Everyone loves a ‘rule of thumb’

Good heuristics lead to better cost estimates with your large, complex project. They can also help you uncover—and mitigate—the risks. By Mark Thompson While giving…

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Dangerous tensions hide in plain sight

A tram derailment that killed seven and injured dozens makes a key point about risk tragically clear. ‘It was something no one ever expected…

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Is your expert ready for the cut and thrust?

Meetings between experts are intended to highlight areas of agreement regarding the questions asked of them and their considerations. The output should be a useful…

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Rigs, ships and razorblades

The successful bidder was rumoured to be the Gillette Razor company, fuelling the myth that when old ships go to die, they come back as…

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‘We’re not in Kansas anymore’

In a recent case, one of our experts was supposed to give testimony in Houston. After much coronavirus-induced postponing, he was summoned. By this time,…

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Lions and tigers…and shares, oh my!

This Esso ad, which ran from the late 1950s to the oil crisis in the early ’70s, implied a significant performance improvement by injecting the…

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Flat-bottomed boats make the turbine world go round

We first got involved in offshore-wind energy projects back in 2010. The Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm, off the Norfolk coast, had been approved in…

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Awakening sleeping dragons

[Ensco DS6, Epeus archive] As drilling contractors look to awaken their deep-sea drilling monsters, can they learn a lesson from The Hobbit?  …

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Mixing the perfect cocktail of expertise

Most ordinary folk view carbon-emitting energy and fossil-free alternatives as chalk and cheese. So do politicians. At the project level, though, similarities are everywhere. We’ve…

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For offshore wind, aspirations threaten profits

As offshore wind demands ever-larger turbines, are the players gambling too much to satisfy their aspirations? Two views of the same project, from owner…

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