Leading teams on major infrastructure projects

Major infrastructure projects are exciting to lead - they’re highly visible and strategically important to both clients and project partners. Effectively leading these projects is uniquely challenging, and critically important to meeting organisational objectives.

The key challenge of these projects is the momentum they create because of their sheer size and complexity - it takes a focused and determined effort to get them moving, and it can be very difficult to change their direction if they veer off track. The challenge for the project leader is to harness this momentum to realise an effective, collaborative, team-based project culture which enables the team to find the right solutions as problems arise.

A project leaders’ role is multi-faceted. They’re obviously responsible for leadership, but they’re also relied on to coach staff to enhance their role on the project, to moderate conflict resolution and provide a calming influence during high stress periods.

Central to this role is planned and deliberate action to develop a positive project culture as well as frequent, face to face communication – with the team, senior personnel, key project partners and stakeholders. It’s essential to convey consistent principles for decision making and work collaboratively to define and agree on project processes. Some of the key focus areas for the leader include:

• Planned, deliberate action to develop a positive project culture. Creating the right project culture takes clear, focused and planned action over an extended period. Project team members will respond to a consistent message backed by aligned action, but the size and complexity of the team means that changes can take months to take effect. The project leader on a major project has a strong influence on the project direction, but they by no means control it. It’s critically important that they work with the project partners to understand their needs and drivers, bringing them on the journey to ensure a successful project outcome.
• Regular, personal communication. Conveying the culture message effectively and providing feedback requires personal interaction. Time spent engaging face to face is critically important, particularly when the project team is spread across a number of locations. As well as allowing you to communicate key aspects of the project culture, this level of engagement also allows you to develop relationships which can be critical in dealing with complex and difficult issues throughout the project. It’s also important to spread a positive message and celebrate success, particularly during the early months, where the issues are many and the big milestones far away.
• Convey consistent principles for decision making. Direct involvement in all aspects of the project is impractical and inefficient for the project leaders. Good leaders rely heavily on their team to make effective decisions and to keep them informed of developing risks and issues. It’s therefore important that team members are mentored effectively, able to make good decisions and are clear about the principles that should be applied when they need to give direction.
• Working collaboratively to define and agree on project processes. Major projects present a fantastic opportunity to leverage new and different ideas and to work with some of the best minds in industry to develop better processes for your project. It’s important that the project leader work collaboratively with the project partners to develop these processes for the benefit of the project. Be prepared to listen to new ideas and work together to introduce new processes.
• Engage with the senior personnel from key project partners and stakeholders. It’s good practice to engage and develop appropriate relationships at the executive level of the project partners. This initiative will ensure alignment of objectives, allow the identification of common ground on commercial interests and facilitate the development of a shared understanding of requirements and potential challenges on the project. This can reduce pressure on project resources, and provide a strong basis where issues that do come up can be worked through more effectively.

Major infrastructure projects are strategically important to the project partners and professionally exciting for the staff involved. They bring with them a unique set of challenges in a complex environment. While they have a complicated technical aspect to them, it is the management of relationships and the development of a positive project culture which is most important to successful delivery.

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About the author

Daniel Kenny is a Project Director who has worked with Coffey for more than eight years across the Defence, resources, energy, urban development and airfield infrastructure sectors. Daniel is currently leading a $1.5B project for the Department of Defence to deliver a range of airfield, engineering and building infrastructure to support the introduction into service of the new Joint Strike Fighter.