Feb 13, 2026 | Social value
National Apprenticeship Week is an opportunity to reflect on how we build the capability that major programmes rely on!
Delivering in complex environments requires more than technical expertise. It demands leadership, sound judgement, commercial awareness and the ability to navigate governance, stakeholders and organisational dynamics. These capabilities are developed over time – through structured learning combined with real responsibility.
We were proud to see Sam Platten complete his apprenticeship while contributing within live programme environments. His progression reflects the strength of integrating academic development with practical delivery experience, building transferable skills that apply across sectors and contexts.
As someone who has completed both Project Management and Business & Management apprenticeships, I’ve seen first-hand how powerful this route can be.
Combining work and study allowed me to:
- Apply theory directly to real projects
- Progress through multiple roles while learning
- Gain experience across tunnelling, rail, consulting, and the nuclear industry
- Earn while learning and make higher education financially viable
One of the biggest misconceptions about apprenticeships is that they limit career progression. In reality, they accelerated mine. Apprenticeships build practical, transferable skills that are essential in complex industries, and they open doors well beyond traditional expectations.
Apprenticeships are not a ‘second option’ – they are a credible, respected pathway into incredible careers. If we want to widen access, grow talent, and challenge outdated perceptions, we need to keep championing them.
Sam Platten, ResoLex
For organisations responsible for major projects, investing in people is fundamental to long-term performance. Supporting apprenticeship pathways forms part of our wider commitment to social value, widening access to opportunities, strengthening professional capability, and contributing to more resilient, effective programme delivery across the industries we serve.
This National Apprenticeship Week, we celebrate Sam’s achievement and the steady development of leadership capability that underpins successful outcomes in complex environments.
Jan 28, 2026 | News and insight, Social value
At ResoLex, insight, creativity, and partnership shape how we work with our clients and how we contribute beyond our projects. Mentoring is one way we put these values into practice, creating positive impact by sharing experience, building confidence, and supporting the next generation of professionals.
Mentoring allows us to offer practical guidance and encouragement to students as they navigate key transitions, from university into working life. It’s a natural extension of our client work: building capability, fostering collaboration, and creating environments where people feel supported to thrive.
Over the last year, Joanna Jarvie, one of our Senior Consultants, has been part of a mentoring programme with City St George’s, University of London, which connects students with industry professionals for guidance and support.
For Jo’s mentee, that support took many forms, including preparing for interviews and assessment centres, practising case study presentations, connecting with other professionals for a research project, and offering advice on the first steps of working life. Together, these conversations helped build confidence and clarity about what comes next.
The student reflected:
“Jo was a fantastic mentor and provided brilliant support and guidance during my final year at university. She was always approachable, patient, and generous with her advice. The feedback she gave really helped me grow in confidence and feel more prepared for life after graduation.”
Mentoring benefits everyone involved. For the mentee, it builds confidence, skills, and direction. For the mentor, it offers space to reflect, share experience, and gain fresh perspectives. And for the wider industry, it helps create a pipeline of motivated, well-prepared professionals.
Jo is continuing her mentoring work throughout 2026, and we’ll keep sharing stories that show how our Social Value initiatives contribute to lasting impact.
Jan 19, 2026 | News and insight
At ResoLex, the way we work matters as much as what we deliver. Our Associates play an important role in shaping that – bringing challenge, insight and experience that help create the conditions for effective delivery in complex environments.
While our 25in25 anniversary marked a moment to pause and reflect, our focus now is on what continues beyond it. In this spotlight, Matt Barnes-Smith reflects on how he first came to work with ResoLex, what’s kept him connected over time, and why consistency, care and integrity in how people show up makes a real difference.
I was first introduced to ResoLex around nine years ago, at a point when I was actively searching for people in the construction sector who were prepared to name, and do something about, the patterns that make projects harder than they need to be: poor collaboration, adversarial behaviours, and leadership that too often defaults to control rather than trust.
What drew me in, and what’s kept me connected ever since, is how the ResoLex team show up. They bring the same care, curiosity, and integrity to their work with each other as they do to their work with clients. That consistency really matters to me. It creates a way of working that feels honest, thoughtful, and genuinely supportive, not just in theory, but in practice.
Working with ResoLex feels like being part of a group that is willing to look at itself as well as the system it’s operating in, and to lead by example. That ethos aligns closely with how I approach my own work, and it’s why ResoLex continues to be a team I value and choose to work alongside.
