Project outcome leadership starts here because projects require commissioning-led governance to assure successful project outcomes. Listen to learn how ICxA is leading the movement to improve project performance with outcome assurance leadership.
Project outcome leadership starts here because today we’re talking about how commissioning-led governance assures your project outcomes. The Institute of Commissioning Assurance is a global organization with a membership spanning all over the world of more than 4300 members. We’ve got a commissioning community of over 29,000 participants. We’ve got local chapters all over the world, 25 or more, I think we’re up to 27 local chapters all over the world with global reach spanning into several countries, and ICxA is setting the global standard for commissioning-led governance for project success.
Our Board of Directors is leading this movement to impact the construction industry and make lasting change for improved project performance. Myself, Crawford Weir, and Peter Foxley are leading this movement for a new method to deliver large capital projects that actually works and actually delivers results. We’ve assembled a world-class group in our Institute of Commissioning and Association Advisory Council. These are the elite commissioning members, the elite commissioning professionals that know how to deliver projects. For example, these are the people that are brought in at the end of projects when they’re an absolute mess and to save the project. These are the elite 1% of commissioning professionals that are making a true impact in the industry, and we’re pleased to have their involvement in ICxA as part of our Advisory Council.
So, who is this presentation for? This presentation is for leaders that are finally ready to break down the entrenched silos that exist on projects. For far too long, groups have worked in silos that really hurt the outcome of projects. This presentation is for leaders that want to do the right things for the right reasons right from the start and lead with commissioning-led governance right from the beginning. This presentation is for those that want to finally deliver successful project outcomes. And these are the exact types of industry experts that we work with in our ICxA career development program.
But the truth is that most people don’t know how to deliver project outcomes. Everyone’s doing great work, and they’re working really hard, and they’re doing their part on their project, but everyone is working in silos. That’s the classic example on all projects: everybody’s working in isolation and not aware of what the other groups are doing. They’re not working towards the intended project outcome. Projects need much better alignment by all groups that are working on projects, between all of the systems and between all of the teams that make up projects. And this is fundamentally what commissioning-led governance is all about: alignment right from the start to deliver project outcomes.
Now, there are two groups of people that should not listen to this presentation. The first group is those who have their own objectives and are not interested in delivering exceptional projects. Many groups are working on projects, and they’re solely focused on optimizing their own revenues at their own profits, and they don’t care too much if the project ever delivers the project outcome. And these people do not work on our projects, ever. The second group is those who are lying to themselves, telling themselves that they’re pretending to be aligned on the project outcome, but they’re actually going in a different direction. A common way that this is exemplified is when project groups are working in silos like we mentioned, and they’re only focused on their small part of the project rather than understanding the big picture and the project outcome.
These small-time leaders, they cause a lot of damage on projects, and they must be removed. These are the kings and the queens of the castle, and they don’t work with other groups on the project to understand the bigger project outcome. Though brilliant and talented themselves, those in this second camp can’t deliver a project successfully unless they’re willing to make the changes needed in order to do that. So, if you’re one of these two groups of people, one, you don’t want to deliver successful project outcomes, or two, you’re building your project activities around yourself, then either this presentation will change your paradigm and elevate your project vision, or it’s not for you.
So, even well-planned projects still miss the mark. But why is that? Why are projects still not being successfully delivered? We need to get to that root cause of what is actually harming projects. No more Band-Aid fixes, no more small little improvements. We need to get to that deep, underlying root cause. If we’re going to be able to understand what’s harming projects, we need to get to the heart of why projects are failing.The first thing is that everyone thinks the project manager is the conductor on the project, right? Everybody would refer to the project manager as leading that outcome, but that’s rarely the case. The truth is, project management is only managing cost and schedule. That’s what they’re trained to do, and that’s what they know, right? But they’re not managing the project outcome. It’s not part of any of PMI’s training or the PMBOK Body of Knowledge. Project management is not managing the outcome, and essentially no one is orchestrating system performance when everybody thinks that project management is the conductor.
And when you think about it, if project management was all that was required, then we would be delivering successful projects, wouldn’t we? But we’re not. Projects are continuing to fail and continuing to struggle. So, it’s clear that there’s something more that must be required rather than just project management. There’s something else missing that needs to complement or supplement project management if we’re to deliver successful projects.This is Professor Ben Flyvbjerg. He’s done years of decades of research on why projects fail, and his book How Big Things Get Done documents all the reasons why projects fail. His database of over 16,000 projects shows all the industries and their mean cost overruns. Projects are clearly struggling. You can read his book; it lists all the problems, but it doesn’t necessarily go that one step further to give the solution of how to solve failing projects.
