AI

The end of cost and time overruns in major programme management?

Published

Time and cost overruns are a well-known feature of major infrastructure and IT projects around the world.

Hitting the headlines regularly are reports of budgets spiralling out of control, and projects completing months or years past their proposed launch dates, negatively impacting companies, cities or even whole economies.

Two alumni of the MSc Major Programme Management (MMPM) at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford are changing that by bringing AI to the sector. David Porter, a successful businessman with no previous exposure to AI, and Cuong Quang, a project manager with industrial AI experience, met in 2015 on the MMPM and set up Endeavour Programme. Cuong has commercialised his AI innovations through Endeavour Programme to tackle the issues that surround the effective delivery of mega-projects and break the cycle of failure.

Their cloud-based products provide predictions of project and programme outcomes that are multiple times more accurate and can happen in a matter of seconds instead of taking weeks to do, with a potential to make millions of dollars in savings.

Cuong Quang
Cuong Quang

Arriving on the MMPM programme in 2015, as two Australians among a cohort of around 60 people, David and Cuong were quick to gravitate towards each other and explore some of the theories they had been learning. ‘I found the theories, really, really interesting, and at one point went “oh that's why that's always been happening like that,”’ said Porter, an established and successful businessman and the founder of Endeavour Programme, who had returned to study on the MMPM after selling his consultancy.

It was initially unclear to him how to use the theories and commercial acumen of classmates to do something really interesting, but the ideas morphed into the business after meeting Quang, and they were able to take the theories, that had been developed in Oxford over the decade and turn them into something real.

‘Independently I had started to do my research on how we can apply artificial intelligence to investigate some of the challenges that beset major programmes,’ said Quang. ‘What stood out for me from the course, is how we can use artificial intelligence to tackle both complexity and behavioural decision making. This is now the basis of a multi-year research programme I have the privilege of conducting with Saïd Business School as an Associate Scholar.’

The pair leveraged the Oxford network to build the business. Throughout their programme they regularly discussed and refined their ideas with academics and classmates, several of whom are now shareholders. They also developed a teaming agreement with companies run by some of the professors from Oxford to continue to help refine the offering and further meet industry needs. ‘Both David and myself have experienced doors being opened for us, that really just would not have been even conceivable three years ago,’ said Quang.

They built the AI technology with a major construction company in Queensland who manage over £500m a year in projects, and which is now able to forecast project cost outcomes about 250% more accurately and about 35% earlier than they used to. Pilots have also been demonstrated to private sector organisations and state governments.

Oxford has enabled them to expand beyond their home market and work with the Hong Kong Development Bureau where they have demonstrated how the artificial intelligence technology has helped with the Bureau’s deca-billion pound portfolio. ‘We're accurate to about 75% in predicting costs over- and under run and schedule over and under run as well,’ said Quang.

Combining their abilities has enabled them to support their clients achieve better business and social outcomes. It’s been a delight to see how much they have achieved.

Paul Chapman

Senior Fellow, Saïd Business School

‘When Cuong and David came to Oxford as students each already had a strong CV and impressive professional experience,’ said Paul Chapman, Course Leader of the Managing Performance course, on Oxford's MSc in Major Programme Management. ‘It is particularly satisfying to think that like our other students, it’s not where they come from that’s important but where they go after they graduate. In Cuong and David’s case they’ve founded a business that leverages advanced technologies to support the delivery of major programmes. They are not only innovators and entrepreneurs but also first rate project delivery people. Combining their abilities has enabled them to support their clients achieve better business and social outcomes. It’s been a delight to see how much they have achieved.’

As to the future, their objective is that by 2024 their AI engine should be regarded across the world as the benchmark machine for managing cost and time overruns. It may sound like a lofty ambition but as Porter reflected ‘One of the really wonderful things about Oxford is when you're there and you see the kind of industry and academic horsepower that you are able to collaborate with, you can see things that you can change on a global scale, and that seems very doable.’