Leading Complex Projects

CHAPTER 7DON VARDEMAN

Shared Leadership, Hard Work, Sense of Fairness

“. . .Where Projects Come Together. . .”

In the three decades of IPA's existence and analysis of countless projects and project systems, only (sadly) three project systems really stand out as having delivered sustainable and breakthrough project performance – performance that has lasted more than five years and one that has outclassed its peers by more than 25% in cost and schedule competitiveness. That performance belongs to Anadarko Petroleum and the architect of that performance is the central character of this chapter.

Most everyone in the oil and gas industry who is remotely familiar with Anadarko's success attributes the company's performance to its extensive use of standardization; however, that misses the point entirely because standardization is the outcome of an entire style of project delivery, not something simply applied to a problem. Standardization has been, and continues to be, tried by everyone in the industry, and yet most cannot deliver results anywhere close to Anadarko's performance. The reason is that in the case of Anadarko, the way that the project organization functions facilitates standardization and Don Vardeman is the leader responsible for creating that organization. Don was at the center of building an organization that truly puts people at the center through the use of shared leadership, through a deceptively simple training, mentoring, and onboarding program for project management ...