Every December, projects enter a strange parallel universe. And this week everything explodes. Budgets are frozen. Teams disappear. And every email ends with “before the Christmas break, please.” If you have been in “a Change approved before the Christmas break”. “A package submitted before…”. Etc. You’re in the trap. I did it once… Years ago. A change to be “approved” before the end of the year. So we rushed. Design team, commercial, legal, operations, the construction… everyone. Sleepless...
1 day ago • 1 min read
As many of you, I’m flying now. Holidays. Family. “Relax”… if a three years-old allow you to do so. Before I used my more than 20 hours of flight time to catch up with movies or read that book I definitely wanted to have read before arriving to destination. Now, I have to sync my sleep with the little one and get into the loop of all Disney Cars movies and Bluey shows. Still I have time to think of my next project. My next investment. And not just real estate, but also education and training....
2 days ago • 1 min read
It’s a superpower. But people are not interested in the others’ point of view. Just in theirs. We are egocentric by nature. So listening it’s a superpower. I let the agent to do the talking. My side, just questions and nodding. Disclosures? None… well… there was some flooding… Price expectations? This property in 2021 would be selling by… Yes, but what are the owners expectations today. Well… in January, they received an offer by X and was rejected, now… I’m not sure what they owners will...
3 days ago • 1 min read
Arguments, unfortunately, don’t work. It’s proven. People don’t change their beliefs. At least, not with arguments. The reason arguments do not work is that most people hold their ideas and values without thinking about them. Think of politics. Think of clauses that you’ve seen in contracts. Think of people supporting their favourite teams. There is a strong emotional content in their beliefs. They really do not want to have to rework their habits of thinking, and when you challenge them,...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Impossible. Nobody can be that stupid. Well… welcome to another day. A contractor (let’s call him Mr. Optimism) decided to “save time” on a warehouse project. How? By installing the roof before securing the steel structure with the final bolts. “Don’t worry, jefe, it holds by itself.” Famous last words of every construction project ever. The weather app showed light breeze. New Zealand showed: “Hold my beer.” A 45-km/h gust arrived, grabbed the entire roof like a giant frisbee, and sent it...
5 days ago • 1 min read
In a meeting with an agency not long time ago, I was asked for advice with regards to the team they’ll need to set up for managing a PPP project. Obviously, our conversation started by a “are you kidding me”? Managing multibillion dollar projects required people able to handle multibillion dollar projects. That’s the basics. If you bring to your team people used to manage projects in the range of 10 millions… the focus is not going to be on the right things. The nickelling and diamonding...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Imagine that you write your monthly report. Yes, you’re part of a consortium in a PPP project. You write your report. And you send it to the agency, the government, or whatever. It’s subject to the famous review procedures. The agency sends back comments. They disagree with some of your statements. And you disagree with those statements. What to do? Remember, next month, again the j*dido report de mi€rda. You can be dragged to an endless set of discussions about every single monthly report....
7 days ago • 1 min read
A terrible clause about Force Majeure. A lawyers’ money-making machine with the definition of “Substantial regulatory changes” A few days ago, I had the opportunity to discuss common flaws to PPP contracts. Lawyers can be really good drafting millions of pages. They have no idea how real people deal with those pages in a day to day basis. That was the conversation I had with a student of the mentorship. 5 clauses. 5 headaches. Easily avoidable. The clauses, the potential solutions, together...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Despite being on a Saturday, I received a few emails asking about yesterday contract! Look… I have plenty of examples. Yesterday, it was a PPP in the Philippines… but I’ve been working on a few others PPP project. A fantastic example with nice clauses that are less bankable than a PPP for a data center in North Korea. Kenya. A known highway. The Review Procedure. “Disagreements will be discussed” Literally. Good luck with getting a solution. Discussing can be the more frustrating of...
9 days ago • 1 min read