Project Planning

Very considerable sums of capital are regularly invested in new infrastructure and other facilities aimed at delivering services to the public, frequently over a time span that can extend to many years and see significant change.

There are clearly examples of successful capital projects, judged against factors such as the efficiency with which the project is procured, its completion on time and budget, its ability to meet both short- term and long-term service needs effectively, and overall value for money.

There are, however, equally many instances of projects that are subject to costly delay, or even aborted after considerable resources have been expended; that overrun their budget, both with respect to time and capital cost; and/or that fail to meet actual service needs, not only over the longer-term because of an inability to accommodate change, but also over the shorter-term, perhaps because of an ill-defined or misconceived view of actual need or the service required.

There are various reasons behind such failures. There may, for example, have been a lack of clear political and financial commitment from the project’s inception; there may be a mismatch of client aspirations and available project resources; there may have been a failure to ring-fence project budgets, with the result that key funds get diverted for use elsewhere; long-term needs may have been inadequately defined; insufficient attention may have been paid to potential technical or other step changes in the environment, even those that could have been foreseen, with the result that the project lacks the ability to adapt flexibly and cost effectively to changing service needs...or, worse, becomes prematurely obsolete.

Over the years, SAMI Consulting has developed techniques and processes that can assist public and private sector investors in long-term infrastructure and services in avoiding such pitfalls by means of achieving both clarity and stakeholder consensus with respect to service need and a realistic project brief; a brief which has also been properly tested with respect to its potential robustness to long-term change and uncertainty.

The SAMI Project Planning Process involves four key stages:

• The diagnosis and identification of focal project issues through a process of interviews, research and analysis;

• A series of “issues workshops” with key stakeholders and relevant experts to explore those focal issues in greater depth;

• The development of a set of project-relevant scenarios against which potential project options can be tested;

• And the actual identification, investigation, development and evaluation of such options.

  Further information on the SAMI Project Planning Process can be obtained from colin.fletcher@samiconsulting.co.uk