Infrastructure programmes fail on governance, not engineering.
Setting ownership and decision rights before the first contract is signed.
Nine out of ten megaprojects have cost overruns. Overruns of up to 50% in real terms are common, and above 50% not uncommon. Benefit shortfalls follow the same pattern. Bent Flyvbjerg at Oxford summarises it as “over budget, over time, over and over again.”
The failures are rarely engineering failures. They are governance failures: unclear ownership, decision rights that shift with political cycles, and contracts signed before the operating model is settled.
We work with operators and agencies before the first contract is signed. We set decision rights, define what the programme must deliver in operating terms, and build the governance that survives a change of leadership. The aim is a programme that can be run, not only announced.
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