008 – Mega Projects & Destiny: How Decisions Shape Billion-Dollar Outcomes with Akin Oni

Host: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Major Project podcast, your inside look at the high stakes world of billion dollar projects.

Orion Matthews: Thanks for joining the Major Project podcast. Today we have at Keen ONI to discuss mega project development and decision making. At Keen is a global mega project executive with more than three decades leading and governing billion dollar oil, natural gas, LNG, mining, refining, and infrastructure initiatives across six continents.

He currently serves as CEO and managing partner of FECs Group and is the author of three upcoming books, including the Topic Today, mega Project Development and Decision Making to be published by Business Expert Express in March, 2026. At Keen is widely recognized for his expertise in project development, [00:01:00] cost engineering, capital stewardship m and a projects and business leadership in high stakes environments.

His Hallmark strengths, people planning and performance have shaped project outcomes in different cultural environments. You can learn more@atkeenoni.com or check out his popular weekly newsletter on LinkedIn to get a peek at his upcoming books in 2026, the Mighty Warrior Way, mega Project Development and Functional Excellence through his writing and talks at Keen invites, leaders, investors, makers, and practitioners alike to embrace a higher standard of excellence.

Because in mega projects, as in life decisions shape destiny at Keen. Welcome to the podcast. 

Akin Oni: Thank you very much, Aran. 

Orion Matthews: Well, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about your history and really focus in on how you got into major projects. 

Akin Oni: Wow, a great question. [00:02:00] Again, thank you so very much, uh, Iran for this, uh, incredible opportunity to be a part of this in terms of my history and I how I got into major projects.

I have reflected on that a few times, and I like to say that my journey actually began long before my first project assignment. It began as a young boy in western Africa who learned early that hard places can shape strong people. Engineering at one point became my doorway. The curiosity actually became my compass.

My early career, as you will probably have learned, took me from classrooms to all fields. From design offices to construction sites across continents, one opportunity led to another and suddenly I found myself leading teams on projects worth billions. [00:03:00] What got me was the same thing that carried me from childhood to now, and it is this, the joy of solving meaningful problems with good people.

And I take that again, the joy of solving meaningful problems with good people. Back to you. 

Orion Matthews: Thank you for that history and what a story. So before we get into it, you know our topic today is mega projects, but maybe we can back up and do a little bit of defining to you what constitutes a mega project, and maybe you could give us a few examples of mega projects.

Akin Oni: Thank you. In my world, a mega project simply put, is a human undertaking so large, so huge that it shapes economies, communities, and sometimes national identity. We put the word mega on anything above [00:04:00] a billion dollars. That’s really about impact. It could be a major deep water project, l and g, export terminals, refineries, cross country pipelines, maybe copper mines or metro systems.

These are the modern ceders I the way I would put it, of industry. They are the modern ceders of industry and they demand leadership, humility, and discipline at a level. Few other endeavors require back to you. 

Orion Matthews: Ke that’s really interesting way to frame it, that it’s less about the dollar and more about the impact, which kind of ties into the history that you came about and your passion.

So it’s a really great frame. Thank you for sharing that. So as we’re here today to talk about maybe we can get into it, what are some key learnings from mega [00:05:00] projects? Why do they fail so often and what advice do you have to minimize that failure rate? 

Akin Oni: Well, that be an all day answer to that question, but I’ve got a few statistics here, so if you don’t mind, I’m gonna look at one of the screens where I have the statistics.

Recite by Bent Berg, who is a professor and others like him, suggest that only 1% of black projects are on budget, on time, and delivering full benefits are successful. A recent piece also summarized that we know that 65% of all mega projects fail. Either they go over budget over time, or both, or they don’t even meet their objectives at all.

And finally, from McKinsey and Company from billion dollar plus mega projects, 98% suffer cost overruns of more than 30%, and 77% are at least [00:06:00] 40% late. Just unpack that now across my career, and I’ve been able to initiate projects, I’ve helped develop projects, and I’ve helped execute projects, and you realize that across this spectrum, three truths have stayed consistent.

I find out that number one, we rush the beginning.

What that should mean to you and our listeners today is that poor front-end loading is the root of most disasters that we experience on mega projects. Number two, we grossly underestimate uncertainty on projects. Most of the time. I find out that, uh, optimism, bias, blind source, realizing is what [00:07:00] saves us.

And as I look at the global mega project world from the mine sites of, uh, Southern America, say in, uh, Chile or Lima, Peru, to the Deep Water Gulf of, uh, Mexico now Gulf of America to Australia. Where you see mega oil and gas projects and mega mine development projects, so the frozen corridors of mines in Canada, you realize that, uh, when you see a mega project are failed, the fear most of the time because those who are supposed to be looking after that project is significantly underestimate, uncertainty.

And number three, most of the time we forget that projects are built by people, not spreadsheets. [00:08:00] Trust, alignment and clarity are worth more than any contract. And here’s my advice. We need to honor early stages. We need to frame the opportunity honestly. We need to create one fruit, technically, financially, and culturally very important.

We need to bundle those three together. We need to build teams that tell the truth faster than problems. Grow and never forget a mega project is a marathon with sprints inside it. You need to pace yourself. Thank you. 

Orion Matthews: I keen this is wise words. What I heard on the three, just to summarize them a little bit, is we rush, we’re over optimistic and we don’t focus enough on creating alignment within teams, right?

And [00:09:00] these three pillars impact the failure rate substantially. 

Akin Oni: Yeah, 

Orion Matthews: maybe I could push a little bit on one of ’em I’m interested in. Sure. Which is the people side that trust alignment. What’s your strategy when you get into these big projects to create that? 

Akin Oni: That’s a very thoughtful question, and thank you for that.

When you talk about people as you mentioned earlier in the intro, I have been globally awarded because of, uh, how I have, uh, led people in the past in my career. Now, there are two parts to it, and this is one of the things that I advise leaders today when you are asked. The second around, you have just been congratulations.

You have been appointed to be the mega project director of the x, y, Z underground mind development in [00:10:00] Latin America. And you, we will be flying you and your family down in about six weeks. Yes, you do all the planning when you get there. Here’s what I tell leaders, please do yourself a favor. Do your career a favor in I do your family a favor.

Don’t start leading right from day one. Follow what I call the three Ls of leadership when you get there. Number one, listing.

Number two, learn. And then number three, lead. Unfortunately, most leaders who fail today, especially when you lead a new team, they start in the reverse order. They start leading right on the one, and then when they stumble, they start learning. And then after a few stumbles, then they begin to kind of listen.

Now it is the wrong way to look at it. So listen, learn, then lead [00:11:00] in that order. It’s a recipe for success. The second thing I will say to our listeners today about people in my world is, which has worked very well for me when I got on, I remember sometimes, uh, in the, I think 2007, 2008, thereabout, I had the opportunity to lead 120% team in, uh, Australia.

And I realized that there was some struggles. That here is what I would tell leaders without going to a lot of details with respect to people. Make sure you have the right people, not the best people, have the right people on your project. After you’ve understood this one, we’re gonna talk about some of the key pillars.

Make sure you have the right people, make sure you have them in right number and make sure you have them at the right time. So three s [00:12:00] right people, right number right time. Because if you miss one of those, the tendency that the foundation for developing that project is gonna be shaky and you are likely not gonna be successful.

