When the Numbers Are Right but the Decision Is Wrong Turning Schedule, Cost, and Risk Intelligence into Better Decisions

Time:	6:30 p.m. Networking 6:45 p.m. Business Mtg/Announcements 7:00 p.m. Technical Presentation

Abstract:

Presentation Topic: When the Numbers Are Right, but the Decision Is Wrong - Turning Schedule, Cost, and Risk Intelligence into Better Decisions

Abstract: 

Major projects rarely suffer from a shortage of data. We have schedules, cost reports, forecasts, risk registers, dashboards and increasingly sophisticated analytics. Yet projects with technically sound controls still make costly decisions.

Why?
Because accurate information does not automatically produce good decisions.

In this session, Akin Oni explores the often-overlooked space between project controls intelligence and executive action. Drawing on more than three decades of global experience across multibillion-dollar energy, LNG, mining, and infrastructure projects, he examines how weak assumptions, disconnected signals, human bias, delayed escalation and poor executive translation can undermine otherwise excellent project controls.

Using an anonymized major-project case, participants will confront real decision points where the numbers appear defensible, yet the emerging project reality tells a different story.

Akin will reiterate his firm believe that “The real value of project controls is not simply helping an organization understand where the project has been. It is helping leaders make better decisions about where the project is heading.”

The session will challenge project controls professionals to move beyond reporting what happened and become earlier, clearer and more courageous voices in determining what should happen next.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Recognize the project controls blind spot: Identify situations where technically accurate schedule, cost, and risk information can still support, reinforce, or fail to prevent a poor project decision.
2. Challenge the assumptions behind the numbers: Examine how outdated assumptions, optimism bias, sunk-cost thinking and organizational pressure can distort forecasts even when the underlying calculations are technically correct.
3. Connect signals before they become outcomes: Integrate emerging information across schedule, cost, risk, contracts, productivity and execution performance to recognize changing project trajectory earlier.
4. Distinguish reporting from decision support: Reframe project controls outputs around four executive questions: What changed? Why does it matter? What decision is required? What happens if we wait?
5. Strengthen the courage to escalate: Recognize when the professional obligation is no longer simply to report the numbers, but to challenge the prevailing narrative and surface uncomfortable information before the organization loses its ability to act.

Speaker:

           Akin Oni
           Principal with Trauner Consulting Services, Inc.

Akin Oni is an internationally recognized capital project executive, author, keynote speaker, and trusted advisor with more than three decades of global experience leading strategy, governance, project controls, and execution across multibillion-dollar programs in the LNG, oil and natural gas, mining, refining, infrastructure, and energy sectors.

Having delivered projects across six continents, Akin has advised executive leadership teams on some of the world's most complex capital investments, helping organizations improve decision quality from project development through commissioning and operational readiness. His work bridges project controls, business strategy, governance, risk, commercial management, and executive decision-making. He focuses on Decision Quality, Execution Certainty, and Long-term Value Creation.

He is the CEO of Eftex Group and President of The Knowledge House, Incorporated, author of Megaproject Development and Decision Making: Strategies for Successful Projects and Investments and The Mighty Warrior Way: Leadership Through Courage, Commitment, and Purpose, and a sought-after international speaker known for transforming complex project delivery concepts into practical leadership insights

Click here to RSVP before the end of business day Wednesday, 11NOV26.

Please register by Wednesday, 11/11/2026; an invitation, including the Webinar link, will be e-mailed to you. For AACE members who hold professional certifications, Webinar attendance counts toward renewal points as long as online attendance for the entire presentation is verified.