While the PMBOK is certainly necessary to deliver projects, there’s something missing. There’s something more that’s required than the PMBOK to deliver successful project outcomes. There’s a missing addendum that project practitioners need to deliver the intended objectives that are set out at the beginning of the project to achieve the project outcomes. That missing addendum is the outcome assurance framework.Listen to this episode to see how you can get a copy of this missing addendum and apply these practices on your project.
Hello everyone. If your projects are struggling at the end to finish smoothly during commissioning and startup, then there might be something you’re missing. And I wanted to jump on here quickly to give you the missing addendum to the PMBOK guide.Now, this isn’t meant to replace the PMBOK guide. This is a supplement to expand upon it and give you an additional tool that most projects aren’t using to complete projects with assurance so that you can successfully achieve outcomes on your projects. And I’m going to show you how you can get a copy of this addendum a bit later in the presentation so you can start applying these practices to your projects.
So, I’m with the Institute of Commissioning and Assurance. My name is Paul Turner. We’re a worldwide organization of over 4,500 members. We’ve got a commissioning project community of over 29,000 people. We’ve got a global presence with 25 local chapters all over the world. We’ve got a great board of directors here that’s leading our initiatives to transform the way projects are delivered. Myself, Paul Turner, Crawford Weir, the Global Commissioning Director for ICxA, and Peter Foxley, Global Director for Policy and Governance Integration. And between us, we’re leading the change in project transformation for improved project performance.
We’ve got a great team supporting us with our ICXA Advisory Council. These are the best of the best, the elite 1% of commissioning experts in the world who know how to deliver projects, and our newest member. We’re happy to welcome David Tain, who is our expert in operational readiness. Definitely reach out to David and welcome him to the team. So, who is this presentation for? This presentation is for governance leaders who are ready to really drive projects to excellence and deliver successful outcomes. So, not only focusing on project outputs, but also focusing on actually delivering the real intended outcome of the project. The reason it was justified in the first place was to actually deliver that outcome at the end of the project.
Now, that doesn’t happen on a lot of projects, as I’ll show you here soon; a lot of projects are challenged with delivering the outcome at the end of the project. And this structure we’re going to talk about today is going to help you put that framework in place to deliver project outcomes. This is for governance leaders who need to structure their PMOs for success. Your PMOs may be missing this critical piece of the project management body of knowledge to deliver outcomes on projects. When we look at projects, we find that a lot of projects are missing this key critical aspect to deliver successful outcomes. And this is for governance leaders who are really looking for what is that missing piece of why projects fail? Well, this addendum that I’m going to give you is the missing piece and the solution to deliver projects successfully.
So, on a lot of projects, everyone looks to the project manager to be also the project leader, right? The project manager is at the top of the org chart. But what we find is that’s rarely the case, that if the PMBOK was all that was required, then projects would be succeeding. Except the projects aren’t. They’re struggling at the end to complete. So, it’s not the project manager’s fault by any means. They’re referencing the PMBOK and using that as their tool or their body of knowledge to govern projects. But there must be something missing if the PMBOK alone isn’t enough to deliver project success. So, this is the missing addendum to supplement the PMBOK and give you the tools to deliver successful projects.
We’ve all heard the statistics. We don’t need any more reports saying that projects are having problems completing. Professor Bent Flyvbjerg from the University of Oxford has done extensive research on 16,000 projects. We know that projects are struggling to complete on time and on budget. There’s something missing, and we need to identify that solution. This missing addendum is the piece that’s missing. And once you get this in your hand and start applying it to your project, you’ll see much better project performance. The data from the University of Oxford clearly shows us that there must be something missing in the PMBOK that’s not giving the guidance, the complete story that’s needed to deliver projects on time.