Lemme leave it by that. 

Orion Matthews: Thank you so much. One thing I really love talking with you at Keen is that you are a man of threes so far and it’s really helpful to break things down in threes. And what I heard is we have the three pillars of rushing, overoptimism, people alignment. 

Akin Oni: Yeah. 

Orion Matthews: We broke down people and you gave us two sets of threes to think about, which is.

Listen, learn and lead. 

Akin Oni: Yeah. 

Orion Matthews: And then you need the right people. You need the right number at the right time. 

Akin Oni: Fantastic. 

Orion Matthews: Those are really great, great tips. And I, I think one thing that kind of connects that’s interesting is if I’m a leader, I’m taking over a project, I have to listen, learn and lead. Yeah.

And the other two [00:13:00] things we didn’t unpack. If you’re in a rush, you forget to listen. 

Host: Yeah. 

Orion Matthews: And if you’re over optimistic, you probably are not learning enough about the project. So the other pieces, these other pillars that you have to be aware of, kind of tie into that. So if you can listen, learn, and lead, it almost helps perhaps with all, all three of those major components.

Akin Oni: Yeah. No, that’s true. 

Orion Matthews: Well, let’s talk a little bit about m and a projects. Ake, can you take us through sort of the terms and just sort of framing up what is MA and D, what are transactions, what’s a and d? Kinda help us understand these terms as we get into mega projects. 

Akin Oni: Thank you very much. Uh, people use the terms interchangeably in a manner that confuse uh, they, they use it in a manner that kind of confuse people from time to time.

Now and I know that these times confuse many people, so I’ll [00:14:00] keep it simple. Uh, there’s m and a and there’s MA and d. They’re kind of used together and they can be used together. M and A is mergers and acquisitions. A and D is mergers, acquisitions, and investments. I will, I would describe this way is the all lifecycle of combining or separating businesses because when you do transactions or when you do m and a or MA and D, all you are doing is either you buy to combine.

Or you sell to separate. So m and a or MA and a is the whole cycle of combining or separating businesses. Now, transactions, which is the one that uh, people use the most or confuse a lot of people, is, uh, the financial deal itself. It is the buying, the selling, and the investing that is transactions. Now, a MD is [00:15:00] very common in oil and gas, and a and d simply means acquisitions and divestments.

But the deeper story is integration of separation. And that is very important. You can spend all the money that you like. You can look at a business that you really like, but the deeper story around this topic is integration of separation around people culture. Systems. These three, they need to come together in a, in the right manner for the overall transactions to be meaningful.

They’ll succeed or fail on that front, not on spreadsheets unfortunately.

Orion Matthews: Thank you for defining those terms. And if I may, I know you’ve had some expertise in, at the board level, which is where a lot of the m and a sort of decisions, final decisions get made. Maybe you can pull back the covers a little bit. It’s sort of [00:16:00] unpack or how organizations successfully execute these transactions.

Is it everybody’s job to make a divestment successful during, do people at the board level really like dive into these topics? And discuss them, or is everything really pretty much set by the time it gets there? I mean, just kind of help take us through maybe how ma and d affects organizations and start at the tippy top, if you could.

Akin Oni: Yeah, no, that’s, uh, that’s a thoughtful question. Now stop. See talking in the space of, uh, m and a or A and d or m and d, and how does it happen? How does it work? Usually, in most organizations, you’ll have the strategy group, then you’ll have the project group, and then you’ll have the operations group. Just notice the other strategy projects, operations.

Some organizations, they kind of [00:17:00] make means that much, but really if you want to understand transactions, break it down into dust. Again, I know you, you talked about me using number three a lot, strategy projects, operations. When people ask me question ake, what do you do? I say, I’m one of the field guys.

That translates strategy to operational realities through projects. That’s why I call myself a change agent. You have a strategy. You want to be the largest natural gas supplier in Trinidad and Tobago in the next five years. That’s the, that’s who you want to be. My job as a project professional is to now take that and say, okay, do we do that organically or do we do it through transactions?

And when we decide, depending on our risk and the options that we have out there in the market, then we have a project [00:18:00] which we’ll walk through diff series of stages and. We had the transactions stage for any project development, and we had the real project stage for any project development. And at the end of the day, we want to make sure that those who are going to execute the project, they participate in the assessment with the strategy team.

Because most of the time, transactions or or A and D or A and d, they are initiated by the strategy team. Somebody in there, they will call that person the project manager for this transaction. And then that person, if they know what they’re doing, they will bring project professionals, bring them together.

Orion Matthews: A keen, thanks so much for that explanation of all those terms and kind of an insight on how businesses prioritize and set up their strategy piece along with execution. So now that we know what a make a project is, we’ve kind of talked about some of these pillars. Should mega [00:19:00] projects be done at all?

You mentioned that people rush, and I’m curious if you could just talk about that failure, talk about the evaluation of whether you should do a project or not. How do you do a good project evaluation? 

Akin Oni: Thank you very much. Yeah. This is actually the heart of my upcoming book, mega Project Development and Decision Making.

Uh, the question isn’t can we build it? The question is, should we build it now here with this assumptions at and at this risk? I take that again, the question really isn’t can we build it? The question is, should we build it now here with these assumptions and at this risk? Evaluation is where courage meets clarity.

It is where companies [00:20:00] choose discipline over ambition. A great evaluation in my view, looks at markets, supply chains, regulatory trends, community acceptance, execution readiness, talent availability, geopolitical sheets, and the true cost of capital. Yes, the true cost of capital. If the story isn’t convincing on its own, the project shouldn’t proceed.

And that is the way I look at it is this story, is this convincing enough? If the story isn’t convincing on its own, the projects shouldn’t proceed, but many a times what we see, especially me reveal projects now across the globe, is projects that fail. They failed because the business case actually wasn’t convincing enough on his own.

The first place that those who are supposed to sign the FID [00:21:00] papers, they signed off on it thinking that okay, yeah, this may not be right, right now, that at some point then they are, somebody’s gonna fix it. Yes, the right team will fix problems that you give them more work that they don’t really have to bother about.

And it is very expensive when you do things like that, super expensive because the contractor will be coming at you to say, this was what you told me you are gonna do. This is what you are telling me right now. I don’t mind doing what you’re telling me right now that it is gonna cost you more. And that’s what contractors actually look out for.

To be honest, I’ve been on both sides, on the contractor side and on the owner side, so I know exactly how that word works. Thank you. 

Orion Matthews: I’d love to unpack just a couple items. So first, when you’re part of sort of a pre-development activity, one of the things that I think is interesting when I’ve been involved is the [00:22:00] whole team is sitting on this like trigger and that trigger has the opportunity to provide jobs.

Akin Oni: Yeah. 

Orion Matthews: Capital profits. There is so many things that make people wanna say go, that maybe it clouds people’s judgment a little bit. And how do organizations see through that, those things to really get clarity? 

Akin Oni: Yeah, no, that’s a very good question. I actually have, uh, an example, a real life example. There was a time I had the opportunity to be the deputy project director of a project in Australia.

And, uh. I, I so much appreciate what the business did that time, because the mining method was one off. People knew about that mining method, but people hardly use that mining method. Because of that, the business actually identified [00:23:00] subject matter apart from any part of the world, and I mean, literally any part of the world.

