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515 km. Five Years. Again, no Steering Committee Therapy
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1959 Japan started building a high-speed railway between Tokyo and Osaka. 515 kilometres. A completely new railway system. New tracks. New trains. New technology. By October 1964, passengers were travelling at over 200 km/h. Five and a half years. No AI, folks. No digital twins. And of course, no PowerPoint presentations explaining why delivery was becoming increasingly complicated. Just a country with a clear objective. And, of course, people determined to achieve it instead of jumping onto reasons why it’s not feasible. Now, before you get too excited, grab the popcorns. The project wasn't perfect. The original budget was hopelessly optimistic. Costs almost doubled… a business as usual these days, but in those times and in Japan, that blow was a major. The guys doing the project had disagreements. Technical challenges. Financial problems. Political pressure. And plenty of reasons to delay. Yet the objective remained clear. Build the railway. Open it before the Tokyo Olympics. Make it work. And they did. Today, we have extraordinary technology. Better equipment. More sophisticated contracts. More consultants. More governance. And approximately seventeen committees to decide whether another committee is necessary. But we're often missing something considerably more important. Alignment, and focus. The government wants one thing. The client wants another. The contractor is incentivised to do something else. The designers optimise their own scope. The financiers protect their position. And the Project Director spends Monday to Friday explaining to everyone why nobody agrees. Then we appoint an Integration Manager. And an Independent Advisor. And perhaps a Relationship Consultant. Welcome to kindergarten. Look. Infrastructure doesn't move at the speed of technology. It moves at the speed of decisions. And no amount of sophisticated governance can compensate for a lack of common purpose. If you're a CEO, Project Director or Board Member wondering why your project is moving so slowly, perhaps the problem isn't your delivery team. Perhaps it's the room where the decisions are supposed to happen. If you need a hand with that, click below.
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Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
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