Mar 18, 2025 | News and insight
Projects, by their nature, are technical and commercial enterprises. However, what often makes or breaks a project is not a technical issue or even a commercial or cost one – but whether the relationships built can support and drive delivery.
It is easy to overlook the importance of these relationships as projects are driven to deliver quick wins or short-term gains such as “getting a shovel in the ground”. But focusing on these immediate wants risks undermining the long-term needs for our success, including the trust and collaboration that keeps things moving forward, particularly in modern mega- or even giga-projects where delivery is no longer a simple client/contractor relationship but a web of interconnected delivery partners and organisations.
Relationships between these organisations are what drive your delivery – but they are often not considered or worked upon in any meaningful way. At best, we might begin to think about interpersonal relationships, but what about interorganisational? After all, each component partner likely has their own ways of working, their own values, and their own ideas of what success looks like
We see the evidence of this lack of consideration everywhere. How many times have you encountered an organisation – client or otherwise – that is always in a ‘state of emergency’? Where every ask has to be answered right now? Perhaps a few times their partners will go along with it (if they have a good relationship), but sooner or later someone will say “no” – and then where does that leave the asker?
Even within a traditional client/contractor relationship, the client may be constantly demanding that their contractor push costs down, or deliver faster, or deliver more, focusing on the client’s immediate ‘wants’ – but if this results in the contractor failing, both sides lose – the client has a failed project, and the contractor may be facing dire consequences, including insolvency.
Further, in complex modern project environments organisations will often be interacting outside of this transactional “I tell, you do” relationship, and so cannot even fall back on the (as mentioned, potentially unsustainable) “well the contract says you have to”.
So, if relationships are that important to project success, what can we do about them?
For interpersonal relationships, Schein & Schein set out a model with four ‘levels’:
Can we also apply these to the relationships between organisations? And what would that look like?
- Level -1 would consist of an exploitative relationship where one organisation is totally dominant of another, free to use and abuse them without accountability
- At Level 1, we would have the traditional transactional relationship – client/contractor, where one party holds all the power, and will only ever be thinking about their own needs – or more likely, their own wants, at any given time.
- Level 2 places parties in a position of openness – which enables a deeper understanding of other parties’ needs, as well as your own. Because only through understanding the needs of those you are relying upon to deliver, can you fully understand what yours are, and begin to evaluate your wants in terms of those needs.
- Level 3 would represent a level of intimacy between organisations which is likely unnecessary to most delivery environments. It may have a place in certain places where an acutely high level of trust and dependence is required, but otherwise, it applies far more to our personal relationships than our professional ones. It may even be detrimental, where clients favour one organisation to the exclusion of others, or two partners are co-dependent for any decision-making!
As with interpersonal relationships, Level 2 is the ‘sweet spot’ for delivery. Both parties recognize that achieving long-term goals means building mutual trust and aligning on shared objectives. Instead of viewing interactions merely as exchanges of services for payments, Level 2 encourages us to see our partners as collaborators whose success is intertwined with our own. This shift from a wants-based approach – built upon a system of ‘knowing your rights’, where contracts and legal obligations dominate – to a needs-based mindset opens the door for genuine problem-solving.
And, if those technical or commercial issues do raise their heads – you can proactively resolve or mediate them rather than resorting to costly disputes, where ultimately nobody’s needs will be met!
Tom Chick is a senior consultant at ResoLex specialising in building effective working environments in major projects. If you want to learn more about how to get the most out of your professional relationships, contact Tom here or connect with him on LinkedIn.
Mar 11, 2025 | News and insight
From the moment a major project is announced, there is a societal, political and organisational pressure to deliver the intended benefits as quickly as possible. This pressure creates a culture that champions technical delivery above all else, pushing teams towards the ‘build’ stage of the project life cycle before they are ready. As a result, many of the key elements critical to the project’s success are neglected or poorly planned, and come back to bite us later.
Back in September 2023, we teamed up with the Major Projects Association to host a workshop called ‘Challenging the Mobilisation Myth: Driving performance through effective Contract Mobilisation’.