They brought them together into one conference room in Australia just to take a look at this opportunity and tell the business, should we actually do this at all? If we are gonna do it, what do we know? What don’t we know? What are the risks around what we don’t know? Are we willing to carry those risks?

And if the answer is yes, who will mitigate what risk? Detailed questions. And at the end of the day, the business was able to clearly understand the investment. The risks, the reward when, and that was at a time when there was labor crunch. That means you have to be ready to pay premium to get the right people to work on that project.

The business did not sign off [00:24:00] on the F five D until the people, the scope, the risks, the schedule, and the cost elements, they were clearly defined. Now the extra step that the business took, which I’ll never forget, and I encourage businesses to take us the, the fact that beyond the project team, the business set up and independent peer review team to do the governance of that work.

What that meant was that somebody like me who might be really close to the project, I might feel a little emotional about the project. I want this project to go, and I see that on projects a lot. I want this to go ahead. We must do this. We should make it work, and stuff like that. The independent peer review guys will come around and they will say, thank you so very much for what you’ve done.

Just leave us alone. Let’s not look at the work, and they will tear it apart and tell you, have you thought about this? Isn’t this risk rate, isn’t it [00:25:00] too narrow? Shouldn’t it be like this? Why this? And they’re gonna ask you, okay, the people that you say you’ve got, these people are currently busy doing this, doing that, are you sure that they’re gonna be available when you need them?

What about the equipment that you need? What kind of contract do you have with equipment manufacturer? Say like Finney, we use a lot of, uh, filling gears that time. Do we have anything in place? And good enough? We had a global supply agreement with Finney. We meant that they always ask something in their manufacturing line for us at any point in time that we could tap into.

When a business is so detailed about looking at an investment before they sign FIDI, I said kudos to them because it helps set up that investment for long time success down the road. 

Orion Matthews: Thank you for that insight. And I just wanna poke at one more [00:26:00] thing you mentioned. Sure. So we talked about markets, supply chain, execution readiness, you said true cost to capital.

And I’m curious if there’s more to that term. That you could unpack for us. How do you get 

Akin Oni: Very good? Oh, yeah, there is definitely more. You’re a very good listener and I, I like you a lot. Now in terms of the true cost of capital, I’ve worked in different organizational, uh, uh, environment where some organizations, the Adlib, they borrow money to do their projects.

They already have the cash, even though they will need partners to participate with them to be able to fund the investment that if they wanted to, they could fund it alone. Of course, majority of this money will still come from some banks. The banks will probably charge some fees to be able to release the funds, [00:27:00] whatever.

But there are other organizations, they actually will tell you point blank that look. All we have money for is 65% of what you’re asking for. The remaining 35%. We have to go source for that from, uh, equity investors. Then if that is the case, whether it’s equity investors or lenders, you are going to pay through your nose to get that money, especially if you don’t have a credibility of delivery successful projects.

If you have the credibility, how much, I mean, the discount is gonna be reasonable that if you don’t have the credibility, they are gonna, even the money that was spent tomorrow, they, they will ask for it yesterday. So just to be sure that you’re gonna be able to pay their bills. And when you have these two categories of, uh, uh, uh, project [00:28:00] owners.

Doing the same project, one is gonna be able to do projects at a decent rate. The other is gonna be able to do project at a very expensive rate. And again, it is the reality that we face in the project world. And you know, as a project professional, the more money my project owner has, the better, I don’t really want them to borrow too much because you have to actually devote a resource to managing that depending on the structure.

Because sometimes some organization, they manage that from outside the project where they allow the project team to focus on it. And I’ve worked with the organization before where you actually have to identify a core finance group within the project team that will look after managing the lending. To make sure that, uh, we are able to meet our obligations when due and we’re able to get money [00:29:00] when we schedule to get the money from, uh, the lenders.

Orion Matthews: Ake, thank you for that breakdown. It’s super helpful. I would be curious if you could indulge me, one of the things about bringing in equity owners versus lenders, is it, does it add risk to a project or does it actually benefit a project if you have, or, or both? 

Akin Oni: Either or. It will benefit the project owner, and let me put it that way.

The reason is the, well, it could benefit the project as well that will benefit the project owner. One of the primary reasons that, uh, owners look for equity investors or lenders is they want to transfer some of the risks. To them. Mm-hmm. Especially equity investors. You are investing in this project because you are willing to course share the risks that will eventuate on this project.

And if it’s a lender, most of [00:30:00] the time you may think that they’re cohering the risk with you, but they’re already charging you based on their anticipation of who you are as a project owner, whether you have a credibility or you don’t. So you may think you are sharing risk with them. No, they are already charging you hugely for the money that they are giving you access to.

So that’s kind of the way I look at it the majority of the time. You see that whether you have a lender or you have an equity investor participating with you on the project, if they are good. And that’s, those are the kinds of people that I actually advise today. If they are very good, they will bring us someone like me on their behalf, to work on their behalf, to look at the investment on an ongoing basis.

So they don’t have to worry, because I will tell them as it is, I will let them know, here are the risks that we face, Mr. Equity Investor, are you willing to carry these risks? And Mr. [00:31:00] Lender, here are the risks on this project. If you are giving this project owner access to money, make sure you factor the cost of this risk into what you are, uh, what, what, what you are giving them access to.

At the end of the day, you want to make sure that you are gonna make money, uh, from that investment. So when we talk about the cost of capital. There are a lot of, uh, uh, variations to that and the drivers, and depending on the credibility of the project owner, it may be the capital may be more expensive, it may be cheaper.

And if you have your money, all you are doing is just work with your regular banks to access money from time to time. Uh, and you don’t really have to edge anything because edging is another thing that we used to do early on in my career. Lately I really haven’t seen a lot of that, particularly on the CapEx side.

I mean, there are still elements of, uh, a [00:32:00] business that businesses hedge today, but in terms of capita hedging is kind of reduced a little bit, at least based on the pe the, the businesses that I interact with. But capita will cost you something. On who you are and you, and depending on who you are, asking to participate with you to execute an investment.

Orion Matthews: Thank you. What I heard if I was on the board of an organization is to contact the FECs group, uh, and at Keen to, uh, to help having that dispassionate third party, been there, done that person. 

Akin Oni: Yeah. 

Orion Matthews: Is really helpful when you’re faced with some of these big choices. 

Akin Oni: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because it’ll also save them a lot of headaches down the road because we are here of, uh, multimillion dollar, uh, uh, litigations today [00:33:00] is because foundationally.

One or both of the parties or all of the parties, they didn’t get something right because they wanted to save money and they decided not to bring on the right consultant to help them understand the investment. Yeah. Because understanding the investment is a critical step in the process of making sure you invest the right way and that the investment actually make money down the road.

Orion Matthews: Well, so let’s loop back down and talk a little bit about project man management pillars and fundamentals. I know that in some of your book series, I think we talked about how you’re gonna take people through these, and I believe there was sort of some framing where you had pillars and then you sort of had license to operate as sort of a separate section and then stakeholders and sort of a, a, a broader framing.

Maybe you can take us through your thinking there and it’s even the experts listening to this podcast, it’s always nice to take a [00:34:00] trip through. The pillars of projects and get some, some thinkings on it. So 

Akin Oni: yeah. Thank you so very much. I was actually having this conversation with, uh, about hundred uh, professionals, just, uh, about two weeks ago.

