Ronald Francis
Capial Project Advisory
Risk Management
Anticipate risk. Protect delivery.
Supporting Financial Governance Through Risk Management
From an owner’s advisory perspective, risk management is a governance function that ensures capital decisions are made within a structured framework of accountability. Its effectiveness is ultimately determined by the quality of early-stage decisions.
On complex capital projects, effective risk management requires a level of depth, coordination, and discipline that extends well beyond the themes outlined in the sections that follow, which represent only a high-level view of a much broader governance requirement.
What this solves
This experience informs a disciplined, front-end governance approach, ensuring that risk is identified, structured, and embedded into capital planning and decision frameworks at project inception—enabling more resilient delivery outcomes and maintaining control across cost, programme, stakeholder coordination, and overall project performance in uncertain times.
Protecting Capital Through Early Risk Control
The cost of quality is largely determined during project inception. Construction Industry Institute (CII ) research indicates rework is estimated to represent between 2% and 20% of total costs (average of 12%). This, of course, has a negative impact on the project’s schedule, capital allocation timing, early occupancy et.
For a $50 million commercial project, even a conservative 5% rework rate translates to $2.5 million in avoidable direct costs.
The Cost of Quality is determined long before construction begins. Effective governance, risk identification, and accountability established at project inception reduce rework, protect capital, and improve delivery certainty.
Managing the Cost of Quality
CII research indicates that direct project costs can increase by approximately 15% due to rework, excluding indirect impacts. Projects that establish disciplined project governance early typically maintain rework below 5%, improving cost certainty, schedule performance, and overall project outcomes.
Translating Owner Requirements into Delivery Certainty
Projects perform best when owner objectives are clearly defined and systematically integrated into project governance from inception.
An independent advisor with experience across both project delivery and owner-side risk can help establish an accountability framework aligned with industry best practice.
This early alignment improves decision-making, reduces rework, and strengthens cost and schedule certainty throughout project execution.
International Project Risk & Complex Environment Experience
International capital projects require knowledge-based governance at inception, informed by risks that extend beyond design and delivery into geopolitical instability, civil unrest, terrorism-related events, and extreme natural hazards.
This perspective is shaped by experience across international project environments where such events have occurred during project delivery periods, including:
Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles (1994)
Typhoon Paka in Guam (1997)
Artisan Bakery attack in Dhaka Bangladesh (2016)
Easter bombings Sri Lanka (2019)
Global COVID-19 pandemic Turkey (2020)
These events demonstrate how external shocks can rapidly affect cost certainty. Governance frameworks can be calibrated to the operating environment from the outset, ensuring elevated external risks are explicitly identified and assessed before design and execution commitments are made.
Controlling Risk at the Point of Maximum Influence
Addressing this risk profile requires governance capability at project inception that extends beyond traditional project management functions. An independent project advisor with experience across both delivery environments and owner-side governance provides the critical interface between strategic intent and execution reality.
This alignment at inception strengthens decision-making, improves cost certainty, and reduces downstream exposure to avoidable project disruption.
Review Governance and Risk at Inception
Align governance, risk, and capital decisions before commitments are made.