The role of the Project Commissioner is an important role that shapes the success of your projects at the end during integration and commissioning. In this episode, I have a discussion with Peter Foxley on the importance of this role. Now Peter is our UK chapter lead of the Industrial Commissioning Association. Listen to our discussion to learn the importance of the role of the Project Commissioner.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode. All right, how’s everyone doing today? Today we’re joined by Peter Foxley. And Peter’s got a very extensive background in commissioning. How are you doing today, Peter?
Peter: I’m doing very well. Thank you, Paul.
Paul: For everyone that is new to the channel or maybe isn’t as familiar with some of the topics that we’re talking about, Peter, why don’t you take the opportunity to introduce yourself, explain a little bit about your background and some of the challenges, experience, projects.
Peter: Yeah, well, firstly, hi everyone. Nice to talk to you all. My career goes back nearly 45 years ago. So I’m a bit of an old man when it comes to it. But I joined the railways in 1980 and I didn’t really appreciate what I was walking into. I was walking into arguably the world’s most asset-intensive safety-critical electromechanical automated systems there is. And I did my normal induction and I ended up working on the civil engineering side. And back in those days, civil engineering or infrastructure projects on the railway, they were run by what they called a chief civil engineer.
And I started my career and joined the chief engineering office at Paddington. Whoever saw the whole railway going down from Paddington to Wales, to the Southwest UK. And I learnt very quickly that the railway, it’s a fairly complex, it’s fairly challenging, that it comprise of a lot of subsystems and unless you holistically develop them and improve them, you’re going to become somewhat unstuck. So it was driven by engineering very much so. But yes, it always had to have a supporting business case. And that’s when I first came across the role of the commissioning manager. Well, I used more towards the project commissioner, but the commissioning manager took over in terms of terminology going forward.
So yeah, I learnt a lot about the railways. I was involved in many aspects of it from development of outside party projects that were being developed either on the railway, under the railway, adjacent to the railway, over the railway. And you learn a heck of a lot. And what I learnt most of all was having to get the front end right. And we’re working with the planning side, with working with the scheme development side as they called it back in those days, with working with the project delivery side, working with the operations side.
I garnered a lot of experience and learnt a lot through often making a lot of mistakes but I learnt a lot. I then left the railways as such. I left British Rail as it turned into the privatized part of the railway that was done in the mid-90s, taking up BR was broken down, became Railtrack and many other components. And I ended up going on my own as a consultant and did work initially in the UK and then went on to do a lot of work in Southeast Asia and a fair amount of work in Australia too.
So I garnered a lot of experience and knowledge about how projects are planned, developed, engineered, built, and commissioned around the world.
Paul: It definitely seems like these days there’s something missing. There’s something missing at the front end of projects to have that start with the end in mind element, that it seems like there are lots of project managers on projects, but it seems like we’re almost missing project leadership. What’s the missing piece, or what are we missing on projects that we’re not able to complete on time and on budget anymore?
Peter: Because we probably don’t define the front end correctly at the beginning. We certainly don’t put in place measurements to guide us on whether we are going to be successful. It’s very basic. I believe engineering is key to it, but engineering is hand in glove with commissioning. So, unless you’ve got an engineering and commissioning strategy in place from the outset, and the outset really from my point of view, Paul, really starts at the planning and consent side because that’s where you really pick up all your social, economic, environmental, and regulatory requirements. And those are what you have to convert into social-technical requirements, is what you have to measure in relation to, are you going to achieve what is expected from the stakeholders. And I just don’t think we do enough work. I don’t think there’s enough structure there. I certainly don’t believe that the actual front end is built seamlessly into the delivery process.
Paul: It seems like there’s a lot more focus on the tasks rather than the outcomes. People, maybe project teams, because they’re such big efforts, have lost focus on what’s the end goal here to deliver a fully commissioned system and are more focused maybe on some of the tasks like engineering or construction and are losing that end goal initiative.
Peter: Yeah, I don’t think there’s a doubt about that. I think that’s a mindset issue that was there before. You know, like I said, I’m a bit of an old bugger really. But you know, that was, you didn’t develop or you didn’t authorize a project unless you understood completely and you understood what the outcomes, you decide what the intended outcomes are, and more importantly, how you can measure them throughout the whole life cycle, Paul. And that’s what’s missing.