It will be two weeks tomorrow, actually having a similar conversation on this particular, just this alone. We talked about it for almost an hour. Now let me keep it simple. There are fundamentals to developing successful project. A project can look very complex, but one of the things that I do is bring simplicity to the chaos, bring orderliness to the chaos.

And a number of times in my career, especially today, people don’t ask me to come and look at, uh, small selling project. They usually ask me to come and look at [00:35:00] a project in trouble and then advise what could be done. And the difference between me and a number of people do what I do today is when I recommend something to you, I will tell you, I will also be available to support you to actually action what I’m telling you.

So I’m not saying, okay, I’m, people joke about advisors, they just tell people what to do. They don’t know how to do it. That is not me. I will tell you what you should consider doing and I would also ask you if you have the resources, I’m willing to support you to deliver on those things. Now, what are some of the fundamentals?

This is by no means an ex exhaustive list, but I’ll just mention a few of them. People come first always I tell everyone that I meet there. You want me to look at the project? The place I start from is show me your organization. Who are the people you have asked to steal this investment? Have they [00:36:00] done it before?

Are they really passionate about what you’re asking them to do? Are they just focusing on doing the little thing and they don’t care what happens, uh, downstream, or they’re focusing on downstream and bringing those possible challenges to today? I’m fixing it now. So people, that’s number one. Number two is scope.

What are we building? What do we know about what we’re building? What don’t we know? How can we be sure that we have fully framed the scope? Then the next one is risk, and I’d like to do it in that other, and I’ll tell you why. Risk, where can this story break? Because a project is a story. Yeah. We have to ask ourselves, where can this story actually break?

Hmm. And what can we do to mitigate that? Because in my [00:37:00] role in most of my career, businesses rely on me to tell them about tomorrow, today. And that’s what people call forecasting. What is the integrity of your forecast? How? Where can this story actually break? The next one is schedule. How long until value actually appears.

We’re spending money, or we’ll be spending money over the next three years, over the next five years, over the next 10 years, sometimes how long until value appears that is schedule. And then the last P bit there, before I talk about lessons to operate and why all this is cost. What does this vision truly require?

How much will it cost? And then beyond that, there will be some other people that will say, okay, this is how much it’s gonna cost, but where will the money come from? Because how much is [00:38:00] gonna cost may not just be the total cost. Like remember, we’re about cost of capital earlier. All we are doing here is telling the business this investment that we’ve got with this people, with this code, with this risk, with this timeline, this is how much it’s gonna cost.

Now there will be additional layer of, okay, what are those other cost elements that we may not make part of the project, like the cost of capital especially. And there are other things which I don’t need to mention here, but beyond those five fundamentals or pillars, the license to operate is key. We can have all this lined up if we don’t have the license to actually build, we’re just playing around.

So making sure that we understand the regulatory environment, who the regulators are, what their requirements are, what we need now, what we would need later, how frequent do we have to engage them, do they even trust us or have [00:39:00] we had a safety, a major safety incident before to the point that they’re gonna squeeze us now before they say yes to any new thing we are building.

So these are some of the key elements that affect a project, and any investing group must understand clearly what this is. They don’t have to know. How to really do that. But they must hire the right consultant or the right independent peer reviewers to take a look at it and advise them that, yes, this is what we’ve got.

We understand what we’ve got. We know what the risks are. We know how long is gonna take the before value appears. We know how much is gonna cost fundamentally, and then we know that we’re gonna need to borrow, have the money from here, and this is, uh, the premium that we have to pay. You know, all those kinds of things.

We have to make sure that we factor that into, into it. So, but beyond what we call pbo, which I’m sure you know, the project manage of knowledge fundamentals, [00:40:00] like the quiet forces, as I like to say, community trust. Environmental stewardship, regulatory permission. As I said earlier, stakeholder expectations.

Very importantly, opportunity framing, framing the opportunity early will save you a lot of trouble down the road. I actually partner with, uh, a consulting firm here in Houston where we work together to actually do that. We go from project to project, from business to frame an opportunity so that you actually know what you’ve got.

And then of course, marketing. One of the things I learned doing acquisitions and divestment a and d is this majority of the acquisitions, they’re fair. They fail because when they were planning to acquire, they thought that marketing wasn’t important. They, where are you gonna sell? Whatever you’ll produce, eventually you need to [00:41:00] start thinking of it early.

So I actually developed a framework. Which is a workflow, it will tell you the number of disciplines that we need to start looking, because you asked a similar question earlier. It will tell you a nu the number of, uh, cross-functional disciplines that we need to even start talking about a transactions.

And then how do the, the relevant the responsibilities of each of those functions, how the responsibility of A, affect B, affect C, and so on and so forth. Until you moving to the point where you say you are ready to now economically evaluate the opportunity to c what the IRR is gonna be, what the MPV is gonna be, what the capital efficiency is, what the, uh, I don’t know, maybe break even point is gonna be, and so on and so forth.

Before you get to all that, you need to bring a, a number of disciplines together to work. To, to in, in an integrated manner to be able to look at the [00:42:00] opportunity. Now, with all that said, it’s vitally important that we all know that a project without a license to operate is a project waiting to be stopped.

Orion Matthews: Yeah. 

Akin Oni: That, as ordinary as that may sense, it is very important the regulators can stop your project. And that is why when a bus, and I will, let me quickly say this. When a project team share their schedule with me, I look at, okay, does this tell me what the external influences are for them to be able to deliver this schedule?

And one of the key considerations would be the regulatory environment. What do the regulators need to be able to say, go and when in this old timeline can we actually, must we wait to get that before we continue? And usually at FID most of the time you can do engineering in your [00:43:00] offices, you can do it in, uh, in Asia, do it in Europe, wherever.

It doesn’t matter. Regulators don’t care about that. But before you, before the first shovel hits the ground onsite, the regulators must give approval that you should go ahead. And that’s why you can do, whether you would like to that point, you need to know that go to, to be able to execute and deliver the project and operate it.

You need, uh, the regulators approval. And that’s why a project, without a license to operate, it’s a project waiting to be stopped. And let me leave it there. One more thought while we are talking on these fundamentals. Most of the time, a hundred percent of the time when I have been called into a boardroom to review it, to present a project, talk about a project, majority of the time when I open all the slides, people want to see the dollars.

Show me the money, but I tell them what I’m telling you today, the money makes zero sense. If you [00:44:00] don’t understand the people you’ve got the scope of what you are building, what the risks are, how long it’s gonna take, you need to understand those four elements. Then you can talk about cost. And then cost will make sense.

And I’m saying this so that Chief Executives, but they can hear me out and say, please, when people present an investment to you, don’t ask them to first show you the money. Because the money makes zero sense without understanding don’t first four fundamentals, plus of course, the license to operate back to you.

Orion Matthews: You know what, what strikes me when we talk about this is what, you know, I hear what you’re saying, which is that you started with people scope, risk, schedule, cost. 

Akin Oni: Yeah. 

Orion Matthews: And then it’s framed into an environment, and that environment, affects the entire project. It’s not worth doing if, if you’re gonna, go to sleep and it’s gonna be in the ocean or something, yeah. So what I think is interesting here [00:45:00] is that if we go back to the peon box, which you mentioned, and you just talked to a graduate of project management, and you say What’s, you know, tell me about the pillars. They might say, well, it’s the triangle scope, schedule, budget, and I think this triangle sits out there in this like ethereal realm, you know, it’s like on, on grid paper, but you started with people which is not on the triangle.

