Behind every successful infrastructure project or programme lies a small group of people who quietly make it all work — the planners, engineers, designers, constructors, commercial leads, and delivery managers who hold the deep project and programme knowledge that keeps progress moving.
But it’s not only technical expertise that determines success — it’s leadership continuity and development. The leaders who create the right environment, shape culture, make complex decisions, and align diverse organisations around a common purpose, goals and objectives are equally critical. Leadership drives culture which translates into performance. It is the single biggest lever you can pull in driving improved outcomes.
When either critical technical specialists or key leaders leave a project or programme of works without structured succession planning, the ripple effects are significant. That’s why succession planning and critical role retention are not just people and culture tasks — they are strategic priorities of both the Board and the Project Management team that underpin the stability, performance, and long-term success of every major infrastructure project or programme of works. Furthermore, it needs to be in the Top 3 priorities of any Project Board in ensuring they have visibility and sufficient lead time on the key strategies to attract, retain and engage their top end talent on their project.
Why This Matters
Large-scale projects and programmes of work are complex systems and processes built on human capital. Over time, individuals accumulate unique institutional and industry knowledge — technical insights, stakeholder relationships, decision logic, and contextual understanding that can’t be replicated overnight. We can put in place clear ways of working, systems and processes and other key strategies but the reality is that we still have a lot of tacit knowledge in our key people.
The loss of these individuals can lead to:
- Decision paralysis and reduced delivery efficiency.
- Loss of project or programme memory and lessons learned.
- Erosion of culture and team cohesion.
- Reduced client, stakeholder confidence and trust.
- Ineffective leadership.
- Increased cost and risk from avoidable rework.
In short, people risk is delivery risk which translates into margin erosion, additional costs and potential quality challenges. And the most effective organisations and large projects and programmes plan for both technical and leadership succession as part of their overall capability and performance strategy.
Beyond Technical Roles – The Importance of Leadership Succession
While technical succession for critical technical roles is essential to continuity, leadership succession determines whether a project can sustain momentum through inevitable planned or unplanned change.
In every programme or major project delivery team, there are key leadership roles that anchor performance — the Alliance Manager, Project Director, Commercial Manager, Construction Manager, Design Manager, Construction Lead, People and Culture Manager, Community and Stakeholder Manager and functional technical leaders just to name a few who set tone and direction.
Losing one of these leaders without a clear plan creates turbulence, uncertainty, and loss of confidence not only at a programme or project level but client and board level.
Effective leadership succession planning ensures:
- Continuity of culture – maintaining the “way we work” that underpins alliance performance. This includes operating models, management plans, systems, processes and other ways of working.
- Consistency of decision-making – ensuring clarity, speed of decision making and approvals during transitions including transparent governance and forward plans that outline what decisions need to be made by who and when.
- Sustained relationships – especially with the owner, non-owner participants, supply chain, partners, and community stakeholders.
- Capability uplift – through training, development, shadowing, mentoring, and knowledge transfer between generations of leaders.
Succession planning isn’t just about replacing people; it’s about building leadership resilience so projects can evolve without losing their DNA.
Taking a Strategic and Structured Approach
The most effective programmes or large projects integrate succession planning into their governance and Board forward plan framework. They treat it as part of the project’s capability management system — reviewed, discussed, and tracked with the same importance as safety, cost, quality and schedule.
A practical approach involves identifying and mapping both technical and leadership critical roles using criteria such as:
- Criticality of the Role – What wouldn’t happen if this role became vacant?
- Depth of Knowledge – How much unique context or history sits with the person?
- Impact and Influence – How essential is their decision-making or leadership presence?
- Succession Risk – Is there someone ready internally, or will we need external recruitment?
- Relationships and Reputation – Who relies on them externally and internally? Who is important to keep managing critical to the programme or project?
From there, succession and retention plans are tailored for the most critical roles — ensuring alignment between leadership development, training, workforce planning, and project outcomes.
Building the Bench: Retention and Development in Action
Identifying the right people is only the first step. The real value comes from building a sustainable leadership and technical pipeline that not just benefits the project but the wider industry.
This includes:
- Understudy or deputy roles for key leaders to enable training, development, shadowing and exposure to governance forums.
- Cross-functional development for technical staff to broaden their project understanding.
- Mentoring and coaching to grow future leaders within the programme or project.
- Secondments across partner or home organisations to share knowledge and build relationships.
- Recognition and visibility to reinforce that technical excellence and leadership growth are valued equally.
Succession planning and retention are not separate — they’re complementary. Retention protects today’s delivery; succession ensures tomorrow’s capability.
Leadership Accountability and Regular Governance Reporting
For succession planning to succeed, it must be owned and governed — not simply administered. Leadership teams (Project Boards, AMT, PAB, or Project Steering Committees) must be regularly informed about capability continuity and succession risks.
The most effective programmes and large projects embed succession and retention reporting into their monthly governance rhythm, covering:
- Current status of critical roles and identified successors.
- Development actions completed or underway.
- Key retention risks and mitigation plans.
- Emerging leaders identified and being developed.
This visibility keeps the topic front of mind for decision-makers, allows early intervention, and reinforces that people continuity is a board-level responsibility — not a background HR or People and Culture activity.
Regular reporting also builds transparency between delivery partners/non owner participants and the owner, demonstrating that the programme or large project is proactively managing its most important asset — its people.
Future-Proofing the Sector
The Australasian infrastructure pipeline faces a major leadership and technical capability challenge over the next decade. Projects are getting larger, more complex, and more integrated — while the available pool of experienced leaders and specialists is shrinking.
That makes internal succession planning not just a project necessity, but an industry responsibility. Every project that invests in developing its people — from site engineers, key technical staff to senior managers — contributes to a stronger, more resilient sector.
When we build leadership capacity alongside infrastructure capacity, we create enduring public value broader than just dollars and cents. It also ties into what you think your legacy of large projects or programmes is in terms of both the assets you build and operate and the people you develop during the life of the programme or project. Both are equally important.
Succession planning is not an annual exercise — it’s an ongoing leadership mindset. It protects the technical heart and the leadership soul of major infrastructure programs and projects.
When organisations deliberately grow their people, share knowledge across generations, and report progress transparently to their boards, they do more than deliver programmes and projects — they build the capability of a nation or wider geographic location given the portability of people across jurisdictions.
Because the future of infrastructure delivery doesn’t depend on the next programme or project — it depends on the next generation of people ready to lead it.