Paul: When you think about it, what’s missing at the beginning of projects? Because I think everybody would view commissioning as, unfortunately, just testing at the end, but there’s got to be some continuity from the beginning of the project to the end of the project. And what’s that role that’s missing at the beginning? I’ve heard you refer to it as the project commissioner, but I don’t know if too many projects actually have a project commissioner at the beginning. What’s that missing role?
Peter: That we just identified it. I think we don’t have a project commissioner role. I think we used to, certainly in the railways, and they commissioned a heck of a lot of projects. We used to have a project commissioner, and they oversaw it from a standard of care viewpoint, Paul, but they oversaw it from a financial oversight role. They also oversaw it from a property and asset management perspective, and they were appointed as part of, you know, they were appointed and played a role in the planning consent process. They played a role in the business case of the project approval process. And then they played a role in the governance insurance throughout the delivery life cycle. And that’s what I think a project commissioner is, and I believe that’s the component that’s missing.
Paul: The skill sets seem different from commissioning managers, someone that’s overseeing the execution of commissioning. The skill sets are very different from the front-to-end planning aspects of the project commissioner role, right? I see a lot of people are great at executing commissioning or overseeing that management. But the planning, the scheduling, all the skills you mentioned for cost planning, those are very much more project management skill sets to test in the field. And there definitely seems to be a disconnect between these two roles and the beginning and end of projects, isn’t there?
Peter: Yeah. And I think the project commissioner is what bumps together the project sponsorship, the project management, the project commercial side of things, and the commissioning, and you know, commissioning to use and, more importantly as well, the ongoing operation of what you commissioned, very important, that’s too fragmented. I think we all know, Paul, the industry is full of big domains, and within those big domains, you’ve got silos, and it’s too fragmented. It’s a very siloed landscape. So it’s very difficult to pull it together these days. Whereas going back again to the 80s, maybe the early 90s, it was easier because it was all really controlled by a central function, right? The state, the government, the government owned that infrastructure. And so they were everything. They were the architect, they were the engineer. They used to bring in general contractors to help them do things, and they commissioned what they designed, and it worked pretty well. Everyone says that big infrastructure companies were broken down for good reason because they were inefficient. Well, maybe we threw out the baby with the bathwater because there were a lot of good things, and maybe we didn’t take some of the best practices that they had in place, and we need to find a way of bringing them back in. That’s my view, and I’m quite obsessed about that. That’s essentially, I agree.
Paul: That’s what projects need is a strong, courageous leader who can lead this and pull this all together. When you think about it, that’s the commissioning’s function, right? Is to integrate all the systems, make everything function at the end. And if you have that strong, courageous leader at the beginning, it only makes sense to connect the front end and back end of projects with that seamless leadership role.
Peter: Yeah. And the other word that’s probably not mentioned enough, it’s got to be seamless, but it’s got to be integrated seamlessly. Yeah. And that’s what’s not happening, I don’t believe. And you talked about the great role of the testing commissioning manager, I call it, you call it, probably more accurately, the commissioning manager. Of course, that’s such an important role, Paul, but they need help because they are there to deliver, to ensure that the system that’s been designed and built functions correctly, and all the components are properly integrated. Their job generally is not to measure whether or not it’s going to achieve the whole integrated system and the outcomes that are decided by the stakeholders. That seems to get lost in translation from the beginning of a project.
Paul: The term commissioning, I also think, has been labeled incorrectly as testing, so it’s almost like we needed a new terminology or something. Every time someone hears the term commissioning, they instantly think testing. But that’s not what we’re looking for at the beginning of projects is testing. We need leadership. That’s the disconnect, I think that’s in the industry, is understanding that this is commissioning-first leadership and not testing at the beginning.
Peter: Look, that’s fundamental unless we bring the commissioning mentality in. And let’s face it, you’ve probably come across projects where they’ve seen, even at the beginning, there are requests for things like a commissioning strategy, because that’s what they’ve had before. Maybe well, and they don’t even realize that a commissioning strategy is fundamental to the business case. Yeah, unless you understand how you’re going to commission what you design and build, how can you authorize a project?
Paul: How can you authorize a project? How can you even start a project without knowing how you’re going to finish it first? It’s exactly a matter of responsibility, right? If you’re going to spend millions or billions of dollars, you should know how it’s going to finish.