And then you talked about environment, which is where the triangle theoretically sits to extend the metaphor. Yeah. I think the triangle might, might actually be hurting us a little bit, coming back to that, focus on the scope, schedule, budget. If you don’t focus on the people. 

Akin Oni: Yeah, 

Orion Matthews: yeah. And where your triangle sits.

Maybe that’s. No, 

Akin Oni: no, sorry, around. That’s actually a very smart thought and I’ll tell you why. For years, project management professionals, they have been deceived by the triangle scope, schedule, cost, and that’s why [00:46:00] what people call project success is actually project management success. So let me define project success in my view.

I actually was supposed to speak about two weeks ago to a group of project managers here in Houston, but they didn’t have enough people, so they are pushing it until the new year. I wrote a book, uh, no, sorry, a paper in 2006, and the title of the paper was The Oppression was Successful, that the Patient died from the Monument Paper most of the time.

It’s interesting you say what you say most of the time. Project professionals. We want to divorce the scope, schedule, and cost. Let me get my bonus and get away. No, there is a new thinking in modern day project leadership, not project management, but project leadership that just delivering scope, schedule and cost is no longer enough.

You need to focus uh, on the product success. [00:47:00] So in my word, my definition of project success is project management success plus product success. When you bundle both together, then you have a successful project of what Good. Of what? Of what good is it for you to operate a patient? Oh yeah, the operation was successful.

That at the end of the day, the patient is not alive. It’s not really meeting the value that they, you promised them originally. So it’s vitally important for project professionals today to start thinking it’s a new thinking. And actually PMI global, they are act they put up a paper just about two, three weeks ago on that, that we need to start with defining project success as a combination of project management success and product success.

Especially focusing on the benefits on the value vitally important. So to your point, the triangle has CE a lot of people [00:48:00] for many years and I tell project managers, that’s one of the books that I’m gonna mention later. Most project managers that you see, they used to be very good projects, uh, discipline people.

Let me just say engineers. I am a good mechanical engineer and because I’ve done that over years, somebody thought, oh yeah, to promote me the promoting of a project manager. They forgot that the mechanical engineering actually went to school to study it. But the project leadership that they are promoting me to right now, nobody taught me anything and they wonder why I fail.

Yeah. So it’s very important for us to remember as project practitioners what got you here, which is good. Mechanical engineering knowledge will not get you there, which is project leadership. People need to actually take time to study what it means to lead, and then they will be successful project managers.

Back to you. 

Orion Matthews: Well, thank you. You know, your comments remind me of a book. So I, [00:49:00] I’m from the software industry, the data side, and there was a book in the nineties I think that was built, that was kind of along these topics. It was called peopleware and the point of the book was to tell developers that are engineers.

Yeah. That humans are not software. Yeah. Right. They’re not. So the peopleware was kind of, that was the metaphor of the book. And it, it clicked with me because I think a lot of engineers, project managers kind of mentioned that they get the job, they learn about leadership, and then they see people as an input to a system, and they’re like a, a, a mechanized sort of piece of of a moving complex system.

But people are different than that. And so the, the, if you can put aside the math on people and learn those leadership principles you’re talking about, I think that always is a successful strategy, but it’s an easy trap to fall into, particularly 

Akin Oni: coming from Anme background. Yeah. I, and I’ll say this.

Yeah, [00:50:00] no, thanks Lauren. I’ll say this, you know, again, you are saying all the right things, to be honest with you. So that I, I, that’s why I like this bidirectional a change of ideas, uh, because it’s not just me, lambing. From you. I’m sure you are picking a few things from what I’m saying as well. Uh, it is very important that we know that, uh, people deliver projects and we need to make sure that we allow the people to do what they have been hired to do.

It’s okay to create gates, uh, some people call it bus stops, where you must come at this bus stop. Let’s talk about the status. You must come at this bus stop. Let’s talk about the status, and so on and so forth. It is good that we need to also make sure that when you hire the right people and you hire the right contractor, give them the free hand to at least be able to do what they’ve been hired to do.

It’s vitally important. [00:51:00] It will help everybody to be able to deliver successful project, but then at the end of it, all the ownership rest with. One, spending the money, the stakeholders, the project owners and stuff like that. And they have the right to ask questions at any point in time. And it behooves us as project professionals to make sure that we are ready to answer their question whenever those questions are asked.

Orion Matthews: Alright. Well, here’s a question for you, uh, at Keen. I wanna go in a to some, something that’s impacting the whole space. Everybody wants thought leaders like you to weigh in on this question, which is, how do you see the AI impact in the m and a space, in the major project, make a project space? Uh, what are you seeing in your circles?

What are people talking about? How is AI impacting projects? 

Akin Oni: What [00:52:00] you are gonna hear Another three things. 

Orion Matthews: Alright? Yes,

Akin Oni: I’m a man of three because I learned that very early in my career that uh, if you want to speak limited to three things and uh, again, I learned that to what? Presenting to senior executives. Because when you present to senior executives, most of the time they’re interested in three things which most people don’t realize.

They want you to tell them the destination and then tell them why it matters, and then tell them what you need from them. Once you can allow your presentation to address those three things, you will sell whatever idea and make sure you tell them in the way that they will understand. Now, let’s talk about ai.

AI will most likely change three things, and it’s already happening actually. Number one is speed. I [00:53:00] call that, uh, for example, in the transaction space or a and b space, you know that, uh, when the company is, uh, working on an acquisition, what happens? They do it very quickly because they don’t want that information to look at the market.

If they are selling, it may affect their share price. If they are buying the property that they’re buying from, may lose some shares for whatever reasons. I mean, market is very sensitive to that. That’s why they do it really quickly. So what AI introduces today is that speed, because due diligence that took weeks now take hours.

Orion Matthews: Yeah. 

Akin Oni: Used to take forever to do due diligence. It takes hours. Now, insofar as I learned something recently from one of my, um, consultants supporting me in one of my books. Never ever should you allow AI to write for you instead, [00:54:00] or if you’re gonna use AI at all. And I don’t have any problem with that.

Please allow AI to write from you. When AI writes from you, that means you provide AI a lot of context. You may even have your context already developed, ready to be shipped out, that you want AI to kind of, uh, strengthen it and stuff like that. That means AI is only writing from you, not for you. That when you just say, okay, I need to talk to around Matthew, the executive, uh, project director of, uh, project A, B, C.

And can you give me three things to talk about? AI is gonna tell you all kinds of stuff, but when you say, okay, I’m meeting Orion next week, and uh, I want to focus on where he is with his people, I want to focus on where he is with the key risk on the project, and I want to focus on progress overall. AI is not just gonna go a y, it’s going to limit whatever it is gonna put together for you to that.

So that means AI is writing from you, not for [00:55:00] you. Now, with respect to speed, uh, speed is very important to explain in the transaction space. And, uh, AI is actually changing that now. Number two is insight pattern recognition. In fact, as a human being, I know that to be successful you’ve got to understand patterns.

I think it was Tony Robbins that said that. 

Orion Matthews: Mm-hmm. 

