LETTER TO THE EDITOR
By Nikhil Dhand
11 June 2026
Ref: Three advisory articles in June 2026 PM World Journal
Dear David,
This is my first letter to the journal. Three advisory papers in the June issue made me write it, because all three are pointing at the same idea from different directions, and I think the authors and the readers should see it.
- pmwj165-Jun2026-Hooks-project-capital-intelligence by Brent Hooks
Brent Hooks, in “Project Capital Intelligence: Why Scope, Schedule, and Cost Are No Longer Enough,” argues that capital decisions and delivery decisions are run by separate teams with separate frameworks, and that this gap is where complex projects fail.
He is right, and his hotel example proves it. A construction delay, there was not a schedule problem. It was a loan repayment problem. What he has described, perhaps without naming it, is a dependency chain:
Construction Delay → Revenue Start Delayed → Coverage Ratio Squeezed → Covenant Breach
Each link raises the chance of the next. Once the chain is drawn, his central question, does this schedule protect the capital structure, can be answered with a number before the contract is signed, which is the only time the number is useful.
P(covenant breach | six month delay). In plain words: the chance of breaking the loan terms, given that the project runs six months late. That is a number. A bank calculates it before lending you money. A project team can calculate it before signing the contract. His five pillars ask the right questions.
- pmwj165-Jun2026-Smith-Project-Management-Schedule-Buffering Dr. Kenneth F. Smith
Dr. Smith publishes his arithmetic. Rare. Respected. So I will engage with the arithmetic, because that is where the problem hides.
His buffer template is a genuine step beyond the 20% and 30% thumb rules, and he is right to call those out. There is one assumption inside the template worth surfacing: multiplication. Multiplying probabilities is only valid when the activities do not influence each other. On real projects, they usually do:
More…
To read entire Letter to the Editor, click here
How to cite this work: Dhand, N. (2026). On Three Advisory Articles in June PMWJ , Letter to the Editor, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue VI, June. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/pmwj166-Jul2026-Dhand-Letter-to-Editor.pdf