We brought together experienced project professionals from government and industry, including representatives from Costain, HS2, DEFRA, Jacobs, HKA, GBR, and East West Rail, to discuss the common issues affecting mobilisation. Since then, we’ve been busy in the background working with the MPA and some attendees of the workshop to develop our latest perspectives paper, ‘Mind the Mobilisation Gap: Why we’re still getting mobilisation wrong on major projects, and how we can do better’.
Co-authored by Lisa Martello and Tony Llewellyn of ResoLex, the Perspectives Paper brings together practical thoughts, observations and recommendations on how to plan and deliver project mobilisation successfully. Its objective is to:
- support project organisations to consider and embed mobilisation as a critical stage in the programme
- provide guidance on the time, attention and resources it needs and deserves in order to be successful.
Read the full report here.
About the authors:
A project manager by trade, Lisa Martello has more than 15 years’ experience building and leading diverse, collaborative, and inclusive teams on major infrastructure projects in the UK and Australia. As a Director at ResoLex, Lisa specialises in strengthening the social, behavioural, and cultural components crucial to achieving desired outcomes within major project environments.
Originally training as a surveyor, Tony Llewellyn has spent over 30 years working on major projects, and is now an Author, Coach, Lecturer, and Thought Leader on the topics of performance improvement, interpersonal dynamics and the effectiveness of project teams. As a Director at ResoLex, Tony helps teams and leaders improve their outcomes by helping them to build trust, communication and collaboration.
Apr 26, 2024 | Events, Roundtables
On the 23rd of April, we welcomed Roseanne Serrelli, Partner at Sharpe Pritchard for a discussion on how contracts can be used to help embed collaborative behaviours on complex projects.
The session was opened by our Chief Executive, Edward Moore, who gave the attendees an overview of the evening and an introduction to the topic.
Ros began her presentation by explaining that the terms used in these ‘collaborative contracts’, e.g. alliances, enterprises, partnerships – have no specific legal definition. Any individual party involved with the contract is likely to interpret these terms differently. The key when looking to develop a contract which supports a collaborative endeavour is to focus on attention on the purpose of the relationship, rather than the term used. This approach has the benefit of shifting the focus away from risk transfer and instead puts the focus on risk avoidance and resolution.
The level of collaboration built into a contract can therefore be bespoke based upon the need, rather than starting with a pre-populated document. Options exist along on a spectrum from a light-touch arrangement to full alliances with shared legal risk, reward and finances. When developing a contract, it is worth thinking of the options as a menu from which the appropriate provisions can be selected based upon what the client intends to achieve.
Ros talked through several examples of different collaboration systems in existence, some of which have been discussed at previous ResoLex roundtables:
- Project 13 – not a contract itself, but an ecosystem and ethos for delivery that focuses on achieving outcomes rather than on the inputs.
- NEC Alliance – a single contract to which all are parties, including the client. This often works better on an ongoing programme with repeatable work, where the goal is to incentivise shared responsibility. This is more difficult on single projects where there may be more single points of failure that cannot be shared easily between participants.
- X12 – An option within NEC contracts that seeks to support multi-party collaboration, including containing a common set of objectives for all parties.
- FAC1 – An overarching framework that sits above individual contracts and contains items that need to be supported by those contracts, such as early warning systems.
Regardless of the form of the contract, there were some key takeaways about what is needed to ensure collaboration can be effectively supported:
- A defined governance structure with clear roles and accountabilities (often in a RACI matrix) – make it straightforward for people to understand who is doing what in the contract environment (and be clear that accountability is not the same as liability!)
- A clear decision-making process – the process may evolve over the lifetime of a project or differ in different parts of a programme, but it needs to be set out clearly and communicated to everyone involved.
- Set up Core Groups and Boards – these do not need to be over-engineered. They should have clearly defined objectives and discussion/decision points.
These structures provide a foundation for a successful collaboration. Having a contract that does not enable the environment you want will undermine your project from the start, though equally, having the perfect contract is meaningless if people do not engage in the right ways of working.
The contract underpins the practical side of collaboration; namely regarding people and their behaviours. When setting up for success, the behaviour of the joint team will be a key factor in how the benefits of these structures and processes are maximised in the project or programme environment.
The development of appropriate ways of working should consider some key questions, including but not limited to:
- Will the arrangement require co-location or jointly employed resources?