The challenge is that projects are often structured and focused on delivering outputs, right? We need to deliver an installed pump, we need to pull cables, we need to deliver an engineering work package. But they’re still missing delivering the outcome at the end on a lot of projects, you’ll see. And the PMBOK will largely talk about measuring the success of projects by measuring time, by measuring your schedule, right, and measuring costs and measuring scope. And these are all certainly important, and they’re needed on projects, but there’s a piece that’s missing to deliver the outcome and deliver the value to deliver the intended purpose of the project. Now, some of the PMBOK in the 7th edition has evolved and is starting to focus on outcomes. But it doesn’t take that next step and actually give you the framework to deliver on those outcomes.
So, let’s focus on what these four distinctions are here because it’s important. So, outputs are your deliverables, right? We’re all familiar with these on projects, your installed equipment, your software that’s delivered, or as-built drawings. These are all deliverables. These are all outputs of the project, right? But taking that a step further, outcomes are the actual changes that are enabled by these outputs. So, improved production capacity or a new manufacturing capability. This is an outcome of the project. This is the reason the project was started in the first place was to deliver this intended outcome. If it’s a chemical manufacturing plant, to actually do that chemical manufacturing and produce that outcome, right?
Now, then the benefits are the realized gains that we actually get from these outcomes. We get lower costs, we get improved customer satisfaction, or we get resource availability. These are the benefits that come from a project. And in essence, the reason for the project is to deliver value, right? We need to have alignment with the strategy, the corporate strategy, or the government strategy, or whoever is initiating the project so that we can achieve those long-term goals. Now, these are why projects are started, but there’s something missing that doesn’t measure and track these and assure that these outcomes are achieved. There’s too much focus on outputs, and we need to also include processes to manage outcomes, benefits, and value on projects as well.
So, the missing piece is a term we’ve coined as outcome assurance. So, it’s an evolution of quality assurance and quality control to also measure the output or the outcome of the project from those outputs earlier in the project. It’s a governance model that defines outcomes very early in projects, a structured definition at the beginning to define intended outcomes, and then a framework to also validate those outcomes progressively as the project progresses. Rather than just validating at the end. We want to validate that things are in alignment with the outcome at each stage of the project to make sure that at the end we can actually achieve that outcome. And it’s a governance model to sustain value well beyond handover into the lifetime life cycle of the full asset into operation.
So, outcome assurance is the missing addendum to the PMBOK and the tool that your PMO may be missing to deliver successful project outcomes. So, what is project assurance? Project assurance is the structured framework to deliver project outcomes. This is the missing methodology that the 10% of projects that are successful, this is something they stumble upon accidentally, and it is the reason that projects are successful is because they’re following this framework for outcome assurance.So, there are five pillars of outcome assurance.
The first is vision and strategy. So, right at the beginning of your project, the outcome to be achieved needs to be defined with that visionary leadership and that expert guidance right at the beginning to define the outcome and ensure everyone is working to that same outcome.
The second pillar is information outcome. We need to be strategically using the information on our projects to make real-time decisions and to align with the outcome at the end of the project. And when you meet this information outcome pillar of outcome assurance, you can leverage this data and make much better decisions that ensure all of your decisions are in alignment with the outcome.
The third pillar is installation outcomes. So, not only installing equipment on the project, but installing with intention and installing with purpose in alignment with the outcome. A pump bolted to the ground is great, but if that pump doesn’t also function with the pipes, pumps, motors, valves, control systems, all those aspects, then the pump is useless. We need to install with a systems-based approach and a systems focus in alignment with the outcome so that we’re not just installing the pump, we’re installing with the intention to align with the outcome. Integration outcome—this is the process of making all the installed outputs actually function as a system. Integration is key.
And if you’re not following an outcome assurance program process, this is likely where you hit your first roadblock of things that haven’t gone well. By aligning outcome assurance earlier in your project, then this integration element of the project at the end is going to go much smoother because all earlier aspects of the project were with the intention to align with this integration outcome.
And then, of course, operations outcome, the goal or the outcome we want is highly reliable assets that can be used for decades of reliable operation.
And we need systems, and we need people and processes ready to be able to assume those operation and maintenance responsibilities to achieve that operations outcome alignment, in line with outcome assurance.
