Consolidating Systems Is Not Transformation. LUMEN Shows What Is.

Stradigi and DCT Tendering and Project Controls (DCT TPC) at the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi have been shortlisted for Global Project Controls Transformation of the Year at the Global/UK Project Controls Expo Awards 2026, for LUMEN.

Winners will be announced on 3 November at Wembley Stadium, London. Before then, we want to share what LUMEN is, why it was needed, and what we believe it offers the wider project controls profession.

The problem was never one system

DCT TPC's responsibilities span the full project controls lifecycle: project and package setup, cost and cash flow, progress, tendering, estimating, risk, quality, change, meetings, approvals and accountable actions.

Over time, those responsibilities had spread across a large application estate. The project management environment alone held eight separate solutions, 96 data entities and around 29 automated flows, alongside document processing and offline spreadsheet exchanges. Quality management ran on five further applications in a separate environment. There was no direct connection between the two.

Each tool did its job. The difficulty lay in everything between them: different interfaces, identifiers, reference data, permissions and workflow conventions. A package, its financial change, the related risk, a quality finding, the meeting decision and the action that followed could not be managed as one control chain. Governance depended partly on local knowledge and manual reconciliation.

The reframe: one control model, not one more system

The most important decision came early. Consolidating systems is not the same as transforming an operating model.

So the objective was set at the level of control, not technology:

• Standardise critical processes

• Connect project and quality management

• Clarify ownership

• Encode control rules

• Centralise accountable actions

• Build a scalable foundation for cross-project reporting and future intelligence

Start with what already works

Legacy tools are usually treated as something to replace. On LUMEN, they were treated as a source of knowledge.

Formulas, scheduled automations, spreadsheets and practitioner routines held real control logic, much of it invisible on the application screens. Through structured reverse-engineering and walkthroughs with DCT experts, the team captured that logic before redesigning anything.

Practitioners became co-designers of the future operating model rather than recipients of a technology replacement. Disagreements over terminology, workflow stages or ownership were settled through explicit business rules and accountable decisions, never by default inside the code.

Controls that are executed, not just described

The integrated model connects projects, packages, budgets, cost reports, forecasts, variations, progress, baselines, tenders, risks, findings, corrective actions, changes, meetings and tasks through common data and standard identifiers.

Control rules are encoded so they behave the same way everywhere:

• Reporting periods are governed, and cost reports cannot be uploaded to a closed period

• Variations follow a controlled, one-way path to a formal variation order, and live variations carry forward

• Risk ratings are calculated consistently

• Every task links back to the finding, risk, change or meeting that created it, with a named owner

One principle shaped acceptance throughout: a working screen does not count as a completed control until its workflow, ownership and evidence are confirmed.

Intelligence built on governance

With a governed foundation in place, LUMEN adds an intelligence layer on top. A shared project controls vocabulary links cost, schedule, procurement, quality and actions, so insight can span disciplines while staying tied to its source records.

The aim is to help professionals move from locating data to understanding what changed, why it matters, what is connected and where action is required.

AI supports analysis and explanation. Accountable people remain responsible for decisions and approvals. Governance comes before scale, not after it.

What changes

• For DCT TPCShorter reporting cycles, fewer manual hand-offs, better data quality, clearer accountability, earlier visibility of exceptions and more consistent governance across projects

• For the project controls teamLess time spent reconciling, more time for analysis and intervention

• For leadershipOne coherent view across project and quality domains, and more timely, better-assured decisions

• Over the longer termStronger stewardship of public projects and more reliable delivery

Lessons for the profession

• Consolidating systems is not the same as transforming an operating model

• Legacy tools are a source of operational knowledge, not just technical debt

• Shared data should not erase professional distinctions: cost, risk, quality and procurement keep their own rules

• Make decision ownership visible, so technical teams never set policy by default

• Stabilise data, permissions and controls before scaling analytics or AI

A joint achievement

LUMEN reflects the domain ownership, professional standards and openness of the DCT TPC team as much as Stradigi's work on architecture, product and delivery.

Its significance lies not in consolidating screens, but in aligning people, process, evidence and technology around one controlled way of working.

See you at Wembley on 3 November.

Read the case study: Unifying Project and Quality Governance

Stradigi. Turning Strategy into Performance.