When Everyone Is Busy, but Nothing Is Decided

Why cross-functional collaboration breaks down in early projects and why it no longer works

In the early stages of most projects, activity is not the problem.

• Engineering teams are designing.

• Finance teams are modelling.

• Delivery teams are planning.

  
  

From the outside, it looks like momentum. Internally, it feels like progress.

But when projects later stall, overrun, or get cancelled, the same question keeps coming up:

Why didn’t we see this earlier?

The uncomfortable answer is usually not that the information was missing. It’s that it never came together in the SAME room, at the SAME time, with the RIGHT PEOPLE.

The illusion of progress

There is a well-documented cognitive bias known as the progress illusion. We think because we are doing the work - it means we are making a progress. Producing outputs (such as deliverables) feels safe. Making shared decisions feels exposed.

Peter Drucker captured this perfectly when he said:

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

! Early project phases are often full of efficient work but very little collective sense-making.

How this shows up in energy projects

In energy developments, this pattern often starts with strong technical work keeping the momentum going.

• Reservoir studies progress.

• Concept layouts are refined.

• Cost estimates are built.

Each discipline does excellent work but largely in SEQUENCE or in parallel, NOT in dialogue.

Engineering optimises a technically elegant solution. Finance tests the economics. Commercial teams negotiate terms once the concept feels “mature.”

By the time these perspectives collide, the project has already taken shape.

Assumptions about recoverable volumes, possible revenue streams, or market access have quietly become givens.

When prices or a policy shifts or technical limits are reached, the response is often surprise - even though the signals were there from the beginning.

What about Mining projects?

Mining projects frequently suffer from a similar pattern, especially during expansions or brownfield developments.

• Geology identifies upside.

• Processing engineers design for throughput.

• Operations focus on reliability