure 5.3) and should be signed off by the project sponsor to ultimately provide the
context against which an assurance framework could function well.

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Figure 5.3: Clear articulation of value drivers is

needed in the project initiation note

For some project managers, this elaborate planning process comes across as unnecessary, and in
their eagerness to get started they choose to avoid early dialogue with their functional support
providers, and settle for a very elaborate assurance plan that aims at satisfying all main stake-
holders. Clearly this gives them a bit of a head start indeed, or at least it looks like it. This gain is
very short-lived however and during execution they will pay dearly for the poor planning and
lost scalability. In many cases they will now have an impractical control framework, which is not
adding value and distracts the team from focusing on the true decision quality. ‘Failing to plan is
planning to fail’, according to the common wisdom.
Good assurance can only be achieved if it is well planned and fully integrated, provided it delivers
(smart) actionable recommendations to the right accountable party at the right time, to improve
decision quality, focus and outcomes. Good assurance must be focused on key decisions, and
relates those back to the desired outcomes and degree of risk management/reduction that needs
to be achieved. Deliverables are merely a demonstration of those core objectives.

5.2.2 Leveraging the ‘wise counsel’ effectively

Project teams need to leverage wide discipline expertise to deliver high-quality outcomes and
will often have to rely on external functional involvement and third-party expertise.
A high-quality assurance plan provides an excellent vehicle for channelling and leveraging spe-
cialist knowledge and experience. Rather than shying away from asking for assurance, the team
can use this to their advantage, gaining access to key resources at decisive moments in their
project execution lifecycle.
A good and confident project team understands this and embraces the assurance process. They
will be disappointed if there are no sharp assurance findings, and they will openly share their
concerns, looking for the ‘edge’ in the discussions and eagerly seek examples of best practice
to replicate. This also requires a mature attitude from the sponsor and the leadership team who
should not consider assurance as a performance review, but rather as a forward-looking means
to avoid problems and minimise future risk. They should consider it as timely engagement,
where the project receives support from the ‘wise counsel.’

The terms of reference for an assurance event focus the scope of the review and form the basis
to plan the optimal review team composition. This should be a two-way process; the supporting
functions are encouraged to indicate where they believe they should take part in the assurance
provision process (based on their perception of risk and decision quality). At the same time, the

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project team indicates the kind of functional assurance expertise they believe they need. The
terms of reference help create the right focus, but caution should be taken in allowing this to
define rigid scope boundaries. Value assurance teams in particular need to maintain the freedom
to follow their judgement as required, and are mandated to follow the value chain and assess the
full-risk landscape.

5.2.3 Making impactful recommendations that get owned by the project

In an assurance review, it is the experience of the expert (or team of experts) that lays the basis
of the assurance findings and that makes recommendations credible and valuable to the project
team. In most review situations, there may not be conclusive evidence. This also means that the
assurance provider should not only be experienced in the subject matter that is being assured,
she also needs to demonstrate significant courage and interpersonal skills to communicate the
findings to the decision authority in a manner that the team will embrace as credible and con-
structive, and for which the project team will accept ownership for follow-up and close-out of
the recommendations made.

Case example
To illustrate the assurance principle, consider the example of a voluntary car inspection
by your car dealership and the role of the dealer’s car mechanic. The mechanic must be
credible, representing a level of authority in the area that is the subject of the assurance
you are seeking. At the same time, when the mechanic finds defects, he must be
convincing when pointing out consequences and risks based on credible experience,
in order to get you to take action (given this was a voluntary inspection).
Ideally the mechanic re-emphasises your accountability for the car’s safety and
mechanical fitness rather than diluting it. For example if the tyres are found to be worn,
the mechanic should question you on how often you check your own tyres, pointing
out that this condition significantly deteriorates the safety performance for which you
are ultimately accountable. Ideally, the mechanic convinces you to not only replace your
tyres, but also to inspect the tyres yourself at regular intervals. In this way the assurance
provision strengthens the ‘management controls’, the first layer of defence, rather than
becoming the backstop that you start to rely on and in so doing, further relax your own
controls and alertness, and also dilute your own accountability.

