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 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.
Nov 7, 2025 | 25 in 25, Events, News and insight
ResoLex worked with the Crossrail East leadership team to embed a structured approach to behavioural risk management, collaboration, and leadership alignment. Using our RADAR methodology, we helped leaders recognise the direct connection between behaviours and project outcomes, creating a new reporting process that surfaced risks early and informed decision-making.
Crossrail East involved complex works along the eastern section of the route, including track upgrades, station improvements, and new facilities to increase train capacity and reliability. While technical challenges were well managed, the leadership team faced a less visible risk: how behaviours, culture, and team dynamics could influence delivery. Recognising this, the Project Director asked us to help strengthen alignment, build collaboration, and develop a reporting framework that could highlight issues before they escalated.
We began by gathering data across the project to establish a baseline of behavioural and project risks. Through confidential interviews, leaders were able to share perceptions openly, surfacing the issues that mattered most to them. These insights shaped a facilitated workshop where the leadership team collectively analysed root causes and prioritised 20 key risk areas. Importantly, they also identified positive and negative behavioural indicators, giving them tangible signs to track and address.
The outputs were built into a monthly monitoring cycle, with RADAR reports providing leading indicators of risk. These reports highlighted where perceptions varied significantly across the team, enabling the Programme Director to focus attention on alignment and shared understanding. Over time, RADAR became central to monthly strategy meetings, shaping agendas and guiding discussions, and giving the leadership team consistent visibility of behaviours and their impact on risk.
The approach quickly expanded beyond the leadership team to include the wider programme, supporting collaboration across Network Rail, Costain, and Signalling Solutions. The result was a stronger culture of accountability and transparency across the programme and supply chain.
As Project Director Ben Wheeldon reflected:
“To successfully deliver [one of] Europe’s largest infrastructure projects required us to clearly and succinctly identify, rationalise and manage a very unique and complex set of challenges, risks and opportunities. ResoLex not only helped us identify those which potentially had the biggest impacts but also prioritise them and develop, implement and monitor our mitigation plans.”
By embedding behavioural insights into governance and reporting, the Crossrail East leadership team gained a clear, structured way of surfacing risks and turning them into actionable insights. This gave leaders the tools to manage complexity with greater confidence, reduce misalignment, and strengthen collaborative decision-making.
Ultimately, the work helped the team move beyond individual perspectives to build a shared understanding of risks, creating the cultural conditions for resilient delivery on one of Europe’s most complex infrastructure programmes.
Oct 10, 2025 | 25 in 25, Events, News and insight
ResoLex partnered with the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the delivery of the Enterprise Centre, one of the UK’s most sustainable buildings. The project set out to achieve exceptional environmental performance, using innovative materials and construction methods to push the boundaries of what was possible.
From the outset, the ambition to deliver a Passivhaus-certified, BREEAM Outstanding building presented unique challenges. Success required close collaboration across a wide network of stakeholders, including UEA, its architects, contractors, local suppliers, and funding partners. Traditional risk registers were insufficient here: they capture technical and commercial risks but overlook those arising from human behaviour, organisational practices, and cultural dynamics. These “invisible risks” around alignment, trust, and collaboration had the potential to derail progress if not actively managed.
That’s where ResoLex came in. We supported the project team with regular workshops and facilitated engagement sessions that created a safe environment for open discussion and problem-solving. Central to this was our RADAR tool, which provided a confidential way for individuals to share perceptions of risk, collaboration, and communication. This data was analysed by an independent panel and fed back to the team through monthly reports, highlighting both emerging risks and positive behaviours.
During our involvement, RADAR provided leading indicators of risk, often giving the team 6-9 months’ early warning of potential issues. This allowed leaders to adjust quickly, prevent conflicts from escalating, and maintain alignment around shared objectives. Crucially, the anonymity of the process gave stakeholders confidence to be candid, surfacing issues that might otherwise have been buried.
The findings showed that risks linked to expectations, commercial negotiations, and the use of pioneering materials were identified and managed early. For example, RADAR flagged concerns around affordability, supply chain capability, and programme clarity months in advance, giving the leadership team time to resolve them collaboratively. As Professor John French, UEA Project Sponsor, later reflected:
“ResoLex’s RADAR platform provided us with real insight into our scheme, allowing us to capture the views of all involved on the project. This ensured we were able to tackle issues early, reduce conflicts, and ultimately save time and money.”
The impact went beyond traditional project measures of cost, time, and quality. By embedding continuous feedback and collaboration into governance, the team developed stronger relationships and created a culture of trust and accountability. This cultural alignment was a critical factor in the successful delivery of a world-class facility that continues to be celebrated for its sustainability.
The project demonstrated that sustainable construction is built on sustainable relationships, and that behavioural risk management can be as important as technical expertise in achieving ambitious outcomes.
