Project Management
In difficult markets, delivery risk and country risk are the same risk. A schedule that ignores the customs queue, the permit, and the security position is not a schedule.
Planning against the constraints that actually bind
Standard project plans assume that inputs arrive when ordered. In the markets we work in, the binding constraints are usually customs clearance, visa and work permit processing, foreign exchange availability, port and road capacity, and the local approval that nobody mentioned until month four. We build the critical path around those items and treat the technical work as comparatively predictable.
This produces schedules that look pessimistic beside a head office plan and turn out to be the ones that hold.
Risk mitigation with owners and triggers
A risk register that lists risks without owners, thresholds and pre-agreed responses is a document, not a control. We define for each material risk the indicator we are watching, the level at which we act, the action, and the person authorised to take it without further approval. Delegated authority defined in advance is what allows a team to respond at the speed events actually move.
Resource optimisation across borders
Moving people, equipment and money across borders is the part of international delivery that consumes the most management attention and receives the least planning. We front-load the work: entity and tax position, secondment structures, equipment importation and re-export, local content requirements, banking channels that will not freeze mid-project, and the redundancy needed when one of them does.
Performance tracking that reaches the board honestly
Reporting that only travels upward when it is comfortable removes the board's ability to intervene while intervention is still cheap. We install a small number of measures that cannot be dressed up, report them on a fixed cadence regardless of what they show, and separate the narrative from the numbers so both can be examined.
Signals this is the right work
Your project is on schedule according to the report and behind according to anyone on site. Approvals keep arriving later than assumed and the plan is never revised. Equipment is sitting in a port. Your local team escalates nothing, which usually means escalation has been punished before.
What you get
- A critical path built around customs, permits, foreign exchange and approvals rather than around the technical works
- A risk register where every entry has an owner, a threshold, an action and delegated authority
- A cross-border resourcing plan covering entity, tax, secondment, importation and banking redundancy
- A short reporting set that cannot be dressed up, on a fixed cadence
- An escalation route that has been tested before it is needed
Common questions
Do you place people on site?
Yes, where the engagement requires it. For most projects the higher-value role is a small senior presence with the authority to unblock, rather than a large embedded team.
What happens if the security situation changes mid-project?
That is what the pre-agreed thresholds are for. Suspension, drawdown and evacuation criteria are set at the start, with authority delegated to the person on the ground, because approval chains do not work at the speed those decisions require.
Can you take over a project that is already in trouble?
Frequently, and the first two weeks are usually spent establishing what is actually true about schedule and spend, because a recovery built on the existing reporting tends to fail the same way.
Related work
The Orderly Exit: How to Leave a Market Cleanly →SME Business Continuity in War: A Practical Playbook →Discuss a mandate
If this describes the problem you are holding, a short conversation will establish quickly whether we are the right people for it.
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