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Capital projects waste billions annually on predictable delays, but there's a proven way to deliver ahead of schedule and under budget.
Join Albert Brier, Director, Project Controls and Nate Habermeyer, Director, Marketing at Dokainish & Company, as they discuss how current events and trends are reshaping project controls and mega-projects across industries.
This podcast is designed for project managers, project controls professionals, IT leaders, and executives. Our listeners grapple with high-stakes decisions, tight deadlines, and inefficient project delivery systems. They face overruns, inconsistent reporting, technology misalignment, and integration struggles, leaving projects vulnerable to delays and cost overages.
We'll dissect the biggest industry pain points, including:
- Meeting critical milestones despite limited capacity and complex project scopes.
- Lack of standardized processes, forcing teams to consolidate data manually.
- Technology and system integration failures - where IT projects derail instead of accelerating progress.
- The failure of risk management practices, leaving organizations blind to their biggest threats.
- Why change initiatives fail, and how organizations can build a culture that embraces project controls.
Whether you're leading a megaproject or struggling to get executives to buy into project controls, this podcast will give you the tools and insights to take control of your capital projects - instead of letting them control you.
Special thanks to our good friend Thompson Egbo-Egbo for the music. Find his original music at www.egbomusic.com.
19 Episodes
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Send us Fan Mail The Strait of Hormuz lost 95% of its traffic in a single week. Oil prices hit $120. Aluminium, urea, LNG, and petrochemical feedstocks are all disrupted simultaneously. Force majeure declarations are cascading from Gulf producers. Nate and Albert break down what the Iran war means for capital project portfolios. They cover the 90 to 180 day procurement lag before repriced commodities hit project budgets, why standard risk registers fail during cascading disruptions, how force...
Send a text A year ago on The Risky Planner, Albert Brier and Nate Habermeyer made a series of predictions about where capital projects were headed. Mining electrification. AI adoption in project controls. Autonomous equipment risk. Data center energy. Nuclear deals. Mega project cost performance. This episode puts each prediction on trial against sourced data from 2025 and early 2026. What you will learn: 00:00 Cold Open 03:00 News: Belt and Road Initiative hits $213.5B in 2025 construction ...
Send a text HELP PICK FUTURE TOPICS, TAKE OUR SURVEY. Most capital projects do not fail during execution. They fail when early approvals accept uncertainty that later becomes unmanageable. In this long-cut episode of The Risky Planner Podcast, Nate Habermeyer and Albert Brier revisit well-known megaprojects to examine what information was available at the start, what risks were visible, and what teams and executive sponsors could reasonably have challenged before work began. The discussio...
Send a text Hosts Nate Habermeyer and Albert Brier recorded this finale in person — a first for the show — to reflect on what shaped the world of capital projects in 2025, which episodes hit hardest, and where they're headed in 2026. Season 1 covered ground: AI tools and their real-world limits in project controls. SMs, BIM, climate risk. Tariffs and political uncertainty rippling through supply chains. The most downloaded episode featured live interviews from the AACE conference floor, where...
Send a text Your next billion-dollar capital project faces a single point of failure: the people required to plan and execute it just do not exist. The industry faces a severe labor deficit. Data confirms that 94% of construction contractors cannot fill open project controls positions Additionally, 41% of the current workforce will retire by 2031. You cannot hire your way out of this shortage because the talent pool is drying up. In this episode of The Risky Planner, Albert Brier and Nate Hab...
Send a text Offshoring project management works for software development. It fails for capital construction. The difference: the feedback loop between physical site conditions and project control decisions. Albert Brier and Nate Habermeyer examine why remote project management models that succeed in IT create invisible risks on construction sites—risks that surface when projects run months behind and millions over budget. PMI's 2024 Pulse of the Profession report shows remote teams achieving ...
Send a text Hear extended interviews from the AACE conference floor with 13 project controls professionals from Hess Corporation, Pattern Energy, and more, and software companies including Safran, Smart PM Technologies, and TurboChart. Direct insights from the interviews: The future of capital projects varies by perspective. Answers ranged from "AI enabled management" (Frank Pangalon) to "integration" (Franco Yasuyama, Pattern Energy) to "dim" (Ian Nicholson, Emerald Associates). California H...
Send a text Albert and Nate talk through a quiet shift happening on capital projects: climate adaptation is no longer a long-term planning exercise — it’s a short-term delivery problem. Schedules that used to anchor around stable permitting windows, predictable summer outages, and long-established build seasons are now under pressure. What project leaders are starting to see: Wildfire season overlapping with outage workPermitting agencies pulling back windows without warning“Summer” no longer...
