"If you read this book, It will surely improve the prospects for your capital projects ending in a more predicable and successful outcome."

After 36 years in the nuclear power industry, mostly in leadership and in senior officer roles, I have a history of producing excellent results in challenging assignments, including power generation, project management, and oversight. As a senior executive, I’ve had an opportunity to experience good and bad project management and project oversight from the perspective of the owner’s representative and the contractor’s management team. Based on my experience, The Project Oversight Guide (POG) should be an indispensable resource for tailoring the owner of capital projects.

The POG is an impressive contribution to project management literature. Unlike A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (^® Guide), the POG is written from the owner’s perspective. It contains the higher-level theoretical concepts for owner oversight and then explains their meaning in easily digestible words and a plethora of examples. I have no doubt that everyone, from a junior-level project manager to high-level executives, will be able to apply the principles in this book and have better project outcomes because of it.

The best capital projects establish a clear understanding of the relationship between owner oversight and the project execution team ahead of project execution. The project management organization needs to know the role of oversight, how oversight will be conducted, what to expect, and how issues will be handled. To this end, the POG provides a framework of best practices that owners and contractors can use to tailor a common understanding of the owner’s oversight role.

As the POG says, “the foundation of trade rests on the assumption that reputable parties engage in commerce as a win-win proposition.” This book furthers the prospects for win-win outcomes, which is why I’m thankful for the privilege to recommend it, and to author this foreword.

Cliff Eubanks
Cliff Eubanks Consulting