A balancing act: Navigating risk mitigation and outcome optimization in capital projects

When it comes to capital projects, there’s an interesting dichotomy between risk mitigation and outcome optimization. One considers effective schedule, cost, and quality while the other tends to slow the process. With this in mind, we must ask ourselves:  How do we marry sound capital project delivery with the speed-to-market our clients need?

Capital projects demand careful planning, resource allocation, and effective execution. To be successful, the pursuit of project delivery excellence must be balanced with thorough quality and safety controls.

Together with our clients, we’re leading with an approach that fuses innovation—emerging digital tools and capabilities that allow us to move faster—with the fundamentals: strong people, teams, work culture, and a deep understanding of industry and project objectives. As your partner, we inject fresh perspectives and entrepreneurial practices into capital project delivery, resulting in project excellence and innovative approaches.

Digital tools give us the power of data-driven insights and real-time project management intelligence, providing a centralized hub of information accessible to all stakeholders. Through insight and analysis, we gain a comprehensive view of project health, enabling timely interventions and informed decisions. These tools foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement, and allow us to analyze successes and failures, identify potential bottlenecks and risks, and inform best practices for future projects.

Our rich digital toolset supports projects from planning to construction and then into the full project life cycle. Digital tools enable interpretation and execution—not just reporting. Our project control teams analyze the data that our digital tools provide, making procurement faster and taking us out of the 2D space by creating projects that are interconnected.

While digital tools offer efficiency and insight, strong teams lie at the heart of our successful capital projects. We prioritize selection of the right minds and teams for projects. We ensure an unmatched level of global interconnectivity by integrating in a way that allows us to truly know our partners and their projects.

Our in-office work model is leveraged by offering the same closeness in proximity and communication style to our clients. With all major projects, our management co-locates to work in the same space, whether in-office or on-site, forming a performance-based relationship rooted in trust. By working this way, client review isn’t an intimidating process—it’s routine and embedded in our best practices. Issues are brought to light early through open and frequent communication, applying a “no surprises” approach to manage scope creep.

As a flat organization, our top leaders are project and technical experts, and by engaging experts who can regulate a project and apply the necessary practical experience, we identify and correct issues using a top-down approach. Our leaders are walking sites, getting to know the teams, and forming connections.

With this level of care at the core of all we do, our fundamentals can seem juxtaposed with current industry trends to move fast, build quickly, and get to market as rapidly as possible. But we won’t skip steps or take on risk in the name of being fast-moving. We build efficient teams, leveraging emerging digital technologies and tools to keep us forward focused.

When it comes to capital project delivery, the best change is no change—in other words, the most powerful transformation lies in clear communication and a steadfast course. Our exceptional teams and emerging digital capabilities are rising to the challenge of bringing projects to market more efficiently without compromising quality, cost, or safety. Working together in partnership with our clients and remaining committed to the same principles and values, we’re ensuring that we shape the capital project landscape the way our clients envision.