ABOUT ACTARA
Meet Abbas Shakourifar.
MSc · PSP · PMP · PSM. A practical perspective on planning, uncertainty and project delivery.
Experience & focus
Abbas brings more than 20 years of experience across energy, infrastructure and renewables. His focus is execution planning, cost and schedule risk analysis, estimate and schedule assurance, and decision support for complex projects and programmes.
His professional background includes risk and assurance reviews involving Chevron, BP, Microsoft and large public infrastructure programmes. These organisations are part of his professional background, not presented as Actara clients.
Education & credentials
Abbas holds a master’s degree in Engineering and Construction Management and a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering. His credentials include Planning & Scheduling Professional, Project Management Professional and Professional Scrum Master.
Teaching MBA professionals
Since fall 2024, Abbas has taught project management to MBA professionals as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. His teaching takes an executive-coaching approach, connecting project management with the decisions participants face in practice. He also provides corporate training in project risk, scheduling and governance.
AACE International
Abbas has been a voting member of AACE International’s Technical Board since 2019 and chairs its Program & Project Management Subcommittee.
He is a primary contributor to the 2020 revision of RP 91R-16, Schedule Development, and has contributed to Recommended Practices on estimating, scheduling, performance management and decision modeling.
How I work
Start with the decision, then build the evidence around it. I work with the project team to challenge assumptions, understand the execution plan, test alternatives and explain what the results mean.
The aim is useful advice, clear limitations and actions people can own.