- What is the communications strategy? Will there be joint messaging from all parties? Will there be common branding and a ‘united front’ when facing the public?
- What are the processes for change or bringing in new people?
- What is the process for sub-contracting? Does the client need to approve any additions?
- How is the project insulated from outside noise (e.g. political pressures) to enable the team to focus on delivering the outcome?
- What do you do when things go wrong? It cannot be assumed, even with the perfect contract and the best people for the job, that there will never be an issue or point of contention between the parties. Provisions should be included in the agreement to enable parties to exit as necessary. Though counterintuitive, Ros shared that her experience is that providing clarity about the exit process provides comfort to the parties and in fact, often encourages parties to stay in contract and work through the challenges.
The session closed with a stimulating discussion on what needs to be done to try to build more collaborative environments in projects and programmes and how contracts can facilitate that, recognising that they are usually the starting point for the relationship. Points were raised in the room on the importance of ‘selling’ the benefits of this approach, particularly to clients when setting up a project and to politicians who may be overseeing major schemes. The conversation was a good reminder of the need to take the time to clearly define the required outputs and outcomes of a scheme before diving in, in order to set up the contract and environment that best facilitates these outcomes.
Nov 21, 2022 | News and insight
20 years ago, ResoLex focused on dispute resolution for teams involved in major projects and complex environments. Over the years, we have developed a deep understanding of how people work together in teams and within the stresses and strains of complex environments – a recipe for behavioural risk! Fast forward to today, and we use that knowledge to help teams strengthen their social competencies, manage behavioural risk and embed a collaborative environment to deliver better outcomes.
Our focus is always on the people: how individuals come together to form a team, the impact of the project environment on relationships and the function of processes and structures to enable people to deliver successfully. So, what do we mean by ‘create more than just a team’? We all strive to create a team that is more than just a workgroup. Our aim is for teams to be effective, but what does that look like?
In major project delivery or any complex environment, an effective team is one that can respond with agility and develop new solutions to the dynamic challenges that the environment brings. A team like this is often made up of people with diverse perspectives, who can safely challenge one another to get to the best outcome. An effective team must have a psychologically safe culture – enabling individuals to feel included and encouraged to contribute their diverse perspectives to the benefit of the project.
One of the early challenges for project leadership is to decide how to bring diverse groups together so they can work effectively, not just on their own element of the project, but critically in the way they support the outputs of other teams with which they must interact and here lies the importance of communication and aligning cultures. Edgar Schien argues* (and we agree!) that for humans to work effectively together, they need to engage based on ‘level two relationships’ – personal, cooperative and trusting relationships where we see others as human beings, acknowledging the whole person and with symmetry in the confidence and trust that each person in that relationship can have in the other (without symmetry, the relationship will remain transactional or will even end). In a ‘level two relationship’, we have a greater level of knowledge of the factors that shape the lives and behaviours of those we work with regularly. When we have a greater degree of understanding, we accept others for who they are as human beings rather than simply identifying them with the job they do. We are consequently more able to build the trust, respect and healthy interactions that are critical to creating psychological safety and laying the foundations for the high-performing team that we desire.
Without this work, project teams are at risk of defaulting to the kinds of behaviours that lead to a hostile working environment, blame culture and workplace bullying, which are not only unpleasant to experience but lead to underperforming, ineffective teams.
This blog was inspired by Anti-Bullying Week, and you might be wondering, what does that have to do with building an effective team?
The Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA) are the official organiser of the Anti-Bullying Week campaign. Every year, the campaign aims to raise awareness of the bullying of children and young people in schools and elsewhere and to highlight the ways of preventing and responding to it. Whilst we are somewhat removed from the world of educating young people, we recognise that our working environments are the next step for them as they develop, and many will spend their careers working in the teams and according to the cultures that we are building.
We are by no means experts on bullying, but we know bullying doesn’t just stop at childhood – adult and workplace bullying takes place and can have an especially damaging impact not only on individuals but on whole teams and organisations. We wanted to highlight the campaign and share some thoughts on how building an effective team creates a working environment where people feel confident, supported and empowered (and, of course, not bullied!). Just as we recognise there are actions that can be taken to prevent reaching the dispute resolution stage, there are also actions that we can take as leaders to prevent the unhealthy cultures and environments that tolerate workplace bullying from developing in the first place.