The case study shows the importance of the assurance provider spending time in explaining the
rationale for the recommendations. The most sensitive point about effective assurance delivery
is the actual handover of the recommendations to the project and its sponsor organisation.
Best practice calls for the use of specific mission ‘verbs’ in articulating recommendations, which
are well catalogued and understood, to avoid any ambiguity around the exact interpretation. The
military is typically very good at this. There will be no doubt in the officer’s mind when asked to
‘neutralise’ the enemy forces of what that exactly entails. It would not be helpful at that point to
start having a discussion about what ‘neutralizing’ exactly means.
Creating ownership for the assurance recommendations is not always easy. Again the human and
behavioural aspects play a critical role, with the project team naturally being defensive, and resist-
ing painful recommendations (like the ones that impact on project schedule or resourcing).

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The handover process should be approached in both a bottom-up and top-down manner. It
is important that the sponsor also understands the importance of the recommendations and
enforces them from the top. At the same time though, the responsible people in the project team
who will actually need to do the work must be on-board, and need to understand the observa-
tions. This requires an element of dialogue with opportunity given to challenge and debate the
observations and rationale that led to the recommendation. Without this in place, the team may
just pay lip service to the recommendations and miss their objective and main intent. In practice,
this happens on a regular basis and significantly erodes the value added from assurance.
An assurance event that is conducted in a detached and non-inclusive manner will therefore
often be ineffective. Assurance providers actually have little to no direct authority to influence
the project outcomes. Their authority is indirect and stems from their professional credibility and
interpersonal skills. Their messages may be hard-hitting, but their reception – and hence their
value – will depend on this credibility and the style and effectiveness of their communication. The
human element in effective assurance provision cannot be over-emphasised.

5.3 ! The human element in delivering effective assurance

5.3.1 Building a high-trust environment

Wrong behaviours would render even the best designed control and assurance framework inef-
fective, making it a burden rather than a help. Players will go through the motions, simply to
show they are complying, but without the commitment or willingness to share concerns or be
open to suggested improvements. A typical example of this could be a poorly implemented tech-
nical control framework, where deliverables require sign-off outside the project team by people
deemed technically competent to do so. Without proactive engagement, respect and trust, the
process may rapidly deteriorate into a non-value adding signature rush on key deliverables, once
those are considered final by the project and where any dialogue is seen as a delay and a cause
of frustration.
It is however possible to avoid this scenario. The main ingredient is to build a high-trust environ-
ment, where seeking help and advice is seen as a good thing rather than a sign of weakness. This
needs to be complemented by excellent planning and visible alignment around the key project
objectives and tradeoffs between value and risk.
This trust and openness within the team needs to be developed gradually. The ideal culture
allows ‘the guests to look into the kitchen while the meal is being prepared.’ Such openness
exposes the project team and therefore requires mature and respectful behaviours by the assur-
ance provider.
Building a high-trust environment begins with the attitude of the sponsor team. They should
respect assurance as a ‘force for good’, where assurance observations and findings are healthy,
rather than a sign of weakness, and the project team is encouraged to open up and leverage the
external expertise as much as possible, in a proactive manner.
To complement this, the assurance team needs an inquisitive, respectful and open engagement
style, and it is important to learn what keeps the interviewee awake at night. Team members
should shy away from being judgemental but remain focussed on the key objectives and value
drivers, rather than getting bogged down in details. It is therefore also very important to have
a good engagement planning session upfront, mapping what topics and potential emerging
hypotheses need to be tested and assessed.

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The price of establishing the right culture is significant and allows assurance provision to become
fully integrated into the engineering and execution planning, where the project team can opti-
mally leverage the assurance expertise and insights, and use these proactively to optimise the
forward plans.

