Uruk Project Management

The question we were asked most at GPMF was not what a National Project System is. It was how to build one without creating another institution. Our answer is the least dramatic one available. You are not starting from scratch. Most governments already have an expenditure authority, a procurement platform, a national project office and a set of vision programmes. The work is connecting what exists into a system with a clear owner. That architecture is set out in full in the paper Hasan Makansi of Innavera and Mounir Ajam published last month. The institution that stewards national delivery, the management subsystem that governs how projects are selected and assessed, and the people subsystem that determines whether anyone can actually run it. Thirteen pages. No pitch. Link below. https://lnkd.in/gtTWDPqa #PublicSector #ProjectGovernance #NationalTransformation #PMO

A PMO is an office. A function is a division. One advises, reports and standardises. The other owns delivery, holds a budget, has a named executive accountable for it, and can stop a project that should not proceed. Most organisations that say they have fixed project management have built the first and called it the second. It is why maturity initiatives keep producing better reporting and the same outcomes. Building the Project Management Function & Division is a workshop for organisations that want the second. What a project management function owns and what it does not. Structure, mandate and authority set against your operating model. People, processes and technology built as one capability rather than three initiatives. For executives, PMO leads and heads of delivery. https://lnkd.in/ggF3Dmgy #PMO #ProjectManagement #OrganizationalDesign #ExecutiveLeadership

Risk registers are not risk management. On most capital projects, the register is maintained, reviewed monthly, and has no observable effect on a single decision. That is a compliance artefact. Our Advanced Risk Management for Capital Projects workshop treats risk as a governance discipline instead. ISO 31000 principles applied to capital and mega projects, risk connected to investment decisions and stage gates, and practice tailored to project scale rather than one template applied to everything. Built for owners, PMO leads, and project controls teams on capital and mega projects. https://lnkd.in/gpmy77ZP #RiskManagement #CapitalProjects #ProjectControls #ISO31000 #ProjectManagement #PMO

A project can be delivered on time and on budget and still be a failure. Most people accept that sentence and then go back to measuring time and budget. Success has four dimensions, and they have different owners: - Technical success belongs to the delivery team: did we build the thing correctly. - Managerial success belongs to the project manager: did we deliver within the constraints we agreed. - Organisational success belongs to the sponsor: did the business case actually materialise. - And there is the dimension almost nobody assigns, which is whether the thing gets adopted and used as intended. When a project is called a failure without naming which dimension failed, nothing gets learned. A delivery team gets blamed for an adoption problem. A sponsor takes credit for something that was executed well and never used. The useful part is that all four can be defined before sanction. Success is designed, not discovered. #ProjectManagement #ProjectSuccess #ValueRealization #ProjectGovernance #StrategyExecution #ChangeManagement

Last week our founder Mounir Ajam took the stage at the Global Project Management Forum المنتدى العالمي لإدارة المشاريع in #Riyadh with an argument the profession has avoided for thirty years: project delivery needs a function with authority, not an office with a dashboard. He made it twice. In a conference talk on why project management still has an image problem after decades of #PMOs, guides, software and certifications, and the case for a Chief Project Officer. And in a master class on building a National Project Authority and a National Project System, drawn from the white paper he co-authored with Hasan Makansi of Innavera. One comment from attendees stayed with us. The sessions challenged conventional #ProjectManagement thinking rather than repeating it. And while everyone in the profession is talking about transformation, very few are showing how to do it, with specific ideas and real examples. That gap is exactly what the National Project System was written to close. He also signed copies of Vision Realized!: Clarity from Chaos, and spent the time between sessions with Badr Burshaid بدر بورشيد, Chairman and founder of GPMF; Joel Carboni, founder and CEO of GPM (Green Project Management®) and a partner of Project Management Institute; and Americo Pinto, founder of the PMOGA - PMO Global Alliance, now part of PMI. Along with executives, PMO directors and potential partners from across the region. Thank you to Eng. Badr and the GPMF team. The National Project System paper is in the comments for anyone who asked for it.

Most executives do not fail at strategy. They fail at implementation. That is the premise of Vision Realized!: Clarity from Chaos, and Mounir Ajam will be signing copies at the Global Project Management Forum المنتدى العالمي لإدارة المشاريع this weekend. The book is not about #PMO flavours or #agile versus #waterfall. It is written for board members, chief executives, chief operating officers, and strategy leaders who are done tolerating project failure and want project management treated as a core organisational function rather than a support desk. Come and take a copy. Bring the project that is keeping you up at night. Monday, 21 September 2026, 9am to 9.50am, Fairmont Riyadh. #VisionRealized #StrategyExecution #ExecutionExcellence #ExecutiveLeadership #OrganizationalStrategy #ProjectManagement #BusinessTransformation #ProjectSuccess #GPMF2026 #Riyadh

How mature is your organisation’s #ProjectManagement, actually? Most leaders answer that from impression rather than evidence. We built a self-assessment so you can answer it from evidence instead. It walks the seven elements that determine project management maturity, from strategic and organisational aspects through to #tools and the value delivery methodology, and shows which one is holding the others back. #ProjectManagement #ProjectManagementMaturity #PMO #ValueDelivery #ProjectDelivery #StrategyExecution #ProjectLeadership

Every large organisation has a Chief Financial Officer. Almost none has a Chief Project Officer. In a capital-intensive business, more of the company’s future is decided by the project portfolio than by anything on the CFO’s desk this quarter. We give one of those a seat on the executive committee. The other gets an office and a reporting line into engineering. Project management has an image problem, and to be fair, it earned it. Decades of professionalisation. PMOs, guides, software, certifications, methodologies. And being behind schedule and over budget is still expected, tolerated, and quietly accepted. We do not think the answer is another certification. I think it is structural. A formally recognised project management function. A division, not an office. A named executive who owns delivery the way a chief financial officer owns capital, with the authority that comes with it, including the authority to say no. That is the argument our CEO Mounir Ajam is taking to Riyadh next week at the Global Project Management Forum المنتدى العالمي لإدارة المشاريع #ProjectManagement #ProjectLeadership #PMO #ChiefProjectOfficer #ProjectGovernance #StrategyExecution #ExecutiveLeadership #CapitalProjects #ProjectDelivery #GPMF2026

From Practice to System: How Innavera and Uruk Built the National Project System. A unified architecture for governing, delivering and sustaining national transformation. Co-authored by Hasan Makansi and Mounir Ajam. https://lnkd.in/gtTWDPqa #NationalTransformation #GovernmentTransformation #ProjectManagement #ProjectGovernance #StrategyExecution #ValueDelivery #PublicSector #InstitutionalCapability

Where to find Uruk at the Global Project Management Forum المنتدى العالمي لإدارة المشاريع Management Forum, 19 to 21 September, Fairmont Riyadh. Conference talk: Transforming Project Management. Why decades of #PMOs, guides, software and certifications have not moved project success rates, and the case for a formally recognised project management function led by a Chief Project Officer. September 20 at 2:30 - 3:00, Mecca Room Master class: Building and Sustaining a National Project Authority and System. A top-down approach to elevating project management to a core national function. Built on work with Innavera. September 19, 2026. Book signing: Vision Realized!: Clarity from Chaos. September 21, at 9 am, GPMF Arena, Mini Stage, Exhibition Area. If your organisation is building or rebuilding its #ProjectManagement function, this is a good place to have that conversation in person. Message us to arrange a time. #GlobalProjectManagement #GPMF2026 #Vision2030 #Riyadh #SaudiArabia #Leadership #MasterClass