Remember these key ingredients so that you can make sure you are doing more than just creating a team – you are building an effective one.
We hope this information has been useful, if your team needs support in strengthening those social competencies, please get in contact with us. If you are seeking support for workplace bullying, here is an online resource from CIPD, the Professional body for HR and people development.
* Humble Leadership: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and Trust, Edgar H. Schein, 2018
May 17, 2018 | Events, Roundtables
Speaker: Tony Llewellyn, Collaboration Director of ResoLex, Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster
This month’s round table meeting focused on the output of a research project that Tony has been working on for the last eight months. He has a long-standing interest in the dynamics of large project teams and the challenges of creating cohesive and collaborative groups working on construction projects. Recent experience in facilitating a number of workshops of two or more firms about to go into a joint venture highlighted the additional challenges faced when distinct groups of people come together. The common view is that up to 70% of joint ventures (JVs) fail to achieve their original objectives. Rather than focus on the reasons for failure, Tony decided to try and discover what actions and activities were put in place by the 30% of JV teams that got it right.
The research
The research project was based on twenty interviews with senior directors experienced in JV projects. The focus was mainly on construction projects but also included a property JV, some O & M ventures and a training partnership. The data were supplemented with the output from the 100 or so people who had participated in the JV workshops. The research also includes a literature search of scientific papers published over the last 20 years on the topic of successful Joint Ventures.
Tony summarised his findings into four key themes:
1. Partner selection
2. The role of the Governance Board
3. The role of the Project Director
4. Setting the leadership team up for success
Partner selection
The evidence collected from the research highlighted the importance of selecting the right partner when going into a JV. Most of the interviewees acknowledged that they would ideally work with a firm that they had done a JV with before. However, in the absence of a suitable past alliance, the key determinant was to find a firm with a compatible culture. This was therefore less a matter of working with the same people, and more a question of finding a culture where each party felt they could connect and communicate, irrespective of the personalities involved.
The role of the Governance Board
A high number of interviewees pointed to the need to pay attention to setting up the right governance board. The role of the group that maintain an oversight of the project team is usually prescribed in the JV agreement. All too often, however, the dynamics of having two equal sets of senior directors trying to work together on an occasional basis can quickly become dysfunctional. This partly arises because of the dichotomy of having to try and support the project team on the one hand, whilst also protecting their respective firm’s interests on the other.
The merging view from the research is that a strong governance board is typically well chaired, meets face to face when it can, has a mix of skills and experiences, but most of all comprises people who have a collaborative disposition.
The Project Director (PD)
The research highlights a number of success criteria for a JV project director, including:
- An ability to cope with complexity
- An ability to manage ambiguity
- Clear performance goals
- A stable management team
- Strong technical competence and industry knowledge
- Co-operative reward structures
One of the interesting features of a strong PD was the recognition that they needed to recognise two distinct leadership roles that were needed on very large projects. One is an ability to face outwards and manage the relationships with the client and stakeholder groups. The other is to have a strong emphasis on team integration and technical delivery. It was noted that it is rare to find an individual who excels at both. It was therefore important when selecting a PD to assess the particular needs of each project. Additional supplementary support could then be planned before it was needed.
Setting up the Project Leadership Team
The fourth success theme was the recognition that thought and planning were highly important when assembling the JV leadership team. The criteria included:
- Selection on ability rather than availability
- Senior roles are clearly defined
- No man-marking
- Homogeneity – similar age and values
- Heterogeneity – a variety of skills and experience
- Alignment to a common goal
- Cooperative disposition
There was also a consistent level of agreement on the need to invest time early in the programme to build relationships in each of the groups engaged in the JV. The presentation included with a quick run-through of the ASARI model developed by ResoLex for team development which is based on research into effective team performance. This model is illustrated in the diagram below.
The session concluded with a discussion from the floor around governance practices and the experiences different members of the audience had found in both successful and unsuccessful teams. The primary message is to avoid complacency and invest time and effort in planning how to make a joint venture achieve a successful outcome.