So, today we’re going to get to that. We’re going to discuss the root cause of why projects are failing, and we’ll also talk about the solution on how to fix that and deliver successful projects. So, here are the three most common and most costly reasons that projects miss the mark.
The first one is that there’s no alignment on the project outcome. Projects drift off course as they progress through the various phases, right? Everybody’s working to their own objectives, and it’s that silos focus. Again, everybody’s focused on design or focused on construction, and very few people on the project are actually focused on the project outcome.Without that clear vision right at the beginning on what the outcome of the project is, then teams drift. It’s only natural, right? Everybody goes in their own direction. I really like this quote from Dr. Donella Meadows. She’s a Harvard system scientist, and she wrote the book Thinking in Systems, and her quote is one of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. And that’s really all projects are, right? Projects are a system to generate an outcome, but in order to generate an effective system, you’ve got to start by specifying the right outcome.
And if you have several competing outcomes, what you’ll have is really a complex system going in several different directions. And this happens all the time on projects, doesn’t it? Everybody’s working to their own objectives and working in their own individual silos. If you have the wrong goal or an unclear goal, then your system will invariably produce either the wrong outcome or an undesirable outcome, which happens, the data shows us, 9 out of 10 times on projects, right?Instead, what projects need is a visionary leader that understands the project outcome right from the start of projects, someone who understands what it takes to deliver that complex outcome. And as you’ve seen on projects, that’s not project management. Project management understands project closeout, and they’re trained to manage cost and schedule. But I think you would agree that’s very different from delivering the project outcome. And like we said earlier, there must be something more than project management that’s required to deliver successful projects.
And this is what most projects are missing when they’re relying solely on project management to deliver outcomes. That visionary outcome leadership that can only come from people that have delivered projects before, from the systems thinking, commissioning leaders who know what it takes to deliver project outcomes. So, I trust that this is making sense to you, everything that I’m explaining here, that there’s something more missing other than just project management.So, the second root cause item is there’s no systems-based thinking. And when there’s no systems-based thinking and alignment from the start, integration fails under pressure at the end. Without a systems-based approach and without systems thinking in that commissioning-led governance at the beginning, then it’s pretty impossible for everything to come together at the end. We see it time and time again on projects, right? The project management gets involved, and they split everything up into your WBS, and right from the beginning, everything’s carved out into silos.
How is that all going to come back together without a systems-based approach to think about how the project is going to finish at the end? WBS is fine to start with, but that’s not going to finish your project. You need to bring all that back with a systems-based approach. You’re commissioning-led governance to make that happen. The classic problem, right? Everybody’s working in silos, and they’re working hard, and they’re doing great work, but they’re not looking at the bigger picture and how their role relates to the project outcome.And you need to be especially careful not to confuse effort with results because otherwise, you’ll end up with a system that is producing lots of effort. Everyone’s working hard, but not necessarily the intended results that you want on that project. It’s common that everybody’s working in silos, and they’re too isolated from the intended project outcome because they’re missing that systems-based thinking and that commissioning-led governance to guide everything back together into one system.
So, do you agree that we need to break down project silos and get groups working together more collaboratively to focus on the outcome rather than their own individual task? The third root cause is that commissioning is a last-minute scramble, and handover is delayed or oftentimes, even rejected because nothing works in the end. We are kept from our goal not by obstacles in the project or technical issues, but we’re kept from our goal because there’s a clear path to a lesser goal. Everybody gets distracted, right? Focusing on design or focused on construction, but the real goal of the project outcome is to deliver successful operational systems. It’s too easy to get distracted by a lesser goal and focus on that rather than the larger project outcome initiatives. Commissioning is a surprise at the end every time, right? Because everyone was focused on the wrong goal, and it always happens.
Projects at the end, they’re just gambling when they take this approach because, without commissioning-led governance, we’re not handing over success. All we’re handing over is hope. And that’s no way to deliver multi-billion-dollar complex systems is by just gambling at the end. So, all three of these root cause issues are preventable, but only when commissioning is positioned as leadership.Commissioning is not a technical discipline. Commissioning is about outcome assurance leadership to guide projects to a successful finish. These aren’t technical gaps. These are leadership gaps, everything that we’ve talked about here. And what ties all three of these mistakes together is leadership. A lack of commissioning leadership at the beginning of projects. A lack of that commissioning-led governance approach to guide projects to success, not in the technical sense, but in the governance sense to lead projects to successful completion.