5.3.2 Where should the technical assurance organisationally reside?

Most projects leverage multiple engineering disciplines, with a discipline assurance framework
put in place to ensure that critical project deliverables are signed off only by those deemed tech-
nically competent to do so (the discipline technical authorities), and to facilitate cross discipline
integration.
The technical authority system is a powerful control mechanism, but also brings an inherent
risk of diluting the project manager’s single point accountability and allowing the disciplines to
exercise a level of ‘negative authority’, i.e. influence the project without having sufficient ‘skin in
the game’. A key question that is therefore often raised is whether these technical authorities can
be part of the project team.
In an open and high-trust project environment, it probably does not quite matter where the
technical authorities actually reside.
Residing within the project team provides the opportunity to better balance project drivers
against the respective technical authority agenda, and in most cases is much more efficient given
the shorter lines of communication.
An external position to the project, again with the right communication behaviours (respect and
trust) in place, could create more opportunity for lateral learning, and often brings more edge
into the discussion around fit-for-purpose implementation of relevant technical standards. It
may also help counterbalance the usually short-term focus of the project team, and maintaining
a more lifecycle value optimisation lens.
However, the process effectiveness rapidly deteriorates if communication, trust and respect is
not in good shape and the culture does not embrace the different roles that the key people play
in this. A technical authority residing within the project team could simply be overruled by the
project manager and rapidly feel compromised in exercising his/her technical authority duty
and role. Equally, technical authorities outside the project team would often feel insufficiently
informed and may be falsely accused of exercising negative authority, without truly understand-
ing the project agenda.
It really emphasises the important point that the effectiveness of the control and assurance
framework highly depends on the human aspects, the culture that we have created around it,
and the way we honour its intent. This usually starts at the top, where the decision review board
will show a very direct interest and take ownership of the assurance plan and the findings /
insights it creates during implementation.

5.3.3 The value of self-assessment

Self-assessment is an important tool to support the assurance process, specifically also the behav-
ioural elements. Self-assessment forces the team to consciously reflect on their own strengths
and weaknesses, creating awareness and reiterating accountabilities, before the assurance pro-
vider expresses the external assurance opinion.
Self-assessment is particularly powerful when the same assessment is repeated at a later
stage by the independent assurance team. This significantly sharpens the closeout discussion,
where the project team otherwise often stays in denial and claims ‘we already knew this’. With

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self-assessment in place, the team will be focused on the differences between that and the review
outcome, drawing them into the dialogue and improving the transfer of knowledge and learning.
Projects assessing their own status and performance are often overrated, possibly due to the fact
that we do not want ourselves to be seen as underperforming or simply because we are unaware
of the pitfalls that are approaching. Due to this subjectivity, it remains important that self-assess-
ment is seen as part of the assurance framework and does not replace it.
Self-assessment prior to an assurance event can also improve the handover and acceptance
of the recommendations. Handover is always a critical point in the assurance process. In most
value improvement practices, it is common practice that the external facilitator steps back during
the course of the review, and lets the project team themselves report the findings to the spon-
sor. However, for the assurance provision this is not realistic, given the independence of the
assurance team, which excludes project team participants. With self-assessment in place, the
assurance lead can link at least some of the assurance recommendations to the gaps identified
during self-assessment, thereby showing that the assurance frequently builds from established
insights rather than solely highlighting new gaps.

5.3.4 Avoiding the project team feeling ‘over-controlled’

The role of self-assessment leads to the important topic of the autonomy of the project team in
the control and assurance framework. Control and assurance frameworks can see their effective-
ness compromised as the controls are defined on a highly detailed level.
It is crucially important to give project teams the maximum amount of autonomy in the way they
execute the project. This provides flexibility against disturbances and emerging risks. Enabling
maximum autonomy should not be misconstrued as allowing misalignment, as a high degree
of alignment and autonomy need to coexist as critical ingredients for high-performance teams.
Sponsors and project management teams need to recognise this, as their communication style
and focus must support this.
The typical project delivery cycle is presented in Figure 5.4; starting with the outcomes in mind,
followed by creating optimal plans to deliver those outcomes and then executing the planned
activities to ultimately deliver the intended outcomes.

