July 29, 2016 by AP-Networks Leave a Comment Originally published on LinkedIn by AP-Networks Managing Director Brett Schroeder. This week, The Financial Times featured the following story: “Dismal Project delivery puts big oil and gas energy projects at risk.” For those of us who work in the industry and track project performance, this comes as no surprise. In fact, the industry’s track record in delivering large projects has been poor for some time. Based on the AP-Networks industry project database of 800 major projects executed since 2002, only one in four projects achieves their performance objectives, and another one in four can be classified as “train wrecks” due to a large overrun or blown schedule (i.e., >30%). It’s clear that the industry’s governance and assurance processes are not working well. Processes that were designed and implemented in the 1990s and early 2000s have failed to keep pace with the scale and complexity posed by large capital projects in the oil and gas industry. Further, the companies’ internal assurance processes have instilled a false sense of confidence with decision makers on the accuracy of project targets and their ability to manage risks. The relatively high oil prices for the last decade concealed the extent of the problem, and senior management within these companies did not have a sense of urgency to tackle the issues. The collapse in oil prices has changed this thinking and is forcing companies to now address some of these systemic problems. Without the high prices to cushion the blow, cost overruns and schedule delays are having a much bigger impact on the bottom line. To tackle this problem, companies will first have to understand what has not been working with their current approach to planning and estimating large projects. I will focus on this topic in my next post.