This presentation reframes commissioning as the leadership discipline that it truly is. Commissioning isn’t a phase. Too often, commissioning is treated as testing at the end, but commissioning, in reality, is governance. Projects fail not because of a lack of effort. Projects fail because of a lack of governance or the wrong governance that’s leading the team to the wrong goal and the wrong outcome. Because those particular individuals haven’t necessarily delivered a project through commissioning and startup and operational readiness, commissioning governance is about owning the outcome and ensuring from start to finish that all activities lead to that intended project outcome. So, do you see how commissioning-led governance aligns all project groups towards the intended project outcome by those strong professionals who have delivered projects before?
In order to fix this problem, we need to address the real root cause. No more Band-Aid fixes. We need to get to the heart of why projects are failing, and it’s because we need leaders with outcome accountability right to the end. Like we’ve shown, project management doesn’t get us to the end. Project management will manage cost and schedule, but project management isn’t leading the outcome. We need leaders at the beginning of projects who are working across design, installation, and startup and integrating all of these aspects of the project together. That is commissioning-led governance, not just to check it, but to assure project outcomes, professionals who govern the final 10% that defines 100% of your project success. This isn’t about more meetings or checklists. This is about governing your project outcome.
Who’s going to actually address this root cause? When we look at it, right, it’s not going to come from project management. They don’t have that knowledge and expertise to complete projects at the end. Like we mentioned earlier, all the project management literature that’s out there talks about project closeout, but there’s a little bit more to it than just closing out your contracts and archiving your documents. Projects are complex and need to focus on that outcome. It’s not going to come from construction groups either. They’re focused on installation. And to be fair, it’s not any of these groups’ fault; it’s just that they don’t know how to complete projects, they’ve never done it before, and it’s not their area of expertise. Everybody brings their own skill sets to the project, and we need everybody’s contribution, but we need the right leaders, that commissioning-led governance at the beginning of projects to lead all these groups to a successful finish.
Commissioning governance is leadership that spans design, construction, integration, and startup with one hand on the controls to deliver successful projects. Projects need someone who can take the wheel of the runaway train. Do you agree that strong leadership to guide projects to success? So, let’s look at the phases of a project. Every project goes through these same phases, right? We need to define what the project is going to be during our FEED phases. We need to do some detailed design to figure out exactly what the project needs to build and align with the outcome. We need to buy some stuff, we need to install some stuff, and then we need to make some stuff work at the end of the project. Now, there’s a very specific process at the end of the project known as commissioning and startup defined in the ICxA Global Commissioning Standard. And this requires a systems-based thinking approach in order to transition from all the activities on a project into that operational phase for decades of reliable operation. And this systems-based thinking approach is led by the commissioning team to ensure projects achieve their intended outcome.
Like I said, this requires a very specific systems-based thinking approach at the end, and in order to make sure that everything is aligned at the end, we need what’s called outcome assurance at the beginning to guide projects to that successful systems-based thinking approach at the end. If you’re missing outcome assurance at the beginning of your project, then it’s just a gamble at the end, if that commissioning process is going to work successfully. Outcome assurance with commissioning-led governance is what sets your project up for success at the end so that you can deliver the project outcome. I really like this quote by Buckminster Fuller, who was a systems theorist, who says you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. And that’s what outcome assurance is. We’re not doing a Band-Aid fix here to try and improve a small item or a new software tool or a simple new strategy to manage earned value. We’re looking at a wholesale replacement on the approach to delivering capital projects. We need a new model that makes the existing model obsolete, and that’s what we’re facing. The existing model of project delivery for major capital projects is obsolete. It’s not working.
Outcome assurance is that replacement, that disruption that replaces the outdated model and delivers successful projects. So, what is outcome assurance? Outcome assurance is made up of five pillars for successful project outcomes. This is a new but tested and effective model at the intersection of psychology and strategy for project delivery. So, these are the five pillars that make up outcome assurance. The first is vision and strategy. Like we talked about, you need a clear goal at the beginning of your projects to achieve that project outcome. And this is your project governance and your leadership to set that vision and lead projects to success. These are your commissioning-led governance authorities, your outcome authorities that have delivered projects before and know what it takes to deliver projects for successful outcomes. This is a key aspect of leadership needed on projects to guide projects to success.
