No-Surprises
Delivery
Why projects don't fail — and how to build the system around them so they can't. The 5Cs Framework™ for PMO Directors running cross-border capital projects.
STOP CROSS-BORDER PROJECTS DRIFTING.
Written for the person accountable for delivery.
Not for theorists. Not for consultants. For the operator in the room when the site or supplier blows the plan.
This book is not for everyone.
Five decisions. One system.
Each chapter is one control decision. Read it, apply it, move to the next. No theory without a tool. No tool without a real-project proof.
Turn fuzzy requirements into one written scope with clear assumptions, acceptance criteria, and explicit out-of-scope items. Close "was that included?" forever.
Replace deck governance with one operating plan that matches how site and production actually runs week to week. Stop the two-plan problem before it starts.
Set decision owners, deadlines, and consequences so open items close before they cascade into delays, claims, and political escalations.
Rebuild supplier commitments around capacity, lead times, handoffs, and proof of readiness — not optimistic promises nobody has actually verified.
Use a fixed weekly rhythm — same inputs, same meeting, same outputs — so slippage is caught in week one, not discovered in month three.
From the introduction.
A taste of what's inside — before the book is published.
I have watched the same thing happen across more than thirty countries, on four continents.
The governance pack is clean. Stage gates signed off. RAID log updated. Steering deck submitted on time. And the project is drifting. Vendors missing dates. Scope expanding quietly. Weekly meetings that have become a recurring argument about what was actually agreed.
Projects don't fail. The systems around them do. Frontier markets just expose it faster.Every failure I have seen — from a misaligned bridge approach in a forest in Equatorial Guinea to a stalled €400M EPC negotiation in Belgium — had the same root cause. Not bad people. Not bad intentions. A gap between what the governance system said was true and what was actually happening in the field.
This book is about closing that gap. Not with more templates. Not with harder reporting. With five decisions that change what happens on site next week.
Controls that don't match reality are just documentation. No-surprises delivery is not a reporting standard. It is an operating standard. This is the system that gets you there.
Be first. Get the chapter.
Shape the book.
Join the waitlist and get Chapter 1 — Contain — as a free PDF the moment it's ready. Plus early access, reader pricing, and the ability to influence what goes in.
You're on the list.
We'll send you Chapter 1 — Contain — the moment it's ready. You'll also get early access and reader pricing when the full book launches.