The hardest project to judge is the one you’re already inside
Everyone inside a project has a reason to believe in it.
That isn’t dishonesty. It’s proximity. Which is why an organisation occasionally needs someone who owes the plan nothing.
Berkeley Technical Centre and Berkeley Nuclear Licensed Site sat side by side, sharing services built up over decades of legacy arrangement. The NDA wanted the Centre marketed as an energy-focused business park – which meant separating the two while keeping the licensed site entirely compliant.
We were brought in as independent third-party reviewer, accountable to the Site Director and the Commercial Director, to examine a £4.048M project from outside it. Four phases: desktop study, structured challenge to every scope element through interviews with site personnel, detailed analysis, then recommendations.
The review set out several possible end states for the Centre, and concluded that some of them delivered the original business case benefits while releasing efficiencies in excess of £2M to the NDA.
Then they asked us to deliver it. A new business case, work packages covering site security, relocation of the IT and telephony hub, water and sewage separation – re-baselined and approved at £2.9M over six months, with a value management process keeping every stakeholder able to see why each option had been chosen.
Being asked to deliver your own review is a decent test of it. The recommendations had to survive contact with the work.
Discuss a project like this