Akin Oni: And I’ll never forget. You’ve got to understand patterns. What is changing? How are they changing? Has this happened before? When it if yes, when it happened before, what was the outcome? Understanding patterns is a recipe for success. So insights.

From AI will help you because AI is able to recognize pattern, is able to help you model market depending on what you feed into it. And again, AI can help you test scenarios and the thought I talked about speed, I talked [00:56:00] about insight, and then the thought is execution. I will say that planning, scheduling, forecasting, safety analytics, resource optimization, all this, if you provide the right AI tool with the right information, it will help you save you some time.

I would say very loud here that AI won’t replace people. A lot of people are really afraid of that. AI will not replace people. Are there some routine tasks that will go away? Absolutely, yes. But what that tells me as a project professional is I need to start thinking, okay, what is it that I do today that I do I shouldn’t be doing?

Do you know that today compared to 35 times, six years ago when I started, my career leaders do a lot more administrative work than then? Wow. 

Orion Matthews: When 

Akin Oni: I started, you dictate to, [00:57:00] uh, to your stenographer or or to your secretary, and they’ll type stuff out for you. They’ll bring it to you. You review it, you say, it’s okay, then we can send it and block.

Today. Most leaders, they do all that by themselves. I mean, granted, you have admit, but they do some of these things themselves. But with ai, you can do some of those things through ai, but you have to allow AI to right from you, not for you. So execution is very important. Insight is very important. Speed is very important.

AI will not replace people, but to replace teams that refuse to use it. That is what people need to understand. A lot of people are hesitant to use AI, and I understand their hesitation because they don’t know where the information is gonna land. I get that, that there are some tools today, AI tools that uh, they have governance protocols around.

In fact, there was a time I was gonna to use an AI tool. I wanted to be sure that that AI tool would protect [00:58:00] my information. So I asked the AI tool a very personal, before ai, that tool knew who I was. I just asked, okay, uh, I need the house address of, uh, and uh, what he has been opt on in the past, blah, blah, blah.

I just asked a few questions. Mm-hmm. And yeah, I came back to him and said, no, that is confidential. I’m not able to provide that information. Just think about that. But there are some tools. You’ll ask that question. They’ll give you all kinds of. Don’t go there. So test the robustness of the tool you are using.

Make sure that there are governance protocol protocols around it. While AI will not replace people, we need to know that it’ll replace teams that refuse to use it. 

Orion Matthews: I love the threes and I’m tracking them. Speed, insight, execution. And then you wrapped up, you had a, um, a nice frame, which is that AI should be from you, not for [00:59:00] you.

And I really appreciate that. And I think the question I was going to ask, but maybe I can expand on it because I think with the threes I can answer it was like, how do people know if they’re adopting AI in a way where they’re not gonna get replaced? And I think maybe you would agree with this, but perhaps it’s if your work speed is going up, if you are getting better insights, and if your execution is better.

That would be like a measure that you could just sort of sense check. You’re like, I’m gonna double my output this year. I’m gonna figure it out. I’m gonna use ai. It’s possible. I’m gonna, I’m gonna see more insights. I’m gonna figure out how I’m gonna use AI to get those things. Then you’re part of the solution, you’re part of the value proposition of ai.

Um, yeah. 

Akin Oni: Yeah. It’s interesting you said that. I dropped off, uh, one of my children at the airport yesterday, and I went to the airport. We were just chatting. I said, how, how do you use ai? And uh, the [01:00:00] comment was, I will write a four page report or a 10 page report, and I will put it in a secured AI environment.

And I’ll say, ai, this 10 page report, my boss does not name more than four pages, reduce it to a four page report without losing key insights. That is an intelligent way to use ai. 

Orion Matthews: Yeah. 

Akin Oni: And then. The next level to that is when you get the four page report, now go over it and make sure that one thing that you really like to showcase hasn’t been left out.

That’s where people get really lazy and they complain about ai. You’ve gotta allow AI to do what AI can do, but do what only you can do that AI will not do for you. Because AI does not know what’s important to you. Mm-hmm. 

Orion Matthews: Not necessarily, 

Akin Oni: Even when you have developed your 20 page or 10 page report and you what you reduce to a three page summary, when you should [01:01:00] read that from content to index to make sure that AI hasn’t said something that shouldn’t be said and AI hasn’t left out a salient point, vitally important.

Orion Matthews: So in a, in a way, maybe you could extract this out to any of the tools out there or share some of your thoughts. You know, you have lot of large. You have sap, PPM, you have other different systems people talk about, you know, we’ve kept it at a very fundamentally abstract level, which I think is good.

We’ve heard your thoughts on ai. Do you think those other tools also are really just, um, along those three pillars of speed, insight, execution and this is just the latest evolution of the tool set, or do you think that the tools have another purpose and AI has a specific purpose? 

Akin Oni: The way I’ll answer that question is this before now and I’ve opted today the commonness, uh, scheduling softwares [01:02:00] Microsoft Project and Primavera project planner, those tools are not going away.

AI is not gonna. Take them over. They can incorporate elements of AI into what they generate. 

Orion Matthews: Mm-hmm. 

Akin Oni: Which they probably already did when no one knew about ai. Because AI has been in existence since the sixties. Allow, if not the fifties. 

Orion Matthews: Yeah. 

Akin Oni: But people just didn’t recognize it because how will you push information into a Primavera system and then you run the schedule and then it will give you different scenarios and you tell me that there’s no AI involvement in that.

We’ve been actually engaging ai, we’ve been leveraging ai. We just didn’t recognize it. It is just not that it’s been recognized. So for me. AI is not going to push out the Primavera project planner. But if Primavera project planner owners, if [01:03:00] they’re wise, they will see how better they can inject AI into that software so that, uh, because it’s all about bringing different models together to be able to deliver what you want delivered.

So how can we incorporate more artificial intelligence into the project management tools that we use 

Orion Matthews: mm-hmm. 

Akin Oni: In a manner that it makes our life a lot easier? It may, because before now we’ve always generated what if scenarios in Primavera, and I ran Primavera for years in my career. We’ve always generated that.

That’s some form of AI that we were leveraging without even knowing it. This is gonna continue. There are other tools like, uh, the prologue manager, like Kdr course manager, like in control prison. You can keep naming them. 

Orion Matthews: Yeah. 

Akin Oni: If you’re static and you are not in incorporating some artificial intelligence into those [01:04:00] systems, you are gonna be left behind, unfortunately.

Orion Matthews: So it’s time to level up. Look, maybe we can talk a little bit about how we level ourselves up in this profession. So you’re pretty advanced in terms of your skills, your presentation skills, your project control skills, you know, the skills with people, planning, performance, things like that. So in the context of a mega project, maybe we can get a little personal and you could just say, how did you develop these areas in yourself and how can other people develop as a professional?

Akin Oni: Thank you very much. What I tell, uh, and I’ve got a, a number of, uh, mentors and mentee more ee than mentors today, and I learn from both. And I tell people, mentorship is bidirectional relationship. If a mentorship is usually directional, there’s a problem. It’s probably not the mentorship, [01:05:00] uh, program that you should be a part of.

It should be bidirectional. That’s my friend belief, and it has worked well for me. So, for anyone pursuing project management today, I will say number one, curiosity. Curiosity is any professional, best friend. Just be curious. 