So, when all five of these are in alignment, that’s how you achieve project outcomes, not by the typical way of operating in silos and disjointed decision-making processes. Outcome assurance assures that all people and all systems are in alignment to achieve your project outcome. The PMBOK is primarily focused on deliverables, as you know, about achieving cost milestones and achieving schedule milestones and installing equipment and delivering design deliverables. And the 7th edition of the PMBOK did start to introduce outcomes, but it stopped short of giving practitioners the framework needed to ensure outcome-focused delivery.
So, ICxA takes this one step further to give your PMOs the missing framework to deliver successful projects and successful outcomes. So, outcome control and outcome assurance are an evolution of quality assurance and quality control. These are processes we’re all familiar with, right? We’re familiar with the construction quality control processes that check installation compliance with requirements. We’re familiar with quality assurance processes to assure that quality methods are taking place in the field, that there’s a quality management system, that the tasks in the field are following this process, and all the quality methods to verify construction and installation are taking place.
But quality control alone doesn’t deliver your project outcome. That will confirm that construction is complete and accurate and meets quality requirements, but there’s a missing piece for outcome assurance and outcome control. Once the equipment is installed, there’s another layer of outcome assurance and outcome control to ensure that your project outcomes are being achieved. And this is usually what’s missing on a lot of projects; a lot of projects have assumed that your quality processes will get you to that outcome at the end of the project. But that’s not the case, right? There’s another layer of assurance that’s required to ensure that your project delivers on the outcome.
So, outcome assurance and outcome control extend quality into value governance so that you can also achieve the outcome of your project. This is what our addendum that we’re putting out is, this outcome assurance and outcome control process that extends beyond the PMBOK to give you the missing tool needed to deliver project outcomes. So, every project is a chain of decisions, right? Starting right at the beginning all the way to the end of the project. And if you make all the right series of decisions, you’ll have a successful outcome. But every project is not just a schedule or a budget or a set of deliverables. It’s really a chain of decisions.
There are hundreds and thousands or even millions of decisions that need to be made on projects to get to the end of them. And each decision is really a fork in the road that either keeps the project aligned with its intended outcome or quietly steers it in the wrong direction away from the outcome, right?
So, there are small decisions, big decisions made on projects, and even the smallest of decisions made out of alignment with your project outcome. They may seem harmless in the moment, but over time they continue to add up, and they continue to erode the foundation of success on your project.
If there’s one really big wrong decision that’s made, well, that can completely destroy the ability for projects to be successful. And these decisions are made much earlier in the projects, like months or years in advance. But all these big and small decisions are either moving the project closer towards the outcome or away from the outcome.
And this is why outcome assurance is essential because it exists to guard against this drift of drifting away from your project outcome. It ensures that every decision, whether it’s a big decision or a small decision, is in alignment with one question that’s always asked: does this decision move us closer to the outcome, or does it move us further away from achieving our project outcome? Without this outcome assurance process, then projects risk becoming a collection of disconnected choices rather than a coherent path to success. And we see this all the time on projects, right? Everybody’s working in silos, and there’s no coherent path of decisions to get to the end of the project. Outcome assurance guards against that and makes sure that all decisions are in alignment with the project.
So, who guides these decisions? The critical truth is that the only people who are qualified to guide these decisions are those people who have the experience and have already carried projects across the finish line. And these are the commissioning leaders who know what it takes to deliver projects at the end of projects.It’s like that for everything, right? It takes lived experience, the wisdom of navigating the complexity on projects and understanding the consequences that are made on projects, the decisions that are made that either harm or are in alignment with the project outcome. It takes real-world experience to see the difference between a decision that feels convenient and a decision that actually secures the project outcome. So, the missing piece is our outcome assurance process here that you can get a copy of. I have a copy right here, and you can get a copy as well to help you on your projects. This is really the governance of outcomes right from the start of projects to make sure that everything is in alignment and stays in alignment with your project outcome.
