Improving Capital Project Results

Whether it is assisting an oil and gas major to bring a billion dollar LNG facility on stream significantly under budget and within schedule or working with a Government utility to develop a project alliance to design and construct a highway or a water treatment plant, SRD is able to apply the right combination of practical, relevant and challenging interventions and long term support to ensure that project results are outstanding.

Alliance Development Services

Increasingly owners are looking for ways to fast track project delivery in high risk environments. One answer is to deliver the project as an alliance. A Project Alliance is…

“a project delivery system embodied in a contract – the Alliance Agreement – between the owner and contractor participants that binds the parties as one and finally aligns the owner and all contractor participants to the achievement of the owner project objectives in a commercial framework where all participants share in the risk of not achieving owner's objectives with a corresponding commercial upside for outstanding performance.”

SRD's Alliance Development Services include:

Assisting owners to determine the suitability of a project for delivery as a project alliance;
Assisting owners to approach the marketplace and select “best for project” alliance participants;
Assisting contractors to prepare to participate in selection processes and delivery under alliance agreements;
Supporting alliance teams to develop all aspects of the alliance including the commercial and management arrangements to drive outstanding performance.

SRD's record in this area is impressive with recent engagements to:

Establish the business case and facilitate the selection of participants for the Port of Melbourne Corporation's Port Phillip Bay Channel Deepening Alliance;
Design and facilitate a competitive selection process for the Water Corporation of WA's Subiaco and Beenyup Odour Control and Upgrade Projects and the Perth Desalination Project;
Establish the alliances to deliver Instrumentation and Control System Upgrades at the Wolf Creek, and Commanche Peak Nuclear Power Facilities in the Mid-West of the USA;
Establish the business case and facilitate the selection of participants for Santos' Distributed Control System Upgrade of its Moomba Processing facilities – the ACE Alliance;
Design and facilitate the selection process for Sydney Water's Bondi RIAMP project.

Outstanding Projects Process

At SRD we know that Outstanding Project Outcomes are a function of relationships, where people with vision and commitment are powerfully aligned.

Our Outstanding Projects Process (OPP) and Outstanding Project Process for Alliances (OPP-A) ensure that project teams deliver beyond business as usual results – results previously thought to be impossible in normal circumstances.

The OPP is underpinned by SRD's Transformational technology – a conversation based technology where already successful project leaders are taught language in action skills and then coached to achieve extraordinary results – results that they previously considered impossible to deliver. Our transformational practices allow leaders to identify things they believe could never happen, declare them possible and move the possibility into reality.

Through the OPP our consultants help project teams to achieve breakthrough performance in all project key result areas by:

Developing powerful relationships within the total project team, between members of each team, contracting parties and the project itself;
Achieving and maintaining alignment of all project personnel to the project and its objectives and targets;
Coaching and supporting the project team to deliver against Project Vision Declarations in Key Result Areas;
Ensuring technical, organisational and behavioural interfaces are optimised;
Facilitating seamless collaboration and communications across the project.

SRD's OPP has been very successfully applied to many projects delivered under both traditional and alliance arrangements. In all cases the OPP is credited with being a significant contributing factor to these projects achieving outstanding performance. A few examples include:

Conoco Phillips Bayu Undan Development – SRD's work is credited with assisting to significantly reduce a projected schedule overrun of the sail away from Korea of two 20,000 tonne integrated decks.
Water Corporation of WA – Subiaco Odour Control and Upgrade Project – This small project (around $30M) was delivered as an alliance with outstanding results in:

Cost – savings in excess of 12.8% of the projects target cost
Schedule – meet or bettered all key milestones and was able to take on extra scope without compromising the declared end date
Safety – over 137,000 manhours lost time injury free
Environmental – all odour reduction targets met or exceeded
Relationships – no disruptions to plant operations and excellent relationship with plant operating personnel

