Inception & Development
Almost nothing has been built, and almost everything has been decided.
The inception stage is short, cheap and disproportionately consequential. Location, configuration, procurement route, delivery model and the basic operating concept are all fixed here, usually by a small group, often under time pressure, and frequently before anyone who will operate the asset has been consulted.
The cost of changing any of these decisions is close to zero at this point. It never gets lower. Every subsequent stage adds commitment, and commitment is what converts a decision into a constraint.
The recurring failure is not poor analysis. It is that the questions asked at inception are delivery questions — what will it cost, how long will it take, who will build it — and the questions that determine whole-life outcomes are ownership questions, which nobody in the room is accountable for yet.
What typically goes wrong
- 01
The operator has no voice in a brief that determines their next thirty years.
- 02
A concept-grade estimate is adopted as a budget. AACE 18R-97 puts a Class 5 estimate at roughly −50% to +100%; treating that as a commitment builds failure into the baseline.
- 03
Whole-life cost is acknowledged in principle and excluded from the decision in practice.
- 04
Information requirements are never specified, so nobody is contractually obliged to produce them later.
Questions worth asking
- ?
Who in this process is accountable for what the asset costs to run?
- ?
What class of estimate is this, and what range is attached to it?
- ?
What information will we need at handover, and where is it specified?
- ?
What are we deciding now that we will not be able to revisit?
The seam that follows
Between inception and delivery, intent becomes specification — and whatever was never written down stops existing.