Peter: Yeah. And there’s a lot of emerging policy that’s coming out around the world where everyone says, God, we’ve got to do more at the front end. There’s been for decades now, we’ve had lots of initiatives saying bring the contractor in at the front end. Fine. Yeah, you bring the contractor at the front end when you actually need their expertise. No problem with that at all. But the trouble is, I don’t think we’re doing the basics right. I don’t think we’re defining what we need, and we’re certainly not putting any measurements into what we need so we can ensure, or even go a step further. I’m certainly not. And it is a term that I love that you use, Paul, orchestration. Let’s look at what we need from a capability side to deliver what we need. And those are the three important parts. And I think that’s something that will be embedded in the commissioning project commissioner role, hopefully under the guiding hand of the ICXA. Because we need to talk more about how we do it. We talk lots about the what and the why, but we don’t really talk about how we do it.
Everyone says we need to do more at the front end. We’ve got, there’s been papers around for decades saying the problem is we don’t get the system’s definition right. Fine. So how do we do it? And you know, the only way we can do it is by following what I consider is a commissioning-led approach, and we used to have, in my opinion, a commissioning-led approach, but we’ve somehow been derailed into having a construction-led, area-based approach, which I think has derailed our whole ability to deliver complex projects to quality, to time, and to cost.
Paul: That’s fundamental. What we’re delivering here is functional systems that can be used for decades of reliable operations. So you need to have that upfront definition if you’re going to achieve that. In the end, it only makes sense.
Peter: Yeah. And if you think about it, how do stakeholders measure it? They measure it in terms of, are we actually reaching the level of performance that we expected, the level of resilience that we expected, the level of agility that we expect. Often projects disappoint as much as produce high levels of failure of costs. They disappoint. And I’ve seen it all around the world, I’ve seen projects that I can see that will end up in the public. The stakeholders coming across their first-ever transit system, rail transit system, and they’re going to be disappointed because, albeit they spent billions of dollars on a railway, their expectations will be, well, it’s arrived at last. But it’s not what we expected, but it’s arrived at last. But we didn’t expect it to cost this much, we didn’t expect it to take this level of time to get to that point. And you know, I think there are plenty of projects that we could talk about that we wouldn’t bore ourselves with that constantly disappoint. And the only way I can see that we can change this is to ensure the project commissioning role gets embedded into the planning and consents process.
Paul: That’s the big challenge in the industry, isn’t it, having outcomes match expectations. Everyone’s got expectations of this big, grand project, but the outcome often doesn’t match that.
Peter: It doesn’t. And that’s how people measure it, Paul. You know, maybe years, decades back, we used to measure it by the fact, oh, we have got a tunnel, we’ve got a bridge, but we’ve moved on from there. The world’s much more complex. The environment’s changing so much, the generations have changed, people, youngsters view things differently from the way we used to, and we’ve got to take that on board. And I actually think that the onus is on us in many ways to try and get this movement, when I think it’s a fantastic movement you got here, Paul, this movement to try and influence policy development going forward and not just in a country but globally.
Paul: And that’s what this is, is a commissioning movement to get commissioning involved in projects. Commissioning folks want to help, right? We can see solutions, we can identify problems, and we can identify problems before they even occur. So getting commissioning folks involved earlier is only going to help projects and save projects time and money. But a lot of projects don’t see it that way. They see it as an extra expense, and they don’t want to get commissioning in earlier. I think it’s partly because commissioning is just viewed as testing, and there’s definitely a divide here that needs to be bridged in thinking about that commissioning-first approach and starting with the end in mind.
Peter: Yeah, I think it has to. The onus has to be what some people over here in the UK relate to as the capable owner. I think the capable owner needs to have their capability to set up projects for success. And I think that they do need to have the right design champion on board. It’s got to be at C-Suite level, Paul, it won’t work. They do need to get the right technical assistance on board, right? But as much as they need to get a project commissioner on board because it’s the project commissioner who will put the guiding hand on the whole governance and assurance process that will see the project through to success.
Paul: That guiding hand, I think, is the keyword, right? That’s really what projects need is that leadership to lead projects to the end.
Peter: Yeah. And, you know, again, I hate to bore everyone, but, you know, that’s what they used to have. You know, the railways over here used to have that guiding hand. You know, they used to have project commissioners that had that responsibility for a standard of care. In fact, the original architects, the original civil engineers, their mantle was about the standard of care. And you know, but the project commissioner, certainly in my days, you also had oversight for the financial side of things and also, just as importantly, had oversight on the property and asset management life cycle side of things. And you know, and that takes it into operation, of course, which is really what matters. That’s where the benefits are, and that’s where the ongoing costs are. And I think we focus way too much on probably getting on the hobby horses here. We focus way too much on the high-cost capital phase of construction. We haven’t set ourselves up for construction properly. If we did, construction would be straightforward.
