Driving Project Management Excellence Across Complex Mining Developments

A large mining project owner in Saudi Arabia overseeing multiple greenfield and brownfield developments sought support to strengthen project management capabilities across its portfolio. The client was responsible for planning, executing, and commissioning complex mining projects including pits, processing plants, associated infrastructure, and supporting facilities. With multiple stakeholders involved and ambitious delivery timelines, the organization needed a structured project management excellence framework to reduce overruns, improve governance, and enhance coordination between engineering, procurement, construction, and operations teams.

We designed and implemented a comprehensive project management excellence program tailored to the mining context, focusing on governance, processes, tools, and capabilities. This included introducing a standardized project lifecycle framework from concept through commissioning, defining clear stage-gates, and establishing decision rights. A centralized project management office (PMO) was set up to oversee portfolio performance, standardize methodologies, and ensure alignment with corporate strategy. We also implemented digital project control tools for schedule, cost, and risk tracking. Capacity-building initiatives were launched to enhance project management skills among project directors, managers, and engineers, embedding a culture of disciplined planning and proactive risk management.

• Conducted a diagnostic across active mining projects to assess current project management practices, governance structures, reporting mechanisms, and performance outcomes against global best practices.
• Designed a standardized project lifecycle and stage-gate framework with clear deliverables, decision criteria, and approvals at each phase, from concept study to handover to operations.
• Established a centralized PMO with defined responsibilities for portfolio oversight, methodology ownership, risk consolidation, and performance reporting to senior leadership.
• Implemented integrated digital project control tools to monitor schedule adherence, cost performance, risk registers, and contractor KPIs, enabling real-time visibility into project health.
• Developed and delivered tailored training programs and coaching sessions to build capabilities in planning, risk management, stakeholder engagement, and change control across project teams.

• Institutionalize the stage-gate model as the mandatory framework for all mining projects, ensuring that scope, cost, and risk are fully validated at each gate before progressing.
• Maintain a centralized, continuously updated portfolio risk register to provide leadership with a consolidated view of threats and mitigation plans across all projects.
• Embed standardized project KPIs focusing on schedule variance, cost variance, change-order volume, and contractor performance, and link them to management incentives.
• Enhance collaboration between project, operations, and finance functions to ensure constructability, operability, and lifecycle cost considerations are integrated from early design stages.
• Conduct periodic independent project reviews at key milestones to validate assumptions, challenge risk assessments, and ensure adherence to project management standards.

The project management excellence program reduced average schedule slippage across the client’s mining project portfolio by 21%, significantly improving delivery reliability. Cost overruns decreased by 18% due to tighter scope control, better risk mitigation, and more rigorous governance around changes. Portfolio-level visibility allowed leadership to proactively address emerging issues, avoiding an estimated SAR 24.3 million in potential cost escalations over two years. The adoption of digital project control tools also reduced reporting effort by 35%, enabling project managers to focus more on problem-solving and stakeholder coordination.