Today, I’m going to give you an overview of the standards development work that ICxA has been working on for the last several months. Just to give you an update on where we’re at and what you can expect over the next few months for updates and release of our outcome assurance framework of standards for major capital project delivery.
I’m going to give you a bit of an inside look into the development activities that the team and I have been undertaking here to develop the ICxA Global standards.
A little bit about the Institute of Commissioning and Assurance. We are a nonprofit global organization that is dedicated to standardizing and advancing the fields in three areas, particularly in relation to commissioning, in relation to operational readiness, and in relation to outcome assurance. These three aspects form the three key pillars of the standards framework that we’ll review here today.
Explore ICxA’s Standards, Credentials, and Community Initiatives. So what we do at the Institute of Commissioning and Assurance is, like I mentioned, we set the global standards in the three aspects that we’re working on: our three standard suites. ICxA-10000 is our outcome assurance suite of standards. ICxA-00000 is our commissioning and outcome execution suite of standards, and ICxA-00050 is our operational readiness suite of standards.
And this has been our focus over the last several months, reviewing with our Advisory Council to develop these standards, getting the collective wisdom and industry input from everyone involved, and really developing this robust suite of standards. And I’ll go into a bit more detail here in a bit.
Another aspect we provide is our four levels of credentials. This is for people who are progressing through the various levels and gaining the various levels of experience, right from the commissioning professional, moving to a commissioning leader, up to a commissioning project manager, and an outcome authority.
It’s very important in how we’ve structured this because, as you know, in the commissioning industry, it’s not only knowledge that’s important — experience is critically important as well, right? So as people are gaining experience, then we’re reviewing their experience, we’re accrediting them with their years of experience. At each level, there’s another examination that’s passed. So with that combination of knowledge and experience, it’s quite valuable to have people progress through these levels of certification and demonstrate their knowledge and experience.
The third aspect we’re working on is the ICxA body of knowledge. So just very recently, we’ve established a group of technical committee leaders, and I’ll show you some information on this as well. Our technical committees are really the industry experts from a technical perspective who are compiling this body of knowledge that the ICxA members will have access to.
This is really the industry expertise that’s being collected here, that’s available to members to review and check out and get assistance on all aspects of projects from governance to commissioning to operational readiness.
We do have a research arm here as well, where I’ll mention it down below. Here in benchmarking, we’re going through and baselining the companies that are out there. Now that we have a pretty robust suite of standards, how does each organizational capability stack up to these standards? Our benchmarking process helps companies understand that we’re going through our process. You can compare organizational capabilities in reference to the standards.
Some groups are very high in organizational sophistication to deliver these more complex processes. Some are weaker in other areas. But through this benchmarking process, you can see where your organization stacks up in relation to the standards, to see some areas where maybe you’re strong or other areas that you’re a bit weaker and need to elevate some processes to deliver projects.
As part of our institute, we’re developing monthly newsletters. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to those. We’re hosting technical podcasts, so we’re really connecting with the community and getting information out there to collect the wisdom of everyone that’s out there, to gather everyone’s knowledge here from an institutional perspective.
We’re building a global community of practice with our certified professionals pathway that we’ve put together here. We’ve got local chapters in 25 or more countries, and we’re soon going to be hosting global forums to distribute this knowledge to everyone that’s out there.
These are the five core aspects that ICxA is involved in, and I definitely encourage you to get involved in the institute to see how your organization can benefit from the resources that are available. As I mentioned, we are a global community. I think we have maybe close to 5,000 worldwide members now, over 25 local chapters, and are regularly putting information out to the community to help everyone succeed with projects.
The Team Driving ICxA Standards and Technical Committees. So this is our Board of Directors.
My name is Paul Turner. I’m the founder and CEO of the Institute here. And we’ve really assembled a really strong, capable group here of amazing industry leaders to lead the Institute’s efforts here.
Stuart Morrison is our ICxA President, and Peter Foxley is our Global Director for Policy and Governance Integration. And Peter’s quite busy because that’s really one of the main focuses and the efforts that the Institute is undertaking – how do we get into policy and how do we push forth with governance to focus projects on intended outcomes.
We also have a global footprint in our VP regional governance.
David Tain is our VP of Latin America, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean.
Mike Kilburn is our VP of North America, Canada and the US.
