I’ve spent three weeks over the past three months in Greenland (no jokes about being an advanced force for the Americans). I’m working with NunaGreen, the rebranded NunaOil which is now focussing on sustainable energy for Greenland, on Greenland’s biggest infrastructure project. Being all the way out there, with its tiny population of just over 57,000, you could easily think that it’s just so different from a typical project in the UK. Rather, working there has impressed upon me that really, all projects are the same as well as all projects being different (all at the same time).

While scope and risks are often unique to each project, what’s the same is that it’s critical to get the basics right, and how often we seem to fail on that in projects in the UK. For me, these basics always come back to three things: cost drivers, risk drivers and people. These seem so obvious, yet not understanding these and therefore structuring projects without thinking about them can lead to some spectacular failures.