Caloundra-Maroochy Shire Council (Qld) – Landers Shute Water Treatment Plant Upgrade
- The Lander's Shute Water Treatment Plant was successfully upgraded in order to properly manage increased demand generated within the Sunshine Coast supply areas and to meet new treated water quality targets.
- This project is nearing completion and the following outcomes are anticipated,
  - 11% budget under run
  - Early Interim Technical Completion achieved
  - 100% achieved on all KPIs to date - Community, Knowledge Transfer and Environment, Nil Disruptions to water supply
Port of Brisbane – Future Port Expansion Seawall Project
- The Future Port Expansion (FPE) Seawall Alliance will create approximately 5km of enclosing seawall, to form the perimeter for a future 230 hectare reclamation area.
- The project is still in progress, however the following promising outcomes are indicated:
  
  Many innovations in material sourcing and construction methodology developed, leading to the final cost being well within the target cost for the job
  
  Wall Closure anticipated for December 2004 and was closed August 2004
  
  Project completion currently tracking for November 2004 as opposed to March 2005
  
  KPIs currently tracking at 90%

Project Value Improving Practices

It is well documented that it becomes more difficult to influence project outcomes as the project becomes more defined. Also it is recognised that outstanding outcomes do not occur by chance – but are a function of the extent to which Value Improving Practices (VIPs) are applied during high influence periods to identify value enhancement opportunities. The application of VIPs are significantly and positively correlated with the achievement of outstanding project outcomes.

SRD has a range of robust models and processes which allow project teams to enhance project value.

SRD facilitates:

Project Planning Practices

Opportunity/Project Framing
Project Execution Planning
Contract Strategy Development
Contractor Alliance Development

Value Enhancement Practices

Value Engineering and Analysis
Constructability Analysis
Design for Capacity
Standards Alignment

Management Enhancement Practices

Lessons Learned and Best Practices
Improvement
Leadership and Team Development
Risk and Opportunities Evaluation

Project Diagnostics

“S” curves, earned value and health, safety and environmental statistics are recognised performance monitoring practices. SRD focuses on providing an alternate view of the ‘health' of a project by focusing on the behavioural side – what people think and feel, how they are teaming, cooperating and collaborating are equally important determinants of project success.

SRD uses three sorts of project diagnostic instruments.

Health Check Instrument
This instrument checks the health of the project against the defining elements of the desired project culture. Administration and analysis are simple, able to be conducted by project personnel on a regular basis and the results allow project management teams to deal with emerging issues before they become problems. Often SRD's health check instrument is used as the base for measuring performance in “relationship” key result areas

Project Climate Survey
This is a comprehensive survey administered periodically over the life of a project which examines key aspects of project performance including the impacts of project leadership and management, the adequacy of management systems and procedures, aspects of the work environment and communications. The results are in the form of a gap analysis based on two key questions:

How important is this aspect of the project to its overall success?
What's our current performance in this aspect of the project?

Areas of focus for the project management team are these aspects of the project with biggest gaps between importance and performance

Alliance Audit Tools
Also, SRD has designed and developed Audit Tools for project alliances. The Audit Tools are used to check the readiness of the alliance to move from one phase to another across the project lifecycle. For example SRD's Phase 3 Audit Tool tests the robustness of outcomes from the Alliance Development Phase and the Phase 4 Tool audits the alliance philosophy in action during project execution.

Bid Support Services

SRD has in-depth experience working with project owners and in over ten years, has built up an understanding of their particular needs and wants from contractors/consortia. This experience means we can coach potential contractors/consortia in the areas that will increase their influence and impact on how they present themselves to their clients and what they must put in place to deliver the client's requirements. For example, initially we define and align the proponent team to the opportunity objectives and then identify what success looks like for them in terms of winning and delivering the work. We then take them through a rapid step approach to move the whole team towards the execution of an outstanding tender presentation to the client. As part of this approach, we develop and facilitate supplementary activities to prepare the team in creating their own compelling arguments as to why the client should select them.