James Tuller is our VP of Scandinavia.
Java Ebra is our VP of the Middle East, and
Chris Dunlop is our VP of the Asia Pacific area.
I definitely encourage you to reach out to any of these individuals, get in touch, and see how the Institute can help you with your projects.
Now, this is one of the core focuses we’ve been looking at over the last little while – development of our ICXA global standards. And our Advisory Council is principally involved in gathering and providing its input to the development of these standards. We definitely want these standards to align with exactly what the industry wants and needs, which is why we’ve assembled this group of industry experts to provide their collective wisdom.
There are individuals here from some of the leading companies in the world who are involved and participating in our development programs. Heinz is leading our Advisory Council efforts and going through the process to develop these phenomenal standards with everybody’s input and guidance to make them exactly what the industry needs to deliver successful projects.
I mentioned our technical committees earlier. This is a fairly new effort in the last few weeks, and there’s been incredible interest – people reaching out from all areas of the world interested in participating in our technical committees.
David Tain is leading our technical committees as the Chair. And then we do have specific technical committee working groups.
So the first three that we’ve established are with Graham Temke leading our commissioning technical committee, Arie Burnell leading our outcome assurance technical committee, and Alan leading our operational readiness technical committee.
If you’re definitely interested in getting involved in contributing your knowledge and learning from these experts, I encourage you to get involved in one of our technical committees. These will be developed further as well. I could see in the future that maybe we have technical committees that are focused on very specific aspects. Say if a group wants to look at digital implementation, maybe there’s a technical committee that’s established for that. Maybe there are specific technical committees that are set up for various specific industries. Maybe we want to look at a very specific aspect of the transport industry. We could establish a technical committee for that.
But this is our process to gather more technical wisdom and maybe even more so to take the standards a step further and get into the practical implementation of how these standards are applied on projects.
Addressing Project Failure with Outcome-First Leadership. So definitely check out our technical committees and get involved from that aspect as well.
The reason that ICxA exists really is that there is a fundamental problem in the industry, and I think it’s been known for quite some time that major capital projects often struggle to complete successfully at the end, right? It might seem that projects are succeeding in construction, but when it comes to the end, projects very often fail in the operational outcomes that they were set out to accomplish right at the beginning of the project.
This is why ICxA exists, right, is to have that outcome focus right from the beginning of projects and ensure flawless execution and flawless governance, flawless operations right through the complete project life cycle.
The ICxA standards that we’re putting together really are the standards that pull all the various pieces of projects together, that pull the procurement, engineering, construction, commissioning — all of the aspects that sometimes, unfortunately, end up siloed on projects.
ICxA is set out to pull all those together, define the standards and help projects deliver successful outcomes because too often projects end up with a late startup or unstable operations, or they’re missing their performance guarantees at the end. Sometimes, where a startup was supposed to be a month ends up being 10 months; we end up with these long ramp-up periods, right?
This is why ICxA exists – to put a standard method and process in place to pull all this together. Because you know, in the industry, the industry does have standards for design, there are standards for construction, there are standards for safety, but up until this point, there has been no governing of the assurance process to achieve operational outcomes. This is the reason that ICXA exists — to fill that gap.
I’ve mentioned outcome assurance a few times, but what is outcome assurance? Well, outcome assurance is really a mindset shift for outcome-first leadership on projects. You may be used to the traditional thinking of a linear process, right? You do engineering, and then you do construction, which is followed by commissioning and is followed by operations.
Well, outcome assurance flips this thinking to start with the end in mind. I’m sure you’ve seen projects’ lessons learned that always have the lessons learned to say “start with the end in mind.” Well, how do you actually do that? This is how you do that – in the standards that ICxA is developing, you first focus on your operational outcome and then work backwards from there.
To achieve that operational outcome, what do you need? You need system readiness. To achieve system readiness, what do you need? You need equipment verification. In order to move forward with equipment verification, what do you need? Well, you need construction completion. It’s a complete flip of the mindset in how projects are planned and executed – with this outcome-first leadership approach guided by the ICxA Outcome Assurance standards.
Understanding the ICxA Standards Hierarchy and Stage Gates. So this is the standards framework that we’ve been working on. This is the pyramid and hierarchy of the standards that our Advisory Council has been reviewing over the last little bit.