Oct 8, 2025 | News and insight
The University of Southampton has just released a paper Clienting in Major Projects: Beyond Outputs, Towards Outcomes. The paper presents a Clienting Framework for Major Projects that adopts a systems-based approach designed to help clients shift from buying assets to stewarding measurable outcomes. It has been great to be part of this valuable research alongside the University of Southampton and Emma-Jane Houghton.
The framework identifies six dimensions that move clients beyond transactional control towards outcome-focused orchestration:
- Purpose and outcomes – clarity of intent anchored in measurable value
- Governance and decision rights – authority that follows information, not hierarchy
- Client organisation and capability – lean but credible cores that blend technical and behavioural strength
- Procurement and contracting – incentives aligned to value, not volume
- Relationships and ecosystem – clients as trusted brokers within systems of delivery
- Methods, data and digital – shared evidence that builds confidence and enables adaptation
“Effective clients orchestrate collaboration”
The paper’s core finding is that clients must orchestrate ecosystems, providing the leadership that convenes suppliers, users, regulators, and sponsors, rather than attempting to control every detail from the centre. It outlines how weaknesses in any one area can systematically erode outcomes and offers recommendations, diagnostic questions, and vignettes illustrating how orchestration practices work.
ResoLex’s perspective
Major projects change places and lives, but too often they deliver assets, not the promised benefits. The University’s research echoes what we see in practice: outcomes fade when clienting focuses on outputs, not value creation. This is particularly evident when governance expands into bureaucracy and ineffective ways of working create decision-making latency, slowing delivery into paralysis.
For 25 years, ResoLex have supported major programmes to build the relational and behavioural foundations that enable technical and commercial excellence to flourish. The research validates what we experience daily: that the key to performance is not more governance, but better collaboration, shaped through trust, clarity, and shared purpose.
“Approaches grounded mainly in technical and procedural competence are increasingly ill-suited to the complexity of today’s projects”
At ResoLex, our work is about designing the relational and behavioural systems that prevent that fade, so technical and commercial excellence can actually produce the benefits intended. These principles echo our belief that collaboration must be designed, not assumed, through deliberate structures, behaviours, and feedback loops that align intent across diverse actors throughout the project lifecycle.
Our reflections
From our experience supporting some of the UK’s largest programmes, we see three priorities for clients seeking to act on the University of Southampton’s insight:
- Build relational capability early – create the operating environment that enables teams to work at pace and with candour
- Design governance for timely and effective decision making – empower the right people, with the right data to make the decision, and not descending into a pseudo collaborative culture of rule by committee
- Invest in being a ‘Client of Choice’ – predictability, trust, and a clear sense of purpose will attract better partners and unlock the potential of collective problem-solving to drive outcomes
Looking ahead
We are proud to have supported the development of this important research and look forward to developing a practical guide for clients. This seeks to translate the framework into actionable tools, techniques, and behavioural enablers for those delivering complex programmes.
Our shared ambition is simple: to help clients move beyond control to orchestration, creating delivery ecosystems that are aligned, adaptive, and capable of achieving the transformational outcomes society needs.
Read the full paper here: Clienting in Major Projects: Beyond Outputs, Towards Outcomes
Sep 11, 2025 | 25 in 25, News and insight
We are back with another Associate Spotlight. As part of our continued 25th birthday celebrations, we have been asking our Associates why they choose to work with us and contribute to the projects we support. Here is
Christian Lippiatt’s story:
“Over two decades ago, I took on a small project with ResoLex that sparked a deep interest in collaborative working. That initial experience led me into the NHS, where I spent the next 20 years immersed in transformation and service improvement.
More recently, I made the move into freelancing and was thrilled when Ed, ResoLex’s Chief Executive, invited me to rejoin the team. That was over 18 months ago, and I’ve since been supporting the New Hospital Programme, a project that aligns closely with my passion for enabling positive change in the NHS.
What continues to stand out for me is the way ResoLex works. The team brings together a rich mix of backgrounds and experiences, and yet shares a common set of values that make collaboration both meaningful and effective.
The values of Insight and Creativity deeply resonate with my own approach to teamwork and collaboration. I believe that when every team member is empowered to contribute their perspective, and when we take the time to truly understand the context and needs of a project, we unlock the potential for meaningful, tailored solutions. Insight allows us to move beyond generic approaches and co-create with purpose, while creativity ensures that each person’s unique strengths are harnessed. When these values are embraced, the team’s output becomes far greater than the sum of its parts -driven by shared understanding, diverse thinking, and a collective commitment to excellence.
Working alongside such a thoughtful and values-driven team has been incredibly rewarding, and I look forward to continuing this journey and making a positive impact together.”
We’re grateful to our Associates for bringing their expertise, living our values, and helping clients achieve their desired project outcomes. We’ll continue to share some of their stories and other news on our LinkedIn.
