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In March 2020, I was asked by the ICE to chair a review into why so many major infrastructure projects run over time and budget.
Andrew McNaughton chaired the steering group for the ICE ‘Systems Approach to Infrastructure Delivery (SAID)’ review
What the review has underlined for me is that many of these projects are failing on another, even more serious, count too: they are not delivering their intended outcomes, for the owner and for society.
The way to avoid such failures is to turn the way we think on its head. Rather than focussing on the civil engineering elements of an infrastructure project, we must start with the desired outcomes and work backwards from there, setting up governance and processes to give the best chance of achieving those outcomes. This requires systems thinking; considering all the interdependent elements and influences that must be successfully combined and managed to achieve the desired result.