So the first one at the top is our outcome assurance global standard. This is the governance standard that’s required to start with the end in mind, have that outcome-first leadership approach right from the beginning of projects and govern the entire project life cycle to achieve the intended outcome that you want at the end of projects.
This standard is very much written in the style of an ISO standard, and this would be the governance process required right at the beginning of projects to not only deliver outcomes at the end, but to govern outcomes right from the beginning of projects and assure alignment and assure that outcome authorization exists right from the beginning of projects.
So this standard is what essentially sets your project up for success. When you follow this standard and implement it right at the beginning of projects, right in FEED stages during your project concept stages, when you implement this standard and follow these practices outlined in the standard on projects, you’ll have a much higher chance of achieving your outcome at the end of projects. That’s our Level 1 governance standard.
Our next Level 2 standards get into a little bit more detail on the implementation. These two standards focus on ICxA commissioning and outcome execution, as well as focus on operational readiness. These two processes go hand in hand in order to implement the governance processes that are defined in the top-level outcome assurance standard.
These two standards get into more of the implementation of how you plan and execute for commissioning on site. How do you plan and execute for operational readiness so that there are no surprises at the end, so that you are governing outcomes, and so that it’s a flawless completion at the end of projects by implementing these three levels of standards?
Now, this third level of standards, this isn’t necessarily something that ICxA defines. This would be the site-level procedures, the specifics, the project-specific implementation of these standards processes, right? You’re always going to have something that’s tailored specifically to your project conditions, your industry. And this is essentially what’s created in this third level.
This third level is created by your project team, right? So the first and the second level, ICxA provides the guidance on how to govern outcomes and how to achieve commissioning, startup, and operational readiness at the end of your project. This third level is a project team activity to implement those processes specifically for your project.
These three standards that we’re creating here, these really are the interlocking aspects of what’s required for the outcome assurance framework. These provide you with governance assurance with not only the processes required on site, but the evidence to prove that outcomes have been achieved and allow governance to actually authorize outcomes through the various project life cycles.
This is the piece that’s required in order to start with the end in mind and achieve your project outcome at the end when you follow this outcome assurance framework of the interlocking standards that we’ve created.
So you’ve, I’m sure you’re familiar with some of these, but each of the stage gates that are governed through our process – the first one of course being your requirements engineering; you need to define what the intent is. So some of the earlier groups responsible for this – design groups, engineering groups – they’re forming the engineering requirements that define what the project is supposed to accomplish.
The first step is really gathering those requirements to define what is the very specific intent that this project needs to achieve at the end. This is really the first stage gate of outcome assurance to ensure requirements engineering has been completed successfully and that the intent is fully defined and understood by everyone on the project.
The next one is your engineering outcome. What is the outcome of the detailed engineering activities on projects? This defines, and this gate is your design readiness. Have those stages of detailed engineering design been completed sufficiently and completely to have a complete and ready design?
The next one is your construction outcome. And of course, this must align with what’s required for commissioning. So, from an installation readiness perspective, is the outcome of construction in the right sequence and to the highest degree of quality required in order for the next stages of commissioning? This is where a lot of projects run into problems – because there’s misalignment; there’s no alignment of the intended outcome, and projects run into trouble at the end.
The next step after installation readiness would be your equipment verification. This is, of course, your readiness at a component level before you get ready for system integration, integrating all those equipment items into a system to define your next outcome stage gate for system readiness.
The whole reason the project exists, everything that we’re talking about here today, is to achieve your operational outcome, right? So operational readiness is a key aspect there as well to achieve your intended outcome.
When you define and implement these standards on your projects and implement these outcome authorization stage gates, you’ll have a much higher chance of achieving your outcome at the end of your project. When we see projects that don’t do this, these are the projects that end up with a scramble at the end and are not able to achieve their intended outcome.
Standards Release, Membership, and Community Engagement Opportunities. So as I mentioned, we are going through and reviewing these standards with our Advisory Council. The group has been deep into the details over the last several months, and we do, in fact, have a working draft that is written and under review by our Advisory Council.
We met with our Advisory Council earlier this week and had fantastic discussions, lots of great input and more discussions to have in order to refine and get everyone’s input into these standards.
So our Advisory Council does play a key role in this because this is the industry consultation. This is the collective wisdom that we need to gather from the industry to have a standard that the industry can get behind and get excited about to support and implement on their projects.
