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The finding that changes the conversation
For decades, the infrastructure sector has diagnosed delivery failure as a technical problem. Investment has followed accordingly: better scheduling software, more rigorous cost controls, faster approvals, smarter contract frameworks. Yet the headline numbers have barely moved.
The new research, titled 'Designed to Deliver' reaches a different conclusion. Across 60 structured interviews with project owners, contractors, programme directors and government sponsors, one finding emerged with striking consistency: inter-organisational relationships are not a soft backdrop to infrastructure delivery. They are a primary causal variable in whether projects succeed or fail.
As one senior leader put it: “We have not yet found a successful project that had a failed critical relationship.”
Yet despite this, 97% of infrastructure organisations do not systematically measure relationship health on major programmes. They measure cost variance, schedule performance, and safety incidents. The variable that most consistently explains outcomes remains untracked, unmanaged, and absent from most risk registers.
A partnership built on shared evidence
The research was produced in partnership with PMI, whose Pulse of the Profession 2026 report provides important supporting context: 81% of project professionals report that projects have become significantly more complex, and organisations that effectively manage complexity are five times more likely to achieve successful outcomes. The joint publication reflects a shared view that the next frontier in infrastructure performance is not technical, but relational.
“97% of infrastructure organisations do not systematically measure relationship health on major programmes. They measure cost. They measure schedule. They don’t measure the variable most likely to determine whether the project delivers.”
— Research finding, Designed to Deliver, MIGSO-PCUBED x PMI x UCL
From insight to practice: Relationalrisk
For infrastructure leaders, the implications are practical and immediate. Relationship health can be defined, structured, measured, and managed. The barriers are not technical. They are organisational a willingness to recognise what the data has long suggested: that the gap between planned and actual delivery is, more often than not, a relationship gap.
“This research confirms what the highest-performing programmes already know intuitively: relationships are a delivery variable, not a cultural nicety. Our partnership with PMI and UCL gives that insight the rigour and reach it deserves. We now have the evidence base, the framework, and the tools to help infrastructure organisations make relationship health a measurable, manageable part of how they deliver.”
Thank you for the contributions …