Send a text Albert Brier returns from the AACE conference in Anaheim with insights from 13 industry professionals on the future of capital projects. From the dominance of Excel to the rise of AI-enabled scheduling tools, this episode explores how project controls professionals are navigating digital transformation while facing unprecedented uncertainty. Hear firsthand perspectives on whether California's high-speed rail will ever be built, which software tools dominate the industry, and essen...
Send a text Learn how digital twins and BIM technology revolutionize capital project management. Discover implementation strategies, cost benefits, and change management tips for project success. Join Albert and Nate as they explore the cutting-edge world of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and digital twins in capital project management. This episode breaks down complex technologies into practical insights for project professionals. Key Learning Points: BIM Fundamentals: Understand ...
Send a text In this episode of "The Risky Planner" podcast, hosts Nate Habermeyer and Albert Brier tackle the pressing issue of uncertainty in capital investments during 2025's volatile economic climate. The hosts discuss how inflation, interest rates, supply chain problems, and trade tensions are creating unprecedented challenges for capital project planning. Albert shares his experience with a major oil company where project cancellation led to significant ripple effects and wasted resource...
Send a text In this episode of The Risky Planner, Nate Habermeyer talks to Albert Brier, who is live from Dubai, where he's leading the setup of a PMO for one of the most ambitious real estate developments in the world. ThSey explore how digital transformation is redefining project management in MENA, with a strong focus on project controls, budgeting, scheduling, and risk management. Albert shares insights on building high-functioning PMOs that move beyond reporting to drive real business va...
Send a text In this episode of the Risky Planner Podcast, hosts Nate and Albert reunite after Albert's travels to Dubai to discuss the impact of Trump's recently announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. They explore how these tariffs affect capital projects across various industries, particularly construction and energy infrastructure. Albert provides context about the evolution of tariff threats from earlier blanket proposals targeting countries like Canada and Mexico to the current ...
Send a text In this episode of the Risky Planner Podcast, hosts Nate and Albert kick off the new year with reflections on the post-holidays and how AI is reshaping careers in project management and risk analysis. Key Discussion Points: AI as a Force Multiplier: Albert shares his experience using AI tools over the break, discussing how AI is transforming professionals from single-discipline experts to multi-faceted problem-solvers.The Evolution of AI in Project Management: They explore the gro...
Send a text In this episode of The Risky Planner Podcast, we dive into the explosive growth of data centers, the energy demands of AI, and how project managers can navigate the complexities of cost control, risk mitigation, and scalability. We explore the "Design One, Build Many" model, investor perspectives on infrastructure risk, and the evolving landscape of AI-powered automation in construction and project management. Join us as we discuss how capital projects in the data center industry ...
Send a text In this episode, Albert and Nate dive into the world of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)—what they are, why they matter, and how they could reshape the nuclear energy landscape. They unpack the latest headlines, from Trump's energy policy and SaskNuclear’s ambitious plans to the delays and hurdles facing SMR projects worldwide. Listeners will learn: ✅ What makes SMRs a game-changer in energy production ✅ Why no SMRs are in commercial use yet and the roadblocks they face ✅ How regulat...
Send a text In this episode of The Risky Planner Podcast, Albert and Nate take you inside MINExpo, the largest mining technology expo in the world, where massive, cutting-edge machinery meets the future of electrification and automation. They share their firsthand experiences with autonomous haul trucks, electric shovels, and mining's shift towards sustainability—all while injecting their signature humor (and a few childhood stories). Listeners will learn: ✅ How mining tech is evolving—from C...
Send a text We’re excited to launch The Risky Planner, a podcast for people who work in capital projects and know how chaotic and high-stakes it can be. This show is for project managers, project controls professionals, risk leaders, and executives. It's for the professionals tired of seeing the same failures repeat on projects with unrealistic budgets, impossible schedules, no real risk visibility. We’ve seen it all, and we’re here to talk about it. What the Podcast Covers Each episode explo...
Send a text Your portfolio hits 98% of its spending target. Leadership celebrates. But individual projects tell a different story: delayed scope, panic Q4 purchases, work pushed to next year. Albert Brier and Nate Habermeyer dissect why annualized capital budgets consistently fail to deliver planned value despite meeting spending goals. The data is clear: 20% of projects run behind schedule and 80% over budget. Yet organizations continue locking specific scopes to rigid annual funding windows...
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