We value Matt’s contribution, and the contribution of all our Associates, not just for what they know, but for how they work – their willingness to reflect, to challenge patterns that get in the way, and to lead with intent.
As we move beyond 25in25, we’ll continue to share the voices of the people who shape our work and our thinking, and who add to the ongoing ResoLex story. The culture that Matt describes is part of what’s led to ResoLex being recognised as a Great Place to Work in 2024 and UK’s Best Workplaces in 2025 for Consulting & Professional Services. As that culture continues to grow, we’re actively welcoming new people into it – we’re currently hiring for an Associate Manager role and always open to hearing from potential Associates who share our values.
Dec 23, 2025 | 25 in 25
Throughout 2025, as part of our 25 in 25 campaign, we’ve taken time to look back at the moments that have shaped who we are today. As the year closes, it feels right to bring those reflections together and trace the journey that has carried ResoLex from its earliest roots to the work we are known for now: enabling collaborative delivery in some of the UK’s most complex programmes.
Our name is part of that journey. Combining Reso, for resolution and Lex, Latin for law, it reflects our founding belief – resolution before law. While our work has evolved far beyond dispute resolution, the principle remains: progress happens when people are aligned, relationships are strong, and teams have the capability and confidence to deliver together. Today, our role sits a step before conflict – helping our clients build delivery environments where decisions move at pace, challenges are addressed early, and collaboration is not an aspiration but a practice.
Early foundations
Our first major milestone came in 2001 with the Jersey Airport Alpha Taxiway project, the debut of our Contracted Mediation approach. It reinforced a truth that has guided us ever since: relational dynamics fundamentally shape outcomes. When teams understand each other, communicate effectively, and work through tension constructively, delivery accelerates. When they don’t, even straightforward issues can become blockers.
In 2004, Edward Moore became Chief Executive and steered ResoLex into a broader role, moving from resolving disputes to strengthening the conditions that prevent them. By 2007, this evolution led us to develop tools to help teams understand behavioural risks. X Tracker, the early version of what became RADAR, was first used during the enabling works for the London 2012 Olympics. It gave teams visibility into the behaviours, relationships and system dynamics influencing performance – an insight that has since become central to our approach.
Building capability and expanding our thinking
As we entered the 2010s, new contexts broadened our understanding of collaboration. In 2011, we began supporting peace-building charity Concordis International, helping facilitate dialogue in some of the world’s most challenging humanitarian environments. Despite the scale of difference between these settings and UK infrastructure, a consistent theme emerged: sustainable outcomes depend on trust, alignment, and shared purpose.
By 2013, RADAR had formally launched and was supporting projects such as the Enterprise Centre at the University of East Anglia, then one of the UK’s greenest buildings. Over the years that followed, RADAR became embedded across major programmes including Clapham Park and Crossrail East, helping leadership teams quickly understand the behavioural landscape and make better-informed decisions.
Between 2016 and 2017, Tony Llewellyn distilled many of the lessons from our work in two of his four books, helping share our thinking on high-performance teams, collaboration and leadership across the wider industry.
Supporting collaborative delivery at scale
From 2018 onwards, our work expanded across many of the UK’s most complex and high-profile programmes – including HS2, the Department for Transport, the New Hospital Programme, Thames Water, Defra and organisations within defence and nuclear. Across these environments, one insight has been repeatedly reinforced: technical excellence alone is not enough. What determines whether a programme succeeds is the strength of relationships, the clarity of decision-making, and the ability to navigate complexity as a cohesive system.
During this period, our role continued to mature. Moving beyond tools and assessments, we increasingly acted as a Collaboration Partner – a navigator helping clients chart complex delivery landscapes; a relational integrator aligning teams and breaking down silos; and a trusted partner providing independent perspective and constructive challenge at the moments that matter most.
In 2024, we strengthened our industry reach through new partnerships with Bloom Procurement Services, Bramble Hub and Perfect Circle, and were proud to be certified as a Great Place To Work – a reflection of the culture we’ve built internally and the behaviours we champion externally.
2025 in focus
This anniversary year has been both celebratory and forward-looking. We revisited the projects and people that shaped our early thinking, welcomed new colleagues, and deepened partnerships across government and industry. We contributed to sector-wide conversations on mobilisation, behavioural risk, conflict avoidance and collaborative contracting, and refreshed our suite of ResoLex Explainers to provide accessible, practical guidance for project teams.