The second pillar is information outcome. There are lots of information produced on projects, and very rarely is this information used in a valuable manner, in a cohesive manner across all phases of projects. But when you enact this pillar on projects and align on information outcome, it becomes very powerful to use the knowledge, the expertise, and the data that exists on projects through all phases to deliver on that project outcome at the end.
The third pillar is installation outcome. This is not just installing the project for the sake of installation. This is construction with intention that aligns with the project outcome. This is a systems-based approach for completions, and this is what’s required to align construction with commissioning and startup and operational readiness to deliver on that project outcome. When you set this pillar at the beginning as part of your outcome assurance, you’re setting your project up for success.
The fourth pillar is integration outcome. Like we showed earlier, all of these assets and systems don’t integrate themselves, and it won’t just happen on its own. It requires precise planning at the beginning of projects to ensure that all comes back together as one functional plant. Process and integration outcome is a critical aspect of alignment that’s required to break down silos and deliver project outcomes.
And then the fifth pillar here is your operations outcome. This is, of course, our goal on the project, our one and only primary principal goal to deliver a successful and operable project that can be used for decades of reliable operation. And these are the five pillars that make up outcome assurance. And this goal and objectives must be set at the beginning of your projects.
Everyone is working towards the same goals on projects to achieve the intended project outcome, not just a splinter delivery of fractured tasks on projects. Outcome assurance is the only way you guarantee that outcome at the beginning of your project. When all five of these are in alignment, that’s how you achieve project outcomes. This outcome assurance framework marks the beginning of an important movement, a movement where achieving project outcomes becomes simplified and normalized. By simple, we don’t mean easy. There’s always going to be lots of challenges on projects, but until you simplify your project delivery with a systems-based approach and focus, you won’t deliver successful project outcomes. And by normalized, what we mean is that outcome assurance will make it normal for millions of project teams to deliver project outcomes on time and on budget. The outcome assurance framework brings much-needed science, sophistication, and rigor to this crucially important topic to deliver today’s infrastructure.
So, at ICxA, we didn’t start with outcome assurance. This has been earned through decades of hard-earned lessons to figure out what works on projects and what doesn’t. This outcome assurance framework is what we’ve essentially done is we’ve reverse-engineered what success looks like on projects. Many industry experts all over the world in many industries have contributed to the ICXA Global Commissioning Standard and the ICXA Outcome Assurance Standard, and these are hard-earned lessons on real projects so you don’t have to make these same mistakes on yours. These standards are incredibly valuable, documenting the lessons learned on what it takes to deliver successful projects, and you need to be using these on your projects to deliver the same.
We’ve all got horror stories of projects that ended badly because outcome assurance hasn’t existed on projects. So, when I was working on a large synchronous condenser, we were going through testing, and it was rushed. Some of the tests were skipped. Someone decided that they didn’t want to test the logic on one of the oil pressure pumps to the bearing on a large rotating mechanical machine.
So, maybe they saved half an hour by skipping that test, right? Well, later on, we had a site-wide power outage, and these are large spinning machines that take many hours to spin down and come to a stop. So, when that occurred, the logic hadn’t been tested properly on our oil pump. There was no oil to the bearing as it was spinning down, and the machine wiped its bearing, completely destroying it. So, by saving that half-hour test, it took months to disassemble the machine to pull the rotor out, replace the bearing, reinstall the rotor, and retest it. So, there was no savings that occurred in that case to try and skip the process and shortcut tests. It cost dearly in the end. Now, there are horror stories like that all over the industry where people have tried to take shortcuts, and it’s always burnt them in the end. Outcome assurance is a new approach to focus on project success. And at ICxA, we’re delivering the current and future leaders to lead project outcomes. Because it’s impossible to deliver projects if you don’t understand what it takes to deliver them in the end.
So, here’s how our career development pathway works. It’s a stepwise journey that reflects growing authority as you learn and grow, working on projects. So, this is taking people from a technical leadership role on projects to a full project outcome governance role to lead projects to success right from the beginning.
So, each level builds your credibility and prepares you for roles where project success depends on your outcome assurance leadership.
So, the first level is CxP. This is your Certified Commissioning Professional. So, this provides the foundational knowledge and principles of what systems-based thinking looks like to lead projects to success. It’s earned by completing the ICxA commissioning course and passing the CxP exam. This first level shows your commitment to outcome assurance best practices, and it shows your commitment to doing the right things for the right reasons right from the start of projects to deliver project outcomes. So, does this sound like a good place to start for people who are new to this systems-based thinking approach and new to delivering project outcomes?