The timeline for our Advisory Council reviews is ongoing now; we hope to complete them in the April time frame, and that’s progressing well. To do that, our goal is to have a first release of standards available mid-April. This would be available to our ICxA members when this new standard is released from our current set of standards that are implemented right now.
This would be the next revision level to take these up to a higher quality of standards that people can use on their projects. And our target is to push for that by mid-April.
There are lots of ways to get involved. If you’re finding that the Institute may have some items that can help you with your projects, I definitely encourage you to become an ICxA member. When you’re a member of ICxA, you will get early access to the standards once they’re released. And that’s a great way to get these in your hands so that you can start applying and implementing them on your projects.
If you’re finding the standards interesting and you’re wondering how your organization compares to the benchmark that’s set out here by the industry for these standards? Well, there are opportunities to participate in benchmarking. We do have a benchmarking program, and there’s actually no cost because it is part of our research efforts, where you can get your organization’s outcome assurance index score in the three primary areas that make up outcome assurance.
You can get a score for your capabilities to see how they compare to the industry baseline. They can see how they compare to other peers in their industry. It’s a great way to see kind of where you stand for organizational capabilities in relation to what the industry has set out here.
And we are finding that there are organizations that have been excited over the last year or more as being an early adopter of these standards, where the standards have been embraced and embedded in their organizational capabilities to implement this ICxA outcome assurance framework. And people are having lots of success with that.
I definitely encourage you to check them out and see how they can apply to your organizations as well.
I do have time for some questions. I see that there are some comments in the chat. I’ll run through those here quickly as I’m going through questions. If you do have any additional questions, shoot them in the chat, and I’ll get your questions answered for sure.
You can also check out our website, go to icxa.net. There are lots of great information there that tells you all about our membership programs, our certification programs, the activities that our nonprofit institute is undertaking, and all the other ways that you can get involved in the institute.
All right, so let’s go through some of the questions here and see.
Yes, good to see you, Randy. We haven’t chatted in a while. We should reach out and touch base, but yeah, it looks like you might only have a few more minutes here. If you have any questions, definitely shoot them in the chat. Always appreciate Tormod’s support, so thanks for joining.
I see Darren is on the call here as well. That’s great to see. Darren has been a long-time supporter of ICxA. He’s involved in our Advisory Council and is also a chapter lead in Eastern Canada. So great to see you here, Darren. Definitely check out the newsletter articles that we published. Darren has been a great contributor in some of our newsletter articles and always has great insight and wisdom into the commissioning industry.
Mike is here as well. Good to see you. Mike is our VP of North America. For anyone who is involved in major capital projects in North America, I definitely encourage you to reach out to Mike. He’s a great resource and a great help. He’ll be able to get you in touch with the ICxA resources and how the Institute can help you on your projects.
And Chris, good to see you, Chris. Just had a chat with Chris. Chris is our VP of Asia Pacific and Australia. Definitely reach out to Chris if you’re in those areas, and he’ll be able to help you and get you in touch with the right resources here at the institute to see how that could benefit your projects.
Darren’s got a question. How do people get involved with the discipline working groups for commissioning, operational readiness and outcome assurance?
Great question. Yep, our newly formed technical committees are a great way for members to get involved. If you’re interested in getting involved in one of the technical committees, a great first step could be to email us at info@icxa.net. But definitely check out the website because there’s lots of good information there on the technical committees and the leads for each of the groups.
So feel free to email us at info@icxa.net, and we’ll get you in touch with the right technical committee lead. But feel free, if you look at the website, you’ll see the individuals who are leading each of the groups. Feel free to reach out to them directly and definitely see how you can get involved.
All right, so I definitely appreciate everyone’s participation and involvement. I hope you found the information helpful. I trust that it was. Stay tuned as we develop our standards here – they will be released in the next little bit — and stay in touch with our mailing list, our newsletter. You’ll be the first ones to know.
The best way, of course, is to become a member because members will get early access to the standards, and definitely appreciate everyone’s interest. We will have another live webinar next week. Watch for the announcement of that. And that will be the first discussions with some of our technical committee member groups. So that will be a great way to learn more about our technical committees as well.
Thanks for joining and everyone, please have a great day.
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