A process to audit the outcome of your project to make sure that everything’s in alignment. A regular, scheduled, recurring—if that’s monthly, weekly, daily—to assure that every decision is in alignment with your project outcome. This, of course, is tailored to your specific project conditions because every project is a unique series of decisions to get to the end. And this outcome assurance process is tailored to each specific project. And then, of course, it’s backed by the ICXA standards that define the details of how to implement this process. Outcome assurance is really the value delivery process that’s missing on projects. Outcomes essentially bridge the outputs to benefits to value to make sure that the project is meeting its intended purpose for the reason that it was justified. It prevents the drift between the original business case of the project and the delivery of the project at the end. It connects the front and the end to make sure that projects are successful.
So, this addendum really strengthens the PMBOK value delivery system. It’s certainly not meant to replace the PMBOK. We still need all the processes within there. But this is the supplement to move beyond and extend the processes within the PMBOK to give you that value delivery system that might be missing. It’s really extending beyond projects so that we have outcome authorities that are responsible for delivering project outcomes, and that outcome authority exists on projects right at the beginning. They’re responsible to make sure that all teams are in alignment. There are no silos being formed, and they’re essentially protecting the project outcome to make sure that all decisions are in line, in alignment with the project outcome, the project objectives. They’re responsible to deliver value to the organizations and public and are held accountable to do that. So, ICXA is advancing three standards to do this with our commissioning standard, our operational readiness standard, and our outcome assurance standard that defines how this framework can fit into your projects for successful completions.
This really is the future of project success. Outcomes are the new governance model. It’s no longer appropriate just to deliver outputs and tasks. More and more frequently, governments are holding groups accountable. Organizations are holding groups accountable to actually deliver outcomes. There’s a rising frustration in the world about why we can’t deliver successful projects? And these are the tools that are needed to keep projects in line with those outcomes. To do exactly that, to deliver successful outcomes, we’re transforming from project management into project leadership to lead projects with intention and to focus on delivering project outcomes rather than just managing outputs. So, just like quality control and quality assurance that have risen over the years and is embedded in all projects for quality management, outcome control and outcome assurance will develop into a global standardization as well to deliver successful project outcomes.
So, what’s next? How do you get ahead of this trend to deliver outcomes on your projects and focus on outcomes rather than outputs so that you don’t get left behind in this fast-changing world? So, this is how you get a copy of this book. You can go to our website at icxa.net/book. There’s an option there to get the free PDF. You can download the addendum, get your copy, and start applying it to your projects right away. If you prefer a printed copy like I have here too, you can go on Amazon, go to that link icxa.net/book, and you’ll see the Amazon link there as well. And shortly, maybe in a few days, the audiobook will be released as well. So, you’ll be able to get that on Amazon and get that on Spotify if that’s your preferred method to listen to this information through audiobook. So, yeah, grab the free PDF, get a printed copy if you want, or listen to the audiobook and start applying this to your projects right away so that you can get the piece that’s missing and deliver successful outcomes.
Q&A Section
Q: Does QA/QC need to follow through all the commissioning phases?
A: Yep. And that’s the piece that’s often missing, right, is quality alone, your construction quality processes to make sure that installations meet your contract requirements. That’s not going to deliver your project outcome, right? That’s going to confirm that the pump is installed correctly. But that’s not going to actually ensure the outcome of that pump being part of, say, a chemical dosing system to produce that intended outcome of, say, dosing a particular chemical to a system. This is the piece that projects are missing, right? They’ll focus on quality assurance and quality control or maybe not, maybe they’ll do a poor job of quality assurance and quality control, but that’s not going to deliver your project outcome. You need outcome assurance as well to build and expand upon your quality processes to also focus on delivering the project outcome.