Orion Matthews: Mm-hmm. 

Akin Oni: Be steady. Don’t be just all over the place. Be steady. Build relationships like your life depends on them because your project does.

And I tell people relationship, especially as a prof, uh, project professional relationship, is any project management professional, best friends 

Orion Matthews: mm-hmm. 

Akin Oni: You have the right relationship with the people you work with. They will go the extra mile to make sure that they deliver on your expectations. And the other way is true too.

They would have like a iCal attitude. [01:06:00] If you don’t care about them, you don’t really have any meaningful relationship with them. And I’m talking about real meaningful professional relationships. So curiosity, being steady relationships. These are key drivers of success, especially for anyone pursuing project management career today.

Also learn, learn not only tools. One of the mistakes some schedulers make is the only learn at the ramp from Avera project planner. I spoke at a, uh, a project controls, uh, session a few months ago where I talked about project controls leadership here in Houston actually, and that was probably one of the most well received presentations I’ve given in the last, uh, five, six months.

It is very important for us to know that as project controls [01:07:00] professionals, our project management practitioners learn not only tools, learn people who are people, how do they function, what make them think, how can I get the best out of them? Granted that even when you do all these things, some people are still not gonna behave the way you want them to behave, and that’s fine.

All you, all, you all yourself is. Do the best that you can to engage people if they don’t want to engage you. Especially someone like me. Some people already put me in a box without even knowing who I, who I am. Not many people are like you. You saw me and you say, oh, akin, I really would like to talk to you.

Some people, they look at me, they already box me up and then maybe put me aside you. There’s nothing I can do about that. So it’s very important that we learn not just tools, but people, if we are gonna grow in our [01:08:00] career, we also need to learn the business case of any project that we’re working on.

What, how does my beat fit the big picture? What does the big picture look like? Broadly speaking, how does my beat fit that? Because when you know that it drives your ability to create your wife. And then don’t be Mr. Or Mrs. Nor it all read widely. Study. Be a lifelong learner. I am constantly learning something either through writing or through studying or through speaking because somebody, people have asked me to speak on a topic that I have zero clue about before they gave it to me and I had to study for it, and I had to weave my life story because I’m a project management storyteller, if you like, I, I must, anything that I talk about, I must be able to see myself in it.

That’s when I’m able to talk about it with passion. 

Orion Matthews: [01:09:00] Yeah, 

Akin Oni: so be a leader and we talk about that earlier. Listen, learn, leak, and very importantly, this is one key takeaway here. Let your character rise above your resume. Just unpack that 

Orion Matthews: so this. Yeah, great frame. And one thing that strikes me, and I think, I think you mentioned this at the very start, but, uh, projects are stories.

And so if you take that lens, it’s like, well, who are you? What are you doing in the story? Well, in order to tell where you’re at in the story, you have to zoom out and see the big picture. ’cause there’s a narrative arc going on and you are part of this story. And if you wanna be a character that’s part of the story.

You have to have relationships with other people, and you have to be a character people would like, which means a curious person, a, a steady person. You know, it [01:10:00] kind of, I’ve never really thought about myself in the context or thought about projects in the context of being a story is a, a, a weaved story of society and then sort of saying, okay, well if I’m in this story, like what do I need to do to grow and be a part of it?

Yeah. And so some of the things you were saying about being curious, steady focusing on the relationships, big picture, lifelong learner, character development. Character development kind of triggered it for me ’cause it’s like, ah, we are characters. Um, yeah. Thank you for those tips. Those are really great.

Is there a book or some thing that you really love that you just are like, this is it, uh, aside from the Mire Warrior way, which should come out in March, uh, that really like, gave you a big impression. You mentioned Tony Robbins. 

Akin Oni: Yeah, no, I, uh, I have a few and I’m gonna just toggle through them and this is just like, maybe 10%, but I’ll, I’ll talk about it really quick.

There is a [01:11:00] book by Edward Merrill, uh, the, uh, on industrial mega projects, concepts, strategies and Practices for Success. And it talks about, uh, the cornerstone. It’s actually the cornerstone text of mega project performance, risk and Climate. In fact, I remember just talking about it in 2006 or so when I wrote my paper, the operation was successful, but the patient died.

That paper was published across all of VP building, and when Ed Mero was told about the paper, he actually asked his team to publish it across all of IPA global. Wow. Because of how relevant it was then I didn’t even know that today. PMI will not be showcasing that anywhere. The other book that I really like is the one, uh, coed by Ram Charra and Larry Bossy Execution, the Discipline of Getting Things Done.

I, I really like that book because it talks about the three processes, the strategic process, [01:12:00] the people process, and then the operation process. And the most important of those is people. Of course, I encourage people to go read that. And then of course we have the Pillar Drop Us. Uh, the effective executive is actually is definitive guide on personal and managerial effectiveness.

And I’m a man of focusing on effectiveness first before efficiency. Efficiency is good, but that’s not where I’ve focused my attention because effectiveness means doing. The right things. 

Orion Matthews: Yeah. 

Akin Oni: And efficiency only means doing things right. If you’re doing the wrong things, ineffective and you are efficient, you are still gonna be wrong.

So that’s why I encourage leaders, when you have the right people, they will be efficient. You as a leader, focus on effectiveness. Ask the question, is this the right thing for us to do? Are we doing the right things? So that’s why one of the reasons I like that book. And then of course Jim Collins, a popular book.

Good to Great. 

Orion Matthews: Yeah, 

Akin Oni: me. [01:13:00] That’s great. And then Bent, bent, life Bench is a professor as well. Is Omega project is widely known for Megaprojects development. Uh, his book is title, how Big Things Get Done. That summarized decades of mega project research that he conducted. 

Orion Matthews: Yeah, 

Akin Oni: there is, uh, there is actual Gawande, the Checklist Manifesto.

That’s Doris Goodwin, team of writers. There is, uh, Adam Grant, give and take, and very importantly, I mentioned it earlier, Masha Gome, what Got you here won’t get you there. It is considered modern classic on leadership, especially leadership behavior, personal growth, and the happy that often hold successful people back from their next level.

Are you hearing me today? You want to go to the next level? Go and read that book because it’ll challenge you to live the comfortable and go [01:14:00] for what’s next. That way you can reach for the next level. And I learned from unexpected sources too, like the biography of people, history, psychology, of course, the Bible, and, uh, my own mentors and mentees scattered all over the world.

Orion Matthews: Well, thank you for that. Real quick, just to circle back, I I the learnings are great. We’re sort of talking about personal development, talking about your narrative within a project. So obviously when you’re people’s narrative part of the project, you have a family that’s a bigger narrative, that’s a very important narrative.

And you’ve traveled the world. You’ve been to six continents. A lot of people that get into this space do a lot of traveling. How do you raise a family when you’re traveling to all of these places? And could you give us some advice on that? 

Akin Oni: Very quickly. I will say that as a family, we treat and we, I mean all the time we treat every new city like a classroom.

Oh [01:15:00] yes. Every new city that we go to, we don’t go there with the mind that, oh, we know everything. No we go in there like a classroom because there is an opportunity to learn something new if we are open-minded, because it great students are open-minded students. When you get into a classroom, you open your mind, they’re ready to learn.

And that’s one of the things that we do. And then of course, uh, our family rituals, they kept us grounded probably one another. Like up today my wife and I, we still meet with our children every week. 

