Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share 007 - Front-End Planning: How to Set Billion-Dollar Projects Up for Success with Roger Farish
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
007 - Front-End Planning: How to Set Billion-Dollar Projects Up for Success with Roger Farish
š Episode Short Description
Why do so many billion-dollar projects go off the railsāand what can you do before execution to prevent it? š§
Front-end planning expert Roger Farish joins Orion to unpack FEL, stage-gates, risk, and governanceāand why the biggest influence on a projectās success happens long before you break ground.
š§¾ Episode Summary
In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion sits down with Roger Farish, a front-end planning specialist with 25+ years of experience at Bechtel, Fluor, Linde Engineering, and Kiewit, delivering major capital projects in LNG, refining, petrochemicals, renewables, power, and mining. riverside_the_major project podā¦
Roger walks through his path from mechanical engineer and field engineer to portfolio leader and, now, consultantāhighlighting how each role reinforced one core lesson: the front end is where projects are won or lost.
He breaks down what Front-End Planning (FEP) actually isāFEL stages, stage-gate processes, āconcept / select / define / feed / pre-feedāāand how best-practice frameworks from CII and AACE help owners make disciplined, data-informed investment decisions instead of āgut-feelā commitments. riverside_the_major project podā¦
Roger explains tools like the Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI), how it measures scope maturity, and why facilitation matters when project managers are (understandably) biased to push scores down so their projects clear the next gate. He shares stories of uncovering gaps where deliverables were claimed ācompleteā but hadnāt even started, and how structured reviews surface misalignment before billions are committed. riverside_the_major project podā¦
From there, they dive into:
Roger also shares his views on AI in major projects: why a lot of āAIā tools today are really rules engines with new branding, why execution-phase use cases will likely mature faster than front-end ones, and how heās already using AI as a teaching and mentoring assistant for younger engineers.
Finally, he offers career advice for students and mid-career professionals who want to move into front-end planningācovering the value of cross-discipline experience (field, startup, process, economics), and why a mix of engineering, finance, statistics, and project controls is such a powerful foundation. He closes by describing how his firm now supports owners, EPCs, and OEMs on estimating, scope definition, risk, governance, and FEL management across the front end of their capital portfolios. riverside_the_major project podā¦
š§ Youāll Learn
Ā
View all episodes
By Orion Matthewsš Episode Short Description
Why do so many billion-dollar projects go off the railsāand what can you do before execution to prevent it? š§
Front-end planning expert Roger Farish joins Orion to unpack FEL, stage-gates, risk, and governanceāand why the biggest influence on a projectās success happens long before you break ground.
š§¾ Episode Summary
In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion sits down with Roger Farish, a front-end planning specialist with 25+ years of experience at Bechtel, Fluor, Linde Engineering, and Kiewit, delivering major capital projects in LNG, refining, petrochemicals, renewables, power, and mining. riverside_the_major project podā¦
Roger walks through his path from mechanical engineer and field engineer to portfolio leader and, now, consultantāhighlighting how each role reinforced one core lesson: the front end is where projects are won or lost.
He breaks down what Front-End Planning (FEP) actually isāFEL stages, stage-gate processes, āconcept / select / define / feed / pre-feedāāand how best-practice frameworks from CII and AACE help owners make disciplined, data-informed investment decisions instead of āgut-feelā commitments. riverside_the_major project podā¦
Roger explains tools like the Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI), how it measures scope maturity, and why facilitation matters when project managers are (understandably) biased to push scores down so their projects clear the next gate. He shares stories of uncovering gaps where deliverables were claimed ācompleteā but hadnāt even started, and how structured reviews surface misalignment before billions are committed. riverside_the_major project podā¦
From there, they dive into:
Roger also shares his views on AI in major projects: why a lot of āAIā tools today are really rules engines with new branding, why execution-phase use cases will likely mature faster than front-end ones, and how heās already using AI as a teaching and mentoring assistant for younger engineers.
Finally, he offers career advice for students and mid-career professionals who want to move into front-end planningācovering the value of cross-discipline experience (field, startup, process, economics), and why a mix of engineering, finance, statistics, and project controls is such a powerful foundation. He closes by describing how his firm now supports owners, EPCs, and OEMs on estimating, scope definition, risk, governance, and FEL management across the front end of their capital portfolios. riverside_the_major project podā¦
š§ Youāll Learn
Ā