The argument
Value is lost at the joins.
A major physical asset passes through four stages. Each is run by different people, measured by different things, and accountable for different outcomes. The stages themselves are generally well managed.
The failures happen between them. At each seam, something has to be carried across: intent, then accountability, then understanding, and at each seam the party holding it has already discharged its obligation. This page is the whole argument in one place. Every article on this site examines a seam or a stage, and some carry the argument across more than one.
01
9 articles
Inception & Development
Almost nothing has been built, and almost everything has been decided.
Writing on InceptionWhat typically goes wrong
The operator has no voice in a brief that determines their next 30 years.
A concept-grade estimate is adopted as a budget. For building and general construction, AACE 56R-08 puts a Class 5 estimate as wide as -30% to +50%; treating that as a commitment builds failure into the baseline.
Whole-life cost is acknowledged in principle and excluded from the decision in practice.
Information requirements are never specified, so nobody is contractually obliged to produce them later.
The seam that follows
Between inception and delivery, intent becomes specification, and whatever was never written down stops existing.
02
17 articles
Delivery & Controls
The stage with the most reporting and the least clarity.
Writing on DeliveryWhat typically goes wrong
Progress is reported against a baseline that everyone privately knows is obsolete.
Change is managed as a commercial event rather than as information about the design.
Entitlement is accumulated rather than resolved, so a dispute is quietly manufactured during delivery and argued about years later.
Risk registers list risks without anybody owning the decision each risk implies.
The seam that follows
Between delivery and handover, accountability transfers, and the party holding the knowledge stops being obliged to share it.
03
12 articles
Handover & Transition
The narrowest seam, and the one that determines the next three decades.
Writing on HandoverWhat typically goes wrong
Everything required is delivered, and nothing needed is transferred.
As-built information records what was drawn rather than what was installed.
Late changes are documented commercially but never reflected in the operating record.
The operating team is assembled after the handover it should have specified.
The seam that follows
Between handover and operations, the asset stops being a project and becomes a liability with a revenue line attached.
04
16 articles
Operations & Asset Management
The longest stage, and the one nobody planned for.
Writing on OperationsWhat typically goes wrong
The asset register is a spreadsheet that one person maintains and nobody audits.
The fixed asset register and the technical asset register describe the same assets differently, and nobody owns the reconciliation.
Assets are valued for the balance sheet without ever being physically located, tagged or condition-assessed.
Condition is assessed once at handover and never again.
The consequence
Nothing about the decision changed. Only when it was examined.
The practical consequence of the four stages is a single curve. The cost of reversing a decision rises slowly through inception and delivery, then steeply once an asset is operating. The steep section begins at handover, which is also the point at which most organisations stop examining anything.
Correspondence
If something here is wrong, that is worth more than agreement.
Material errors are corrected on the affected pages. Messages are used to reply, not to build a mailing list.
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