Functional Excellence
Across industries and geographies, capital projects and operations continue to underperform expectations. Schedules slip, costs escalate, and value that once appeared certain erodes during execution. Despite advances in technology, analytics, and capital availability, consistent delivery remains elusive.
The constraint is not capability. It is the absence of a disciplined, integrated system that aligns leadership, governance, and execution.
Functional Excellence: An Executive Playbook for High-Stakes Capital Projects and Operations addresses this gap directly. Drawing on over three decades of global experience across oil and natural gas, LNG, mining, and infrastructure sectors, this book introduces the Functional Excellence Operating System—a practical, field-tested framework for designing organizations that deliver predictable, high-quality outcomes in complex environments.
At its core, Functional Excellence is a four-layer system:
Culture and Leadership establish direction and behavioral expectations
Governance defines how decisions are made, challenged, and protected
Execution integrates organization, people, processes, technology, and stewardship
Results reveal the true performance, predictability, and value of the system
This is not a theoretical text. It is an executive playbook—equipping leaders with the structures, decision systems, and operating disciplines required to move from episodic success to consistent excellence. It is designed for environments where the cost of inconsistency is measured in millions—and sometimes billions.
My first book, Megaproject Development and Decision Making, focuses on what decisions to make and when, particularly in the front-end and strategic phases of capital projects. This current book operates at a different, but complementary level… addressing the organizational system required to execute those decisions effectively and consistently. Thus, together, the
two books become a coherent, two-part model:
Megaproject Development and Decision Making → Decision Integrity (Choosing the right path)
Functional Excellence → Execution Integrity (Delivering on those decisions)
Together, they form a complete framework—from decision-making through to execution and sustained performance.
Readers will gain:
A clear understanding of why high-stakes projects and operations fail despite strong technical capability
A structured system for aligning people, processes, and decisions
Practical tools, diagnostics, and implementation roadmaps
A leadership framework for embedding excellence as an organizational capability
This book is written for those responsible for outcomes where failure is costly—and where excellence must be designed, not hoped for. It is the bridge between project decision-making, operational excellence, and execution systems in capital-intensive environments.