So, the second level is CxL. This is your Certified Commissioning Lead, and this recognizes leadership in commissioning execution. This requires a documented experience leading critical commissioning activities, not just participation in testing, leading commissioning activities to successful completion. It’s peer-validated and reviewed by the ICXA Board of Directors to ensure credibility and ensure your real-world impact on projects. Do you already have experience with projects? Because if you do, then you could be grandfathered into this level by demonstrating your experience and getting slotted into the right industry level here.
The third level is CxPM. This is your Certified Commissioning Project Manager, and this is for those who are leading commissioning across entire projects, including the early planning phases of projects through commissioning and operational readiness at the end. So, this is a focus on strategic leadership and coordination of systems, teams, and the timelines that are required to deliver project outcomes. This requires, again, a comprehensive portfolio submission demonstrating alignment with the five outcome assurance pillars. So, are you already managing commissioning across the entire project? Then you can be grandfathered into this level as well when you submit and demonstrate your experience.
And then the last level here is CxOA. This is the Certified Outcome Authority, so this is by invitation only, and this is the elite 1% of governance-led commissioning leaders who are leading projects to success right from the beginning. When you achieve this level, you’re recognized as an industry-level authority that’s trusted to govern outcomes on major projects and deliver results.
This involves strategic influence on projects where you’re shaping standards, you’re shaping project governance, and you’re defining project delivery approaches right from the start. So, this ICxA career development pathway is about progressive leadership on projects to deliver outcomes, moving from understanding commissioning to owning project outcomes at the highest level.
So, can you see how people on this pathway can deliver successful project outcomes as they progress through each of these steps? So, the question is, do you want to manage tasks, or do you want to lead outcomes? The project management industry would be more geared towards managing tasks, right? What we’re talking about here is commissioning-led governance to lead project outcomes. And the choice is 100% yours on which path you want to take and who you want to become in your career, in your life, and on your project’s journey. So, are you here to execute someone else’s plan that, let’s be honest, usually leads to failure? Or are you here to shape the real project outcome? This isn’t about getting more done. It’s about being the person your project team turns to when the outcome matters the most.
And if you’ve listened to anything in the media lately, which I’m sure you have, you’ll agree that the world is definitely changing at an increasingly rapid pace. You hear about the developments, the new technologies that are coming out. It’s hard to keep up with the rapid pace of change. The doers that are working in all industries, the people that are actually doing the work, they’re becoming commoditized, and those jobs are disappearing pretty quickly.
It’s the leaders who can navigate the complexity and lead outcomes. This is where the security and influence are in the world going forward, not just in the projects industry, but across all industries all over the world. Outcome assurance is about stepping into a role that cannot and never will be outsourced. Projects and all industries will always need strong leaders to lead teams to success.
So, our program is designed to fit into your career, not compete with it. We realize that everybody is busy. This is built for professionals who are working full-time and want to become an outcome assurance authority. So, the steps are simple. Step one is you become a member, and I’ll show you how to do that. Step two is to complete the ICxA course. Step three is to then pass the Level 1 exam, and that earns you your first level of certification, your CxP.
And then, when you’re ready at your own pace, you can submit your verified project experience to progress through the levels of certification and eventually join the elite 1% of commissioning professionals delivering today’s project outcomes. So, when you join as a member, you get access to all the standards, the course content, and the tools, everything you need to prepare to write the first Level 1 exam to achieve your CxP.
When you complete your Level 1, you can complete it at your own pace and then move forward to the next levels by submitting your real project experience. As you gain experience on projects, this program is built to fit your life and scale with you and scale with your career. ICxA is the global authority for outcome assurance. There’s no other organization that’s leading this movement or leading this change for improved project performance.
ICxA is setting the global standards for commissioning and for outcome assurance, and those standards are available when you become a member again. We’re over 4300 members and growing across 25 countries all over the world, and this movement is unstoppable. It’s growing at a fast rate. We’re redefining how projects are governed from funding at the beginning of projects right through to operation at the end.
And we’re aligning the global standards that are going to be mandated across all projects for project delivery through a dual PAS, ICE ISO track development to guide projects to successful outcomes. What we’re doing is we’re empowering institutions through credentialed commissioning pathways to help projects, help teams, help organizations develop the leaders that are needed to deliver today’s complex projects.
So, this isn’t just a program; it’s a global shift in how we govern projects. ICxA is already being used to shape formal commissioner roles across projects, guide policy, and redefine how systems perform from day one. When you think about it, projects are really a complex puzzle, and they’re messy to complete and put together at the end.
Imagine when you’re building a puzzle that you don’t have the picture on the box to know what you’re building. Well, that’s how most project teams are completing projects. They’re flying blind because they’re missing this critical outcome assurance element. With no commissioning-led governance at the beginning of projects, ICxA has created a structured pathway for you to become part of the elite 1% of commissioning professionals so you can put all the pieces of the puzzle together to deliver successful project outcomes.
This is about redefining project delivery, defining commissioning as the central governance role that ensures project success. And when you achieve these levels on projects, you’re essentially the conductor, the orchestrator, making sure that everything is coming together in the end. You are the systems-based thinker that’s managing and guiding all pieces of the project, all people on the project, and all systems so that everything comes together and so that you can own the project outcome and influence the success of your projects.
So, what’s next? How do you get started on your outcome assurance journey? Well, this is where everything you’ve seen comes together. We’ve opened up the first wave of certification, and this isn’t a soft launch. This is a founding moment in project delivery. When you enroll, you get full access to the ICxA Global Commissioning Standard and full access to the ICxA Outcome Assurance Standards.
These are your map, essentially, of what you need to deliver successful project outcomes. When you have this map, you finally know how to guide your projects to success and achieve the intended project outcomes. You also get the complete outcome assurance career development program. This includes a printed copy that will mail of the handbook for commissioning leaders sent right to your doorstep.
This includes all the training material, all the resources, everything that you need to prepare and learn and get ready to write your first exam to achieve your CxP certification. Everything is included. There’s no additional cost. You get everything you need when you enter the program to achieve your first level of CxP certification.
You also get, and this is probably the most important part, you get access to ICxA industry experts. So, the ICxA Board of Directors is regularly meeting, and the ICxA Advisory Council which’s newly formed is growing and meeting as well. Now, these are the elite 1% of commissioning experts that exist in the world. These people are busy. They’re not just sitting by the phone waiting for your phone call to go for coffee to pick your brain. You don’t get access to these people. They’re busy and in demand.
But when you become a member of ICXA, you get to participate in leadership summits, discussions with these individuals. And this pretty much guarantees your success when you’re surrounded by these types of individuals because what is the best way to get what you want in life? Well, it’s in every case, not just projects, it’s always to surround yourself with the people who already have what you want so that you can learn and grow from these individuals and become more like them.
So, this is your opportunity to get exactly that, is to get access to industry experts who can guide your success through this journey, guide your project success, and help you along the way to become part of the elite one percent of commissioning experts. So, do you want access to the best of the best in the industry to be able to learn and grow on your own? Or do you prefer to go try and figure this out on your own and probably fail like most projects do? Right? So, if you’re ready, go to icxa.net/certify, and you can get started right away. ICxA membership is only $97.00 per month, and that’s an incredible value when you’re getting access to those types of industry experts that can help and guide you along your way in your commissioning and outcome assurance journey. So, I’ll add this here. That is the link in the chat.
Click that link, and you’ll be able to access and get started with the program right away, or if you need more info, you can also go to icxa.net/interest, and at that link, you can get access to all the information you need to understand the program and learn about the individuals involved and everything that you get. So, if you’re ready to go to icxa.net/certify, you can get enrolled in the program right away, or if you’re interested and want more information, go to icxa.net/interest and check out all the helpful resources right there.
When you go to icxa.net/certify, it’ll take you to a page that looks like this, and at the bottom here, you’ll see either a monthly membership or an annual membership. You can choose either one that works for you, and you can get started right away. That’ll get you into the program, that’ll get you access to all the training material, and you can start progressing towards your first level of CxP certification.
So, you might be thinking, I like this. I’ve seen some comments in the chat that it sounds great, and this could be interesting, but maybe you’re not sure if this is for you. So, let’s clear that up so you know exactly. This is for project professionals who have led or been accountable for project delivery in the past. So, if you’ve already got demonstrated experience, you can be grandfathered into one of these levels already and finally recognized for your industry expertise, which you’re contributing to projects.
This is for project professionals who want to move beyond the checklists and into project governance to deliver project outcomes. This is for project professionals who are ready to lead with outcome-first thinking and actually deliver results on projects. And this is for project professionals that are building a career that spans across design, across delivery and construction, and spans through commissioning and operation to deliver project outcomes.
This is for project professionalswho are ready to step into project leadership and start owning the project outcome. So, if this is you, then it’s time to start. You don’t need to be a technical expert in everything. You need to be someone who carries the project outcome and is ready to be recognized for it. And if that’s you, then you belong here.
Here’s the bigger truth. This will be mandated. Outcome assurance will be mandated on projects because organizations all over the world are demanding change in the industry, governments, and project owners and developers. They’re all demanding better project outcomes on projects and an improvement in the current poor performance of the construction industry.
This is in demand. This is being asked for, and this will be mandated because sometimes, unfortunately, we need to protect people from themselves, right? How many times have you heard on a project, oh, you know, this all sounds great, but we’re not going to do commissioning. It’s a commercial decision, right? Well, we hear this all the time on projects where people are trying to save money, but they’re shooting themselves in the foot by doing that, right?
So, this will be mandated to protect people from themselves and damaging their projects. So, you can wait until this is mandated, or you can be part of the change now and lead that change for improved project outcomes because this movement is the change that the industry has been begging for decades.
Outcome assurance is the root cause solution to address the problems that have plagued the construction industry for decades. We’re not improving an industry. We’re replacing an obsolete method with a new approach to project delivery. With outcome assurance, this isn’t just a certification; it’s a movement to shift how capital projects are delivered with outcome assurance at the core.
If you’re ready, go to icxa.net/certify, and you can get started right away. If you want to learn more first, then go to icxa.net/interest where you can get more information. But either way, take one step now while this is fresh, because projects don’t fail at the end. They fail when no one owns the outcome. And that’s the gap that we’re closing here together.
Outcomes don’t change when we talk about them. They change when leaders like you act. Here’s the link in the comments. Again, be sure to go to that link icxa.net/certify and join right away to lead the future of project delivery and lead project outcomes for better project performance.
Q&A Section
Q: This approach makes sense.
A: Yes, it is making sense. Absolutely. Yep. This is the only way to deliver projects, right? Projects can stay in their silos, and they can continue to fail. But what projects need is that systems-based thinking with a commissioning-led governance approach at the beginning to break down these silos and make sure that all groups are working together. It makes complete sense, and it is the root cause problem in the construction industry. When you enact commissioning-led governance at the beginning of your projects, that solves 90% of the problems on projects. It’s not some new magical software tool or some new earned value tracking method. Those are just Band-Aid fixes. And they’re not going to solve the real root cause of the problem. To fix the construction industry, you need to get to the root cause, which is connecting the end of projects to the beginning of projects, and that only happens when you have commissioning-led governance through all phases of your project.
Paul to Darren: Hi Darren, good to see you again. Darren’s enrolled in the program here, and it would be fascinating if you could put your comments here, Darren, on how you’re finding the program so far.
Comment: Silos removal is the key to project success going forward, right?
A: Agreed. So, how do you do that? You’re not going to get one of the siloed groups to break down their own silos. It takes a level higher than that, right? It takes a new governance approach that spans all groups on projects that can break down those silos. So, commissioning-led governance is the only way that you can do that by having the group responsible for the project outcome managing all tasks in the project and breaking down these silos for success.
Comment: Good morning guys, I’m Kenneth from Brazil, watching from Liberia, Africa, or iron ore mine.
A: So, yes, iron ore mines are quite complex to bring into service; definitely applies here as well. You’re going to need outcome assurance to deliver those projects. So, I definitely encourage you to get involved. Peter, our Governance and Integration Policy Director, is a fascinating resource. If you have any questions, reach out to Peter, and he’ll be able to help you out with your outcome assurance.
Comment: Outcome alignment and leadership are the essential drivers of success across the project life cycle.
A: Outcome alignment and leadership are the essential drivers of success across the project life cycle, and it’s the fundamental root cause issue to address here is to have commissioning-led governance at the beginning of projects. And then we’ve got the program here to help you fill those roles and develop the leaders that you need on your projects to be able to deliver successful project outcomes.
Comment: I really like that Buckminster Fuller quote.
A: Yeah, I really like that Buckminster Fuller quote when I came across it; I think, oh yeah, that resonates with me perfectly in the approach to project performance here is we can’t just do minor little improvements. The industry has tried that for decades. It doesn’t work. We need a wholesale replacement of the broken project delivery process with a new approach to delivering with outcome assurance. ICxA has defined that new approach, and this is the solution that you need on your projects.
Comment: Operational outcome is the driving outcome of the four outcomes, creating overall outcome assurance.
A: So, operational outcome is the driving outcome of the four outcomes, creating overall outcome assurance. Essentially, that’s the real goal on projects. Lots of projects think that construction is the goal, right? It is called the construction industry, after all, that when we talk about projects, we talk about that we’re going to build a project, we’re going to build a wastewater treatment plant, so we’re going to build an LNG processing plant. And that confuses people, right? Building isn’t the objective; operational outcome is the objective. Having a bunch of pumps and equipment bolted to the floor is useless if none of it works together. We need to get to that operational outcome, which is the true goal. And that’s fundamentally why projects fail is they have the wrong goal, right? Everybody’s focused on construction. Even when you look at the Construction Industry Institute’s literature, they talk about the same thing where projects are focused on the outcome being installation; they’re focused on the wrong goal. It’s like that for everything, not just projects. If you’re not working towards the right goal, then you’ll never accomplish it. And the only way to set the right goals is with people that have delivered on those goals before, which is the commissioning folks, the outcome authority leaders with commissioning-led governance to lead projects to success.
Comment from Peter: Within ICxA commissioning-led governance framework, operational outcome serves as the driving anchor, the tangible expression of whether infrastructure performs as intended in the real world. It’s the point where intent meets reality, yes, but it doesn’t stand alone.
A: So, Peter’s got a response here as well. I’m sure you’ve already read it, but let’s read it out. Within ICxA commissioning-led governance framework, operational outcome serves as the driving anchor, the tangible expression of whether infrastructure performs as intended in the real world. It’s the point where intent meets reality, yes, but it doesn’t stand alone. It activates and validates the other four outcomes. And I miss the rest of the quote there, but Peter’s got it absolutely correct there. This is what’s needed: that strong governance leadership on projects to guide projects to success. It sounds great, absolutely it does. Yep, this is what the industry needs. So, get involved and get your teams and leadership lined up for this new approach to project delivery.
Comment from Darren: I’m impressed with the content. I actually referenced some of it recently to help a client with contract considerations in hiring their GC.
A: Darren’s got some excellent feedback here so far. I’m impressed with the content. I actually referenced some of it recently to help a client with contract considerations in hiring their GC. And that’s a critical point you make, Darren, is lots of people will only start to think about the project outcome after the GC, the construction contract, is awarded, but by then it’s too late. The damage is done. Things are already misaligned, and contracts are already signed, and it’s pretty impossible to fix that after the fact. Commissioning-led governance is required way earlier than contracts are being awarded, and that’s excellent that you’re helping a client understand that so that they can write better contracts to align with the project outcome and not just installation. Joining in the early stages is vital for project success, 100% yeah. And that’s the outcome assurance model that ICxA is leading here for implementation in the industry.
So, lots of good comments. I appreciate everyone’s involvement here. We’re just about at the time for an hour here. If you haven’t already, go to icxa.net/certify. You can get started with the program and get access to all of the industry experts and get the guidance you need to truly become part of the elite 1% of commissioning experts on projects. Or if you’re just exploring and need more information, go to icxa.net/interest where you can get all the information you need to make an informed decision. Either way, take the first step because it’s critically important to act on this information. You can join presentations like this in webinars, and they happen all the time, but if you don’t actually do anything with the information that you’ve gotten, then it wasn’t really helpful at all, right? It’s like, oh yeah, that was interesting. But in order to learn and grow and benefit from this webinar and benefit from this presentation, it requires a next step. It requires you to go to one of those links, either icxa.net/certify or icxa.net/interest, and take that next step by taking action. That’s how we’re going to improve project delivery when leaders like yourselves step up and become part of the elite 1% of commissioning experts to deliver project outcomes. So, thanks for joining today, and I’ll see you again next time.
Thank you, everyone.
To become a member of the Institute of Commissioning and Assurance, visit icxa.net. Members get access to commissioning standards, procurement specifications, training, certification, and specialized resources to support commissioning of industrial plants, processes, and energy systems.
To become a member of the Institute of Commissioning and Assurance, visit icxa.net. Members get access to commissioning standards, procurement specifications, training, certification, and specialized resources to support commissioning of industrial plants, processes, and energy systems.
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