Reshaping skylines, powering nations, and pushing the limits of what’s possible. Behind every megaproject are the people who plan, measure, and keep it all on track. Orion takes us behind the curtain with interviews of the leaders making it possible, managing billions in scope, risk, and ambition.
Orion MatthewsHost · Founder, Queryon
AJ WatersTwenty years on both sides of the technology line, from Kiewit estimating to InEight, Google’s data center program, Kahua and Procore. The same-hat test for a joint-venture site, why transformations die when the tech gets picked first, the data wars AI is about to force open, and the vacation test most leaders fail. Plus a 15-minute bonus episode on books, podcasts and the conference circuit.
Ahmed AbdelfattahNearly 20 years of project controls from Cairo to Saudi mega programs to Adelaide, and a contrarian diagnosis: bigger controls teams, a less efficient process. Day-zero risk analysis, two kinds of reports, dashboards built like billboards, and a 31-minute companion tour of his own dashboards.
Long-form conversations with the people running the world’s largest capital projects, plus short bonus cuts on careers and craft.
The same-hat test, why digital transformations fail when the tech comes first, the data wars AI will force into the open, and the vacation test for your systems and your leadership.
The advice round for students and career-changers, the books he recommends most, the podcasts he came up on, and how a shelved article became TheEngiNerdLife.
Why project controls got bigger and less efficient, why risk belongs on day zero, and how to build a report around one decision, like a roadside billboard.
A screen-share tour of eleven of his dashboards and the design principle behind each, plus advice for students and year-one controls engineers.
Ten years across both sides of the data center buildout: why tech and construction collide, why structure has to come before AI, and what leadership has to fix first.
Complexity used to be the moat and AI drained it: why speed is the new edge, and why experience is no longer a barrier.
Why your AI strategy is only as good as your data strategy: 18 years of mining megaprojects, portfolio PMOs, and building the intelligent PMO.
Career moves, data, and getting into the room: how curiosity moves a project-controls career forward.
From project-level delivery to portfolio-level strategic thinking, and the decision-making frameworks that scale.
Recognition, organizational dynamics, and the habits that move project-controls careers forward.
Why organizational capability gaps sink projects despite formal governance, from a decision-gate expert.
Critical thinking in the AI era: what emerging project leaders should build now.
Risk workshops that work, Monte Carlo in practice, and building risk culture across contractor teams.
It isn’t a skills gap: it’s structure and culture. What has to change to keep the pipeline alive.
Vertical, horizontal and cross-functional integration failures, and why they get misdiagnosed as personality conflicts.
Bow waves, the vital four, and forecasting from the pace the field is actually achieving: 25 owner-side years of execution realism, and the $200M call it enabled.
A live panel on making the jump from technical expert to industry leader.
Staffing multi-billion-dollar programs in a brutal talent market, the three shapes of a modern PMO, and why career growth beats compensation.
Risk from first principles: the four responses, a culture that can talk about obstacles, and the RAID log as delivery's run tool.
4D/5D BIM in practice: crane placement, war rooms, federated models and the integrated data that turns simulations into decisions.
Why mega projects fail before FID: three truths, five fundamentals in order, and the decisions that shape destiny.
FEL stages, stage gates, PDRI scoring and execution bias: why billion-dollar projects are won or lost before ground breaks.
Constraint-free work packages, the 70-megaproject audit data behind a 22% productivity lever, and why on-time delivery is a choice.
Contracts as alignment tools, risk triggers with owners, and quarterly owner-side audits that surface true delays, from a $20B greenfield.
Document control as a technical discipline: single sources of truth, the ready-fire-aim trap, listening for "noise," and what AI actually changes about the craft.
Scaling energy megaprojects beyond the stage gate: solar math, geothermal, modular builds, and leading the teams that deliver them.
Planting 7.5 million trees across a capital city: P6-to-GIS integration, boardroom candor, and the project-controls basics that hold a $10B program together.
How refineries spend $500M in 45 days: culture as cadence, a mercenary workforce, the $80M resource-plan mismatch, and well-guided AI untangling 64,000 documents.
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Every book, essay, newsletter, podcast and community recommended on the show: who said it, why in their own words, and the episode it came from.
Every quotable line from the show, browsable by project domain.
Every major project discussed on the show, by type and region.
Orion is an award-winning programmer, entrepreneur and technology executive who has spent the last decade in the engine room of major capital projects. He founded Queryon in 2015 with a focus on data analytics and software for the construction industry, starting with bellwether client BP, whose project-controls solutions his team deployed globally, from the North Sea to Azerbaijan to Houston.
Today he builds the reporting and analytics that billion-dollar portfolios run on, for owners and delivery partners including BP, Santos, Balfour Beatty and Turner & Townsend, and speaks regularly at major industry conferences on the practical application of AI and data analytics in capital projects.
“These are the conversations that don’t happen except in the hallways of conferences. That was the goal, actually talking about this stuff.”Orion, on why the show exists