Orion Matthews: Mm-hmm. 

Akin Oni: Yeah. Every week via Zoom. We meet with them every week just to check in. It could be 10 minutes, it could be 15 minutes.

Depend on, depending on what they’ve got going on to share with us. Other than the multi multiple directional calls between members of the family, all of what we come together once a week just to check in and that’s very important. So calls, we call one [01:16:00] another with prayer and then, uh, there are certain routines and then we share our adventures too.

If something is going on, it’s good. Great. If it’s not great, share it too. And let’s, let’s not talk about the lessons learned and presence. I learned that it matters. Modern proximity. Each time I was home, I make sure I was fully home. And my wife, flora, who is the task consulting business owner in Katie, was the anchor that kept her steady.

In fact, I call her my resident director and because she has been a common denominator in the family, without a doubt. 

Orion Matthews: Uh, thanks for sharing that personal note. That’s, uh, really sweet to hear. And just kind of circling back on the books, you’re writing three books they’re launching starting March. What what was your thinking when you were writing them and what were your core goals and, and maybe just talk us through these books a little bit.

Akin Oni: Okay. Very quickly, I’m just gonna [01:17:00] summarize it because each of the books will take us the whole day for me to, so the first one. The book that I actually started writing first, I started in 2022. It was inspired by one of my, uh, executive MBA and project management professor in Calgary at Camp Jog.

She inspired me to start writing because I couldn’t really create time to teach. That’s mega project development and decision making. And interestingly, it probably will be coming out first, uh, in early March next year. And that book was written to change our leaders choose shape and govern mega project prior to FID.

That’s the primary purpose because in going around continents to reveal mega projects, I find one thing most of these projects I failed, they actually failed before FID, but the people signing the FID paper, they didn’t really have any clue that, uh, they [01:18:00] haven’t dotted every I and cross every t.

That’s what mega project development and decision making is all about. Just to change our leadership shape and govern mega project prior to FID. The next one, which is the more popular one, is the Mighty Warrior Way, which is more of my autobiography wherein, and then I weave leadership frameworks. I run key moments of my life and that book was, is was written actually to offer encouragement, grit, and hope for anyone walking through fire.

Because if you have the desire to grow, you will experience fire. It is not, but if you are okay, you like your comfort zone. Yeah, sure. That’s a warm ft. That’s okay. But if you desire to grow, you will experience fire. You will go through fire. But, and if you are going to grow, how do you minimize the impact or the [01:19:00] fire that will come at you?

In the course of your growth, in your growth journey. So this is more of an encouragement. It’s a guide. It’s a, it is a, it is a, it’s a, like a, a mini handbook, if you like, that people can reference. And the third one is, uh, functional Excellence, which is the one that I’m writing right now. And I’m hoping, I’m working really hard.

I’m trying to make sure that at least the first draft, I have it before December 31st, 20, 25, midnight. I’m working really hard on that. And the goal of that book is really simple to give organizations a practical playbook for successful high stakes execution and operations. This will apply to not just the project guys, but even to operations guys, because I’ve seen it all.

And I want to have a playbook that you have been hired to be the operation leader of this asset in, uh, Timbuktu or Mozambique. When you grab that book, read through it, it will give you. A lot of ideas [01:20:00] around some of the fundamental areas to focus on so that you can listen, learn before you lead, vitally important.

So each book is a platform for impact better leaders, in my view, better teams and better projects. That’s the goal and my goal in life right now in writing all this book is when can we stop mega project failures? I want to push project practitioner, project professional in that direction to make sure we stop or significantly reduces the rate mega project fair.

Back to you. 

Orion Matthews: I think that’s a great goal. I think we started the podcast talking about how only 1% of projects succeed. Yeah. And I think you’re, there’s a lot of room for improvement and I’m looking forward to reading your books The Mighty Warrior Way. Starting with mega project development and decision-making, then the Mighty Warrior [01:21:00] Way, and then functional excellence.

So thank you for putting those out there. I know it takes a ton of work to do that. 

Akin Oni: Thank you. 

Orion Matthews: Before I let you go, can you tell us a little bit about FECs Group and what you do there? 

Akin Oni: Okay. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity. Wow. So, to anyone out there who want to learn more about, uh, FTAs Group, we have a unique investment, uh, uh, and consulting firm advising boards, CEOs, COOs, and mega project directors across the new energies, oil, natural gas, l and g, mining, refining, and infrastructure sectors.

At ES group, we are your partner in project slash business strategy and configuration, because some projects are two B organizations don’t even know where to start. We work with two to configure your project. It’s actually a, a knowledge area within PMI. And then we also focus on governance as well.

What [01:22:00] processes do you have in place? Standards, guidelines, what instructions, what don’t you have? How may that drive some gaps in your delivery? We, we’ll help you figure that out and not just recommend to you. If you give us the opportunity, we will actually partner with you to develop whatever is missing.

And then of course, execution support for any project and execution, you need the expert support, let us know. We will, uh, be ready to support you. And like I’ve mentioned earlier, independent peer reviews or audits, whether it’s business audit or project audit or projects, uh, independent peer review. We are there.

And then very importantly too, which we value greatly is people development. We like to help your people to develop. So even when we work with your organization, we don’t work with them keeping our tricks of the trade close to our chest. We will share with them that way they know how things work and why.

And then so if you’re an investor, maybe a project [01:23:00] owner, it made market firm seeking values and aligned expertise to lift your capital initiatives, whether in m and a, a and d, a and D, or transactions engineering, delivery assurance, due diligence or capability building. We’ll welcome a conversation. Thank you.

Orion Matthews: I imagine you’ll get a call or two from this conversation. One of the things that struck me that you said is that you don’t keep things close. I think today with ai. And just sort of the way that organizations like to engage consultants, the model of consultants having a secret box that they then apply to a business, those days are over.

And I love the fact that you are out there telling people how to do it, sharing on this podcast, really great information, and then you can go from there and help infuse it into businesses. You don’t have anything to hide. There’s no secret thing that you’re gonna keep from people. So what a great engagement [01:24:00] model that is to just get in to do the work.

Akin Oni: Mm-hmm. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Orion Matthews: And I think people can learn more. They can go to your website, A-K-I-N-O-N i.com. 

Akin Oni: Yeah. 

Orion Matthews: And then it’s FEX Energy Services. So that’s E-F-T-E-X energy services.com for the website. I think you’ve also got a LinkedIn if people wanna connect with you, what’s the best way?

Akin Oni: Just, uh, just look for me. I, on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn and if there’s anything like that is I on name? That’s Alpha India, Oscar, Nancy, India, A-I-O-N-I. That’s my LinkedIn and, but yeah, please feel free to connect with me. I’ve got tons of materials on LinkedIn to sh which I share freely with anyone who can to listen.

Uh, I’m willing to sit with you to walk with you through a few things. Anything you call projects. Yes. Uh, think [01:25:00] about me. Thank you. 

Orion Matthews: Uh, keen, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciated learning about mega project development and leadership. I’m really looking forward to your books coming out in March and thanks for joining us.

Akin Oni: Thank you so very much for having me. 

Host: Thanks for listening to the Major Project podcast. Be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts and learn more at the major project podcast.com. Until next time, keep building big.