Too much
Outcomes detailed
In order information
to build Focus on
‘effectiveness’ the ‘why’
Focus on the and‘what’
‘when’, ‘where’ Watch for the
In order
Too much ‘who’ system becoming to build
detailed
control PARALYSED ‘knowledge’

Actions Plans

Focus
on the Too much
In order
‘how’ detailed
to build
‘alignment’ instructions

Figure 5.4: Project delivery cycle and the compatible leadership attributes, objectives and ‘shadow side’

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 M a n a g e m e n t o f e n gi n e e r i n g P rojects

However this figure also illustrates the importance of maintaining the right leadership focus and
communication during the project management cycle, starting first and foremost with the spon-
sor creating complete clarity around the key business objectives and drivers, thereby making
sure that there is zero ambiguity and misalignment. Stating the business objectives is more than
just articulating what success looks like; it also means articulating the priorities and what choices
could and should be made if it comes to it. During project execution, especially when the project
is facing challenges, it is important to keep reconfirming that the business objectives remain the
key focus, rather than the completion of the project as originally defined. Value tracking through-
out the project lifecycle and delivery activities is critical to avoid this drift from occurring. During
the early dialogue, it is important that critical background knowledge, context and constraints
are set for the project delivery team to act within. At this stage, care must be taken to avoid the
pitfall (or ‘shadow side’) of too much detailed information, which can overwhelm the project
team and works counter-productive.

The project team must then translate the business objectives into a realistic and actionable plan.
The concept of ‘back briefing’ has evolved from a predominantly military process to something
now also used in business leadership context. Back briefing is a simple, yet powerful, process
to ensure that core business objectives are understood and translated into realistic plans. This
creates absolute alignment and tests whether the plans indeed reflect a deep understanding
of the core objectives with alignment across all organisational layers. The realism behind the
plans needs testing by the sponsor, while strictly avoiding dictation of the rules and tactics at the
individual activity level. Activity planning and optimisation falls within the remit of the project
manager, and to do that well, she must be allowed maximum autonomy.
The control and assurance framework must also be aligned to this evolving leadership perspec-
tive in relation to the project maturity and scope. Assurance must ask the right questions at the
right time, and the controls should be appropriate to the phase of the project, thereby support-
ing the leadership behaviours that enable a high-performance environment. In the early project
phases, it should focus on the clarity of the objectives set, and the organisational alignment on
these. Later, it moves to testing the design of the ‘winning plan’ to realise the business objectives.
Evidence that this back briefing is working successfully is critical before the most optimal plan
can be selected.

With these principles in mind, an appropriately designed and executed control and assurance
plan reinforces the right leadership focus and performance culture, helping to maximise project
autonomy while also testing for strict alignment.

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 the scene and money at work

5.4 ! The Wind Farm

The wind farm project requires a total estimated investment of about € 1 billion, with
participation opportunities for local residents. The project team is currently evaluating
various design options, combining onshore and near-shore wind turbine designs. The
most attractive alternatives will be presented to the owner’s team for a final selection.
The owner’s team consists of a partnership of agricultural entrepreneurs and the energy
company Esenca. They want to take a wide business and risk perspective when making
their decision, including the opinion of local residents and other stakeholders that are
expressed in the public inspection process.

In order to enhance the quality of their decision, the owner’s team has requested an
integrated value and project assurance review to be conducted on the recommended
outcome of the project team’s work by an independent team comprising of various
experts. This independent expert team is carefully chosen to match the risk and
opportunity spectrum of the wind farm scope, and includes a project engineer, a
commercial manager, a social performance specialist to look after the local stakeholder
management plan, and a senior wind farm operator.

The review team engages key players of the project – and the owner’s leadership team –
through a series of interviews. The key project documentation is being used as pre-read
by the review team, from which potential issues are distilled that set the agenda for the
interviews. The latter are conducted in a very positive manner, building trust and allowing
the interviewees to express their concerns openly and without fear for repercussions.
The review team takes an integrated business perspective, to help with the difficult
concept select choice and to help improve the project predictability and business case.

The team captures and hi-grades its observations in a comprehensive and simple
close-out document with prioritised recommendations made to both the project team
and the owner’s team. While the review team ultimately supports the recommended
concept (and explicitly states that), it also makes a number of important observations and
recommendations pertaining to the forward plan, the contracting and procurement tactics
with Allwind, the stakeholder management plan and the overall attractiveness of the
business case.

The project manager and sponsor subsequently discuss these recommendations and
agree to act upon them, thereby also inviting the review team to return in six months’
time when the project has completed its basis for design and will be moving on to the
final round of turnkey contract negotiations with Allwind.

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