Delivering large infrastructure projects or programmes is never just about engineering — it’s about alignment and joining up all the pieces of the project puzzle. When teams, governance, culture, and purpose align, programmes and projects thrive. When they don’t, even the best leadership and technical expertise can’t compensate.

Good programmes and projects deliberately think through the operating model and ways of working from the start designing it for success. Its Operating Model, ways of working and Governance, Interface and Relationship Plans establishes the “rules of engagement” — defining how partners collaborate, how decisions are made, and how people lead and perform together in an operating environment clear on expectations and outcomes right from the start.

It’s a model that all infrastructure programmes and projects can learn from.

1. Purpose: Delivering Public Value through Partnership

The foundation of any programme or projects operating model is a clear purpose: to deliver public value or value for money which the nuances of what this means in practice should be tailored for every project or programme.

The purpose should go beyond physical infrastructure. Every decision should be guided by Public Value or value-for-money principles — ensuring the right balance between cost, quality, and public benefit across the programme or project lifecycle.  The weightings of what is important should be thought through and vary for each project or programme.  This thinking up front is important as this ensures that we are clear on what is important at what stage of the programme or project.

This purpose should anchor the operating model. It ensures that every decision — commercial, technical, quality, stakeholder or cultural — is tested against the same question: “Does this create value for the community and deliver on our shared intent?”

2. Partnership with Key Stakeholders and Partners

One of the most defining elements of this model is its embedded partnership with key stakeholders and partners. Rather than treating stakeholder engagement and partnering as a separate workstream, partner and stakeholder relationships are woven through every layer of the governance and operating model structure.

Through your infrastructure delivery agencies or Programme or Project Partnership Strategy, the operating model should formalise partner involvement in planning, design, and decision-making of your project or programme of works. This reflects a shift from consultation to collaboration — acknowledging your partners values, drivers and behaviours as central to infrastructure delivery.

This partnership and stakeholder model ensures early and ongoing engagement in governance, planning and design, builds mutual capability, and fosters shared ownership and legacy.

3. Governance: Alignment, Clarity, and Empowerment

A high-performing project requires clear and disciplined governance — strategic, not bureaucratic.  Focused on forward planning and decisions moving from reactive to proactive due to forward looking visibility.

A good programme or project governance model creates multiple but connected layers of governance to ensure alignment across agencies, project governance and leadership groups:

• Client Board – Provides ultimate accountability and strategic direction.
• Broader Governance Groups – Ensures alignment with wider programme or project portfolio priorities across an infrastructure delivery agency.
• Project Boards – Empowered to make the decisions and approvals required to move your Programme and project at pace.
• Project Director and Leadership Team – Leads day-to-day decision-making and delivery execution.
• Assurance and Support Functions – Provide independent oversight, assurance and technical challenge when required.
• Others as required depending on the needs of the partners and client.

This structure creates a vertical thread of alignment — connecting strategy, culture, and delivery. Crucially, it is empowerment-based governance: decisions are pushed to the lowest practical level, ensuring accountability, speed and ownership.  Issue resolution is encouraged focused on ensuring people are clear on the need to move at pace together finding solutions to the challenges the project or programme is facing.

4. Leadership and Culture: The Heart of High Performance

The operating model is underpinned by a leadership, values and behavioural framework that defines what great looks like in practice.

Leadership expectations include acting as one team, early collaboration, making decisions quickly and transparently, creating a culture of trust and respect and leading through values and associated behaviours rather than hierarchy

These principles ensure that how people lead is as important as what they deliver, building the culture that holds structure and process together.

5. Decision-Making: Fast, Informed, and Accountable

Decision-making on any project or programme should follow the principle of clarity and empowerment. Each level of the governance model is responsible for specific types of decisions, ensuring that strategic decisions sit with governance, tactical and operational decisions are owned by the programme or project team, and issues are escalated only when necessary.

A Decision-Making Framework guides how information flows upward and accountability flows downward — enabling speed without sacrificing rigour. By defining decision rights early, the project avoids duplication, delays and over-governance.

6. Operating Model Design: One Team, One Purpose

The operating model should bring together multiple entities into a single integrated team.

Key design principles include:

• Co-location to foster collaboration and shared context.
• Shared systems and communication platforms to ensure transparency.
• Joint planning and reporting processes to create alignment.
• Clear interfaces between governance, leadership and delivery to avoid overlap.
• Strong performance rhythms to maintain discipline.
• A clear way of working in terms of meetings, decisions, forward plans and a strong focus on being proactive rather than reactive in our approach taking into account the need to be flexible.

This integrated model replaces ‘us and them’ thinking with ‘we’ — everyone is responsible for results, the hallmark of a true one team mindset.

7. Assurance and Continuous Improvement

The project or programme governance model should build in independent assurance and feedback loops. Regular reviews, gateway processes and performance reporting identify emerging risks and opportunities early and promote continuous improvement.

These assurance functions are not about compliance — they are about learning and building resilience. They provide leaders with visibility of performance and support evidence-based decisions.

8. The Operating Rhythm: Turning Structure into Performance

Structure alone does not create high performance — rhythm does. The operating model defines an operating rhythm that connects strategy, operations, leadership and culture through consistent engagement.

This includes:

• Weekly leadership and delivery forums for alignment.
• Monthly governance and performance reviews for oversight.
• Structured reporting and dashboards for transparency.
• Collaboration opportunities across the team.
• Regular team reflections and lessons-learned sessions to reinforce improvement.

This rhythm builds trust, consistency and a sense of forward momentum.

The operating model and ways of working approach demonstrates what happens when governance, leadership, and culture are intentionally designed to work together.

Its operating model doesn’t just describe how the project or programme is managed — it defines how people behave, decide and deliver in pursuit of a shared purpose that helps drive collective objectives and outcomes.

When structure, culture and partnership align, projects and programmes of work don’t just deliver infrastructure — they build legacy. That is the true power of a well-designed operating model.

A special thanks to my colleague Heath Colebatch from BRS who inspired this blog. Heath works with our clients to embed their programme and project operating models early to ensure their teams are set up for success from the start with clear ways of working and a comprehensive operating model that is aligned with all partners and stakeholders.