Across every milestone, our work in 2025 has reflected the core of what we do today:
- co-creating solutions with clients rather than imposing predetermined answers;
- building capability and confidence within project teams;
- strengthening relational dynamics across complex systems; and
- helping organisations translate strategy, contracts and intentions into operationally effective delivery environments.
Looking ahead
Marking 25 years has given us space to reflect on how far we have come, from our origins in contracted mediation to our role today supporting the collaborative delivery of major infrastructure programmes. But it has also reinforced the constants: our belief in the power of strong relationships, our commitment to strengthening the human side of complex delivery, and our focus on helping teams navigate challenges with clarity and confidence.
As we look ahead, our purpose remains unchanged. We will continue to support clients in building the social, cultural and behavioural foundations that underpin successful delivery. We will continue to help teams align, collaborate and make better decisions. And, we will continue to bring independent insight, challenge and partnership to the moments where it matters most.
Thank you to our clients, partners and colleagues for being part of this journey. We are excited for what comes next and look forward to supporting the teams who will shape the future of major project delivery.
On behalf of the team, we’d like to wish everyone a happy festive season and new year!
Dec 1, 2025 | 25 in 25, News and insight
As part of our 25in25 series, we’re highlighting the people who’ve helped shape our work this year. Today, we’re recognising Jim Abbatt, whose practical approach to interface mapping has supported several teams working in complex environments.
Jim has a real ability to make the important connections visible – helping people understand how their work fits together, where the pressure points sit, and what needs attention next. This work that often goes unseen but makes a noticeable difference to how teams operate day to day.
His spotlight reflects the thoughtful way he approaches collaboration and the impact he’s had across multiple programmes this year. Read on to find out more:
“Most of my work sits at the busy intersection of people, process and pressure. With ResoLex I help teams map the interfaces that matter, turn ambiguity into clarity, and create the conditions for better decisions. The aim is simple. Less noise around the work. More signal about what has to happen next.”
I first partnered with ResoLex because of the way the team thinks. The mix of disciplines is real, the curiosity is genuine, and the work is grounded in delivery rather than theory. On complex programmes, there are always frictions at the handovers: design into delivery, programme into project, engineering into commercial. Interface clarity makes those handovers visible. Once you can see the work, you can govern it, resource it and protect it.
“The value is not the map on the wall. It is the conversation the map unlocks. Roles get clearer. Risks surface sooner. Decisions happen at the right level, at the right time.”
This year, the focus has been on three things. First, agreeing on what “good” looks like for each critical interface, from information flow to decision rights. Second, building lightweight artefacts that teams actually use: simple RACI shifts, meeting cadences that respect time, and visual logs that track dependencies without creating admin. Third, strengthening the behaviours around the system so collaboration holds when the pressure rises.
“What I enjoy about ResoLex is the climate. It is psychologically safe to explore an idea, invite a challenge and refine it together. That is how you move from clever slides to practical outcomes.”
There have been several moments this year where seeing how parts of the organisation actually fit together, rather than how people assumed they fit, has prompted challenging conversations. The difference is that those conversations remained anchored to reality, rather than a desktop view, and that is where progress came from.
Results show up in the day-to-day. The time to decision shortens because owners are explicit. Reviews are more likely to go through the first time because expectations are aligned. Escalations are calmer because the path is agreed and visible. None of this is flashy. It is disciplined, humane, and quietly powerful.
“Complex programmes do not need more slogans. They need clearer interfaces, steadier rhythms and leaders who make it easy for others to do their best work. That is the craft I bring to ResoLex, and why I keep coming back.”
A thank you to Sam Platten and Richard DaGama, two excellent consultants, and to the broader team for their engagement. It has been a pleasure working together this year.
I am proud to work with a team that blends different backgrounds yet shares the same values. The ResoLex approach respects context, invites honesty and leaves clients with tools they can run without us. That suits me. Help people hear the signal, then help them own it.
We’re grateful to our Associates for bringing their expertise, living our values, and helping clients achieve their desired project outcomes.
To find out more about interface mapping, read our article ‘From Friction to Flow: The Power of Interface Mapping in Major Projects’ on our website.
