Evolving Strategy: Risk Management and the Shaping of Large Engineering Projects

Large engineering projects (LEPs) are high-stakes games characterized by substantial irreversible commitments, skewed reward structures when they are successful, and high probabilities of failure. Their dynamics also change over time. The journey from initial conception to ramp-up and revenue generation takes 10 years on average. While the “front end” of a project – project definition, concept selection, and planning – typically involves less than one third of the total elapsed time and expense, it has a disproportionate impact on outcomes, as most shaping actions occur during this phase. During the rampup period, the reality of market estimates and the true worth of the project are revealed. Sponsors may find that actual conditions are very different from expectations, but only a few adaptations are possible. Once built, most projects have little flexibility in use beyond the original intended purpose. Managing risks is thus a real issue. The purpose of this chapter is to sketch out the various components of risk and outline ranges of strategies for coping with risks and turbulence based on an assessment of 60 projects as part of the IMEC study. Further more, we propose the elements of a governance system to master their evolutionary dynamics. The main finding is that successful projects are not selected but shaped. Rather than choosing a specific project concept from a number of alternatives at the outset based on projections of the full sets of benefits, costs and risks over the project’s lifetime, successful sponsors start with project ideas that have the potential to become viable. These sponsors then embark on shaping efforts to influence risk drivers ranging from project-related issues to broader governance. The seeds of success or failure of individual projects are thus planted early and nurtured over the course of the shaping period as choices are made. Successful sponsors, however, do not escalate commitments, and they abandon quickly when they recognize that projects have little possibility of becoming viable

House of Project Complexity – Understanding Complexity in Large Infrastructure Projects

This paper describes our conceptualization of complexity in Large Infrastructure Projects (LIPs). Since complexity itself is an emergent concept that is hard to pin down, we focus on the relationship between various project features and, particularly, properties associated with complexity such as difficulty, outcome variability and non-linearity, and (non) governability. We propose a combined structural and process-based theoretical framework for understanding contributors to complexity in this particular substantive context – the “House of Project Complexity” (HoPC). The HoPC addresses the impact of inherent technical and institutional project features, the process of project architecting, the structural relationship between various project features and these “designed” constructs, and the emergence of risks and life-cycle properties (‘ilities’). The HoPC is first applied to two trial samples and then to the main data set of detailed case studies of infrastructure projects prepared for the IMEC study. We believe that the “House of Project Complexity” can be generally extended to other substantive contexts that exhibit similar properties as Large Infrastructure Projects (LIPs), in the extractive industries, large manufacturing projects, or other industrial megaprojects

Financial markets and the adjustment to higher oil prices

A great deal has been written on the actual and potential effects of the oil price increase on world financial markets, but relatively little emphasis has been placed on the role played by financial markets in the adjustment of the energy markets themselves. This paper explores the linkages betwee

Accommodation in the international capital markets and the recycling of oil funds

Prepared in association with the Sloan School of Management and the Dept. of Economic

The international finance aspects of OPEC : an informational note

National Science Foundation Grant no. SIA75-0073

Electron precipitation from EMIC waves: a case study from 31 May 2013

On 31 May 2013 several rising-tone electromagnetic ion-cyclotron (EMIC) waves with intervals of pulsations of diminishing periods (IPDP) were observed in the magnetic local time afternoon and evening sectors during the onset of a moderate/large geomagnetic storm. The waves were sequentially observed in Finland, Antarctica, and western Canada. Co-incident electron precipitation by a network of ground-based Antarctic Arctic Radiation-belt Dynamic Deposition VLF Atmospheric Research Konsortia (AARDDVARK) and riometer instruments, as well as the Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) electron telescopes, was also observed. At the same time POES detected 30-80 keV proton precipitation drifting westwards at locations that were consistent with the ground-based observations, indicating substorm injection. Through detailed modelling of the combination of ground and satellite observations the characteristics of the EMIC-induced electron precipitation were identified as: latitudinal width of 2-3° or ΔL=1 Re, longitudinal width ~50° or 3 hours MLT, lower cut off energy 280 keV, typical flux 1×104 el. cm-2 sr-1 s-1 >300 keV. The lower cutoff energy of the most clearly defined EMIC rising tone in this study confirms the identification of a class of EMIC-induced precipitation events with unexpectedly low energy cutoffs of <400 keV

Capital Budgeting and State Approval of Power Plants

John A. Helmuth is an Associate Professor of Finance in the Department of Accounting and Finance, College of Business Administration at Rochester Institute of Technology. Donald Kent is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at Robert Wesleyan College, Rochester, New York. Jeffrey P. Lessard is an Assistant Professor of Finance in the Department of Accounting and Finance, College of Business Administration at Rochester lnstitute of Technology

Development and validation of the Treatment Related Impact Measure of Weight (TRIM-Weight)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The use of prescription anti-obesity medication (AOM) is becoming increasingly common as treatment options grow and become more accessible. However, AOM may not be without a wide range of potentially negative impacts on patient functioning and well being. The Treatment Related Impact Measure (TRIM-Weight) is an obesity treatment-specific patient reported outcomes (PRO) measure designed to assess the key impacts of prescription anti-obesity medication. This paper will present the validation findings for the TRIM-Weight.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The online validation battery survey was administered in four countries (the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada). Eligible subjects were over age eighteen, currently taking a prescription AOM and were currently or had been obese during their life. Validation analyses were conducted according to an <it>a priori </it>statistical analysis plan. Item level psychometric and conceptual criteria were used to refine and reduce the preliminary item pool and factor analysis to identify structural domains was performed. Reliability and validity testing was then performed and the minimally importance difference (MID) explored.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two hundred and eight subjects completed the survey. Twenty-one of the 43 items were dropped and a five-factor structure was achieved: Daily Life, Weight Management, Treatment Burden, Experience of Side Effects, and Psychological Health. <it>A-priori </it>criteria for internal consistency and test-retest coefficients for the total score and all five subscales were met. All pre-specified hypotheses for convergent and known group validity were also met with the exception of the domain of Daily Life (proven in an ad hoc analysis) as well as the 1/2 standard deviation threshold for the MID.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The development and validation of the TRIM-Weight has been conducted according to well-defined principles for the creation of a PRO measure. Based on the evidence to date, the TRIM-Weight can be considered a brief, conceptually sound, valid and reliable PRO measure.</p

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results