The important thing is for a project, especially commissioning, is the intent to have a safe and smooth operation. If this is missing, then every project misses all deadlines 100% all the time, right? It makes no sense to only verify your project outcome at the end of the project. You need a gated process right from the start to establish what that outcome is. Check on these milestones frequently and often to ensure that the project is in alignment with that intended outcome. If you have this checking process throughout your process of outcome assurance, then you’re much more likely to have a safe and smooth operation at the end of the project. If you skip all of this outcome assurance process and only try to do that at the end, guaranteed it’s not going to go well, right? You haven’t been doing the job to verify that the project is in alignment with the outcome that you want to achieve. So that’s why 9 out of 10 projects are a disaster at the end is because they never focused on the outcome. They allowed projects to end up in silos. They only focused on construction outputs or tasks or deliverables, and there was no process to assure the outcome. So, it’s no surprise that projects fail in those situations, right? Because you can’t just leave the outcome to chance. You need to govern your outcome and make sure that you are actually in alignment with achieving that outcome.
Comment: OA/OC versus QA/QC, outcomes versus quality.
A: Yeah. So QA/QC is certainly needed to verify installations. Then what we need to do is have another process on top of that to verify the outcome with outcome assurance and outcome control. These are the processes to verify that your earlier tasks and deliverables from engineering groups, from construction groups, that things are installed correctly by your installers, that they are in alignment with your project outcome. This structured quality assurance process throughout all project stages is a method to confirm that your project achieves the intended outcome.
Q: It seems we have to establish a project failure mode effect analysis as the guideline.
A: Yes, that is certainly one small aspect of this. Yep, you’re right, you need to identify those risks, identify them early. And that’s the role of the outcome authority because those risks are the things that are going to disrupt your project outcome, right? So, the earlier you can identify those, the sooner you can implement mitigation methods, then you’re going to have a much more likely chance of achieving your project outcome. So, FMEA is certainly a piece of that to identify those risks. There are lots of other methods too, but that’s the benefit of experience, right? When someone has gone through this process before and understands what’s required to deliver a project across the finish line at the end, they’re the ones who can understand and see these risks. And as the outcome authority can be informed, the team can make decisions in alignment with achieving that outcome rather than ignoring risks and only realizing them at the end of the project when things fall apart and are significantly late. So, outcome assurance is definitely the process that’s missing on projects to be able to assure project outcomes.
Q: At what point in the project stages should the commissioning guys and eventually operations be introduced to the project?
A: Right from the start. So, this is the role of outcome assurance, your outcome authority. These are the seasoned commissioning professionals who guide your project. They’re involved even before the project manager, even before any FID (financial investment decision) is made. Outcome authorities are the individuals at the beginning of the project who set the strategy, who select the project manager involved in the project, and who guide the team to successful completion. They’re putting the stake in the ground at the beginning to establish what the outcome is to be achieved and then holding everyone accountable on the project to make sure that that outcome is, in fact delivered at the end. So, this process is on top of anything we’re talking about here for commissioning. These are your outcome assurance governance processes to guide projects to successful completion.
Comment: This is good points, OA/OC. Yep, it’s missing on projects, right?
A: It’s some projects stumble upon it, whether they call it something else, they might not call it outcome assurance, but those are the governance leaders at the beginning that are setting the outcome and holding everybody accountable to the outcome. But only 10% of projects actually achieve their initial objectives. So, only 10% of projects are implementing this process for successful outcomes. The other 90% of projects, the data shows us that projects aren’t doing this, and they’re leaving the outcomes to chance. And that’s why 90% of projects fail is because they’re not managing the outcome and governing that the outcomes can be achieved at the end of the project. So, it’s a choice you make, right? If you want to achieve your project outcome, and you want to govern that outcome, then this is the process that you implement: outcome assurance. If you don’t want to achieve your outcome, and you just want to roll the dice and gamble, then you skip this process, and your project could be 6 months late, it could be two years late. It could be a million or $2 billion over budget. You can leave that to chance if you want, but if you want to manage your project outcome, then this is the method to do it.
Paul Turner: Thanks for the discussion here today. Appreciate the questions. Get a copy of the addendum, and I hope your projects are exceptional.
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