| Roundup Index | International Roundup, Vol 18, No 4 |
How to avoid overruns and delays successfully - Nine basic rules and an associated operable procedureDr Steen Lichtenberg AbstractOverruns and delays are probably the most important current problem issues for cost engineers and project managers, as well as for the image of the whole professional area of Cost Engineering/Project Cost Control. Existing Cost Engineering methods of project cost estimating, planning and business analysis too often lead to overruns, delays, etc. Commercial Risk Analysis is therefore one of the basic sub-procedures used by cost engineers. In spite of this, relatively few papers have been written about this subject, and even fewer have been able to report a decade-long record of practical application and success. This paper outlines nine basic rules of Commercial Risk Analysis. Used in conjunction, they have proved to be highly successful in preventing problems with overruns and delays. A practical procedure known as the Successive Principle, which uses these rules, has been applied for 25 years to hundreds of challenging cases. It has demonstrated that overruns and delays need only materialise in the rare cases of major force majeure events. Important additional benefits of the procedure are that potential areas for improvement or protection are identified in ranked order and in good time. It also dramatically strengthens the team-building process. |