On 31 August 1957, Malaya gained its independence. Sixty-nine years later, it is worth looking beyond the celebrations for a moment and simply looking around us.
The Malaysia we know today did not just happen.
Our highways, airports, ports, railways, power plants, water systems, hospitals, universities, telecommunications networks, factories, refineries, townships and city skylines were built over decades. Some became national landmarks such as KLIA, the Penang Bridge, Putrajaya, our urban rail networks and the PETRONAS Twin Towers. Others are hardly noticed because they have simply become part of everyday life.
But every one of them was once a project. Betul tak?
And behind every project were people.
Before the Landmark, There Was a Project
We tend to remember projects by what was eventually built. We remember the bridge, the airport, the plant or the building. What we do not see are the years of work that came before it.
Someone had to believe that it should be done and someone had to sponsor it. Others had to turn that ambition into something that could actually be designed, funded, contracted, constructed, commissioned and operated.
Then came the project people: Project Managers, engineers, designers, planners, cost engineers, quantity surveyors, risk professionals, procurement and contract teams, consultants, contractors, safety professionals, construction crews, technicians, operators and many others.
They dealt with changing requirements, difficult stakeholders, late equipment, design problems, cost pressures, schedule slippages, claims, interfaces, safety concerns and the countless surprises that somehow never appear in the original project plan.
Anyone who has spent enough years in projects knows that the finished asset rarely tells the full story of what it took to get there. Tanyalah kawan-kawan yang lama dah buat projek.
Malaysia Was Built Project by Project
Malaysia’s development since independence has been remarkable, but it was not one enormous transformation that happened overnight. It happened one project at a time.
A road here. A school there. A new power station. A port expansion. An offshore facility. A railway. A factory. A hospital. A water treatment plant. A telecommunications network.
Some projects changed an entire industry. Others changed life for one community.
And not every important project became an icon. Nobody takes family photographs in front of a substation, sewerage system or flood mitigation facility. Yet we quickly understand their importance when they stop working.
Perhaps that is one of the strange things about successful projects. Eventually, society stops noticing them. What once required years of planning, thousands of people and enormous effort simply becomes part of normal life.
Yesterday’s difficult project becomes today’s expectation.
Remember the People Behind It
There is another part of this story that project practitioners will understand.
Projects take something from the people who deliver them.
There were engineers reviewing drawings late into the night, planners rebuilding schedules after another setback, construction teams working through Malaysia’s heat and rain, people travelling away from their families for weeks or months, and commissioning teams staying on until a problem was solved because start-up could not simply wait.
There were also Sponsors and project leaders who had to make difficult calls with incomplete information, knowing that millions or sometimes billions of Ringgit, years of work and many people’s livelihoods could be affected by those decisions.
There were disagreements. Mistakes were made. Some projects ran late or cost more than intended. Some did not achieve everything originally hoped for. And we have witnessed a few of our project friends who were mentally affected. Project life can be fun, but it can be extremely stressful too, I kid you not.
We should not pretend otherwise. That too is part of Malaysia’s project journey.
But with every project, our collective capability grew. Malaysian professionals learned to manage larger investments, more sophisticated technologies, more complex interfaces and increasingly demanding stakeholders. Knowledge was accumulated, people were developed, and another generation learned from those who came before them.
That experience is part of our national capability today.
Project People Build Change
We often describe project professionals by their job titles, but there is something more fundamental about what they do.
Project people work in the space between what exists today and what we want to exist tomorrow.
A strategy may describe the future. A policy may set the direction. An investment decision may provide the money. But eventually somebody has to make the change real.
That is what project people do.
So this Merdeka, perhaps we should look at Malaysia a little differently. When we cross a bridge, enter an airport, travel on a railway, see a city skyline, switch on the electricity or pass an industrial facility, remember that there are stories behind these things.
There were problems the public never heard about, difficult meetings nobody remembers, decisions that had to be made, weekends that disappeared, and people who kept going because the project had to be delivered.
Many of their names will never appear on a plaque.
But their fingerprints are all over modern Malaysia.
There is still much for our country to improve, much to build and many new challenges ahead. The projects of the next few decades may look very different from those that built the Malaysia of today, but they will still require people with the competence, judgement, resilience and courage to turn ambition into reality.
This Merdeka, let us pay tribute to Malaysia’s project people, from the Sponsors who dared to make the investment decision to the men and women on the ground who made it happen.
You did not just deliver projects. You helped build Malaysia.
And there is still much more of Malaysia for project people to build.
I am standing upright now and saluting you, dear Malaysian project practitioners… Yup, every single one of you, from the Project Sponsors to our brothers and sisters who have literally poured their sweat and tears into project sites all these years.
And to all our project Otais (Old-timers) who came before us, showed us the way and helped build the Malaysia we have today… a billion thank yous, on behalf of all Malaysians.
Selamat Hari Merdeka!
Alex Zulkarnain Zulkarim
Project Xcellence Partners (PXP)