Stop Trusting the Tool: How Great Project Controls Leaders Think (Sedat Akkaya)

In this episode of Humans of Project Controls, Plan Academy’s Michael Lepage sits down with Sedat Akkaya, Director of Project Controls at Hydro One Toronto, to unpack the human side of project controls and why the tool should never become the goal.Sedat shares his career journey from studying civil engineering in Turkey to a defining co-op experience in Russia (1991) that sparked his passion for scheduling, forecasting, and project controls. From oil & gas to transportation and power, he explains what separates strong project controls professionals from “report generators”: critical thinking, triangulating numbers, and the intuition to spot when something doesn’t add up.You’ll also hear candid leadership lessons on urgency, teamwork, and the real cost of big projects - including the people impact of the 2008–2009 downturn - plus why project controls is often misunderstood as “transactional work” when it’s actually central to planning, measuring performance, and driving corrective action.In this episode, we cover:Why tool reliance is rising and what it risks in project controlsHow to develop “spider senses” for numbers and bad inputsForecasting, month-end cycles, and continuous improvementThe shift from building a project to building an asset that delivers ROILeadership challenges: urgency, pacing, listening, and bringing the team alongLessons from major oil & gas megaprojects and economic cyclesWhy AACE matters and how recommended practices shape the profession