The IPA Institute

Overview of Programs at the IPA Institute

The purpose of the IPA Institute is to further IPA’s overall mission to improve capital productivity. Through its education and research programs, the Institute’s goal is to raise the level of knowledge in project management. The programs provide the following:

• Knowledge of why and what practices influence outcomes
• Tools for improved decision making in selecting, planning, and executing projects
• A basis to make the changes needed to significantly improve capital productivity

Lower Capital Costs Through Implementing Best Practices

Implementing project development Best Practices can reduce capital costs as much as 10% and add 2 points to the overall IRR for a project, thus increasing cash fl ow. Through its quantitative research into capital effectiveness, IPA has identifi ed several project development Best Practices such as Front-End Loading, Team Effectiveness and Value Improving Practices. The best performing companies in IPAs’ database use these Best Practices, as well as lessons learned from past projects on 90% of their projects. In addition, these companies see the value of learning by systematically training over two thirds of their project professionals in their work process. This scenario, however, is quite different from companies that do not have access to this type of knowledge transfer.

These Best Practices are now available to all professionals in the capital project supply chain. The IPA Institute (IPAI) has prepared programs to transfer knowledge acquired over the last 20 years of project development research.

These programs are structured as a way to:

1. Communicate practices to drive better performance
2. Provide tools that can be immediately used for project improvement
3. Share real business case studies to apply the concepts learned
4. Make available the extensive knowledge of the IPAI instructors to answer detailed and specific questions (all IPAI instructors have first hand experience analyzing at least 400 projects executed world-wide in multiple industries)
5. Discuss as a group the latest market conditions and its implications relevant to the company and industry

As capital budgets shrink, it is important to make the best use of available capital. The IPA Institute can help project teams understand and implement the Best Practices to improve the company’s performance.