Paul: The complexities come in where everything needs to integrate, yeah, construction is, of course, the big cost element of projects, but integrating everything and making it work as a system is really what needs to happen. So that construction was worthwhile.
Peter: Yeah, and if you don’t do that, and of course, it is politically motivated as well, then we must bring that in. You know, people want to see things happening. And so I’ve seen this around the world, Paul. I’ve seen civil jobs be awarded years before the electromechanical and automated system side, and I’ve seen trains ordered years before. You think, how the heck can you do that when you don’t know what you’re going to operate the whole thing on? Yeah. You know, civils is really there to support the system in many ways. I’ve seen many times where they’ve come to the design of the more complex, face it, the more complex electromechanical and automated systems and found out that they haven’t got the landscape right, or they’ve built the wrong size of tunnel, or they haven’t got the station layout correct for how we’re going to operate moving vehicles with moving passengers. So we’re just doing it wrong. And I can, I could give everyone examples of where that’s happening around the world. We’re taking a punt on what’s required. We award all the high-cost construction contracts. We actually, because it’s easy, we order the trains. Those trains end up stuck on sidings for years because this rail system is not ready, it’s not been commissioned.
Paul: Challenging for owners or project developers if they’re only doing a project, say, once every 30 years, it can be tough to build up that expertise to be able to lead projects from the start. It’s a different story for people who would do this, say, every few years, from one project to the next to the next. But the owners, project owners, aren’t often the ones that are doing that, right, and don’t. If you don’t have that depth of experience, it’s tough.
Peter: They don’t, and that’s the issue. That’s why I said, I mentioned a bit earlier, we need to make them capable, right? To do that, they need to buy the right people, right, to help them develop the project, plan, and develop it. And you know, that’s really in terms of based around the intended outcomes, right? So you have to define them. You have to then understand how you’re going to measure the way in terms of achieving through the whole development, design, build, and test process. And that’s why the capable owner has to be helped. They need to have what I consider to be really key design champions at the C-Suite level, balancing between the design of a system in relation to climate, people, places, and value. And they need to have technical advisors or assistance in how they develop the requirements that will deliver the intended outcomes. But most of all, those components need to be accountable. And that’s what’s missing. If we get to that, I think the capable owner will find that he’ll be authorizing projects that can be delivered on time, to cost, and deliver all the expected benefits.
Paul: Now there are three ways that I can think of to help that capable owner get to the level that they need to, to be able to lead projects: education to help them understand, policy where it’s no longer optional, it’s a mandatory requirement, or technology. If we can leverage some of the technology systems to help upfront at the beginning, too. Now, I would think education, commissioning folks have been screaming at the top of their lungs for decades that they need to be involved at the beginning of projects, and that doesn’t seem to be the avenue that anybody’s listening to. Technology is tricky in its own aspects, for sure. So maybe it comes down to policy where certain groups need to be mandated to follow a certain process if they’re going to be getting funds to be able to do this.
Peter: We’ve got a saying, myself and Stuart at Alim, saying that it’s about three words. It’s about educate, integrate, and innovate. Well, I think that actually sums it up pretty well. But to do that, and I think I might have mentioned to you, Paul, somehow we’ve got to influence policy development in terms of how we do this because there’s lots of policy development in terms of what we need to do and why we need to do it. But there isn’t much in terms of how we do it. Let’s be honest with you. It’s how we commission, right, intended outcomes, and it’s a commissioning process. And you said many times, Paul, it starts with the end in mind. And I think the start is the planning and consent phase.
Paul: That’s exactly it. And when I looked around, I didn’t find any definition of how either. Everybody, there’s little pockets of information and little bits and pieces, but there was no definition or standard of how to follow a structured process for commissioning, which is what led to the development of the ICA Global Commissioning Standard, is to help fill that gap and say, this is the best practices in how you do this stuff.
Peter: It is, and you know, I’ve only known you six months, Paul, but you know, you’re the first. And the way I describe it is that we’ve got lots of expertise and innovation within silos, but we have virtually none in how we bridge expertise, in terms of expertise and innovation in how we bridge those silos. And I think you’re the first movement to describe how we do it. And I think we need to build it.
Paul: There’s definitely a challenge in the industry, and that’s what we want to do, is help people to deliver successful projects because projects don’t fail in the end, they fail at the beginning, and that’s the gap that we need to bridge and help people understand that we’re here to help projects succeed. We’ve got all the resources and tools to help them do that.
Peter: Yeah. And we’re not here to do it for them. You know, we say what needs to be done at the front end, not do it because we’re not competent to do it. But we know what needs to be done.
Paul: And we’re going to need some people involved at the front end to be able to do this on a global scale, so the resources are there for people that want to lead projects to success.
Peter: Exactly. And I think it’s defining what the start is, Paul. And I think that’s what people get confused. Most people say the start is the award of a contract. Well, clearly not.
Paul: No. And then only start thinking about the strategy of how to finish a project after that contract has been awarded or halfway through construction. And by then, it’s far too late to have any influence or impact on the end of the project because the train’s already left the station, right?
Peter: Yeah. And to be fair, Paul, I talk about trains because I’m quite passionate about it. Is it the most asset-intensive, safety-critical, electromechanical, automated system in the world? Possibly, yeah. And it’s highly regulated. It ticks all the right buttons for us to focus on how we develop, plan, develop, select, and source our future rail infrastructure. And I think that’s really what it’s all about. We’re pretty good at building things, Paul, but not failing at the front end. We’re pretty good at actually commissioning. We’ve just got to bring the commissioning to every stage of the project life cycle.
Paul: That’s right. Yeah. And all industries in every country all over the world are all facing the same challenges as the transportation industry, as the rail industry. Everybody I talk to online is all frustrated with the same aspects of commissioning not being involved at the beginning of projects, that we need better leadership, that we need better planning at the front end of projects. But the project executives or the project sponsors don’t seem to be listening. They’ve got their own mission and own objectives.
Peter: And it’s so easy to sort of blame somebody, finger-point. And that’s the problem. So easy to finger-point, and people blame each other. We need to move away from that. And the project commissioner is the answer. That’s my gut feeling because they are the one that bolts the project sponsorship, the C-Suite, the investors, and the delivery agents together.
Paul: Absolutely. And that’s fundamental, right, because projects are only successful when everybody’s successful. So the finger-pointing and the blame game is never going to get us successful projects. The goal here is collaboration. We want to collaborate with project sponsors, we want to collaborate with project executives, the engineers, and the construction groups. And only collaboratively can we look at this holistically and deliver successful projects.
Peter: Yep. Yeah, collaboratively, in a seamless, integrated manner. And what we like is in a transparent and accountable manner too. That’s what we like.
Paul: Yep, I think everybody wants the same thing. We all want successful projects, then we need to work together to make that happen.
Peter: They do. So it’s, you know, if we put this upon ourselves and this movement, and you’ve got a lot of people part of this movement, we probably need to get, hopefully, one day there’ll be policy departments around the world that sign up to you, Paul. That’s what I’d like to say.
Paul: That’s the goal, that’s the initiative, is to help projects succeed, and we need more people on board so we can keep building this movement.
Peter: It’s a movement, and it’s a journey, but it could be quite exciting.
Paul: Absolutely. All right. Great discussion today. I don’t know if you have any final words or closing statements to share with the group.
Peter: Not really, Paul. I feel as though we’ve started something here. It’s about highlighting the importance of getting the education right. And I think this is the first step in getting the education right. Absolutely. It leads to policy. And you know, I don’t think we need anything above that because I think if we start delivering the how element in a consistent way, I think the rest will follow: the whole movement, the whole standard, the whole best practice that is going to be associated with it. Because I’m sure there’ll be best practices that will develop that go with it, it will become an unstoppable movement. And that’s what I’d like to see. And I think I’ve talked enough. I told you I can ramble on, Paul.
Paul: A great analogy here in Canada is if we start the snowball rolling down the hill, it’s only going to get bigger and gain momentum and help people succeed with projects.
Peter: Absolutely right. But that’s a great analogy. I’m starting to get into analogies, and we’ll talk about those another day.
Paul: Sounds great. Well, thanks for joining today, Peter. Great discussion, great thoughts, and happy you can share your experience with the group. And thanks for everyone joining.
Be sure to join us again next week. We’ve got another presentation on another hot commissioning topic, and I’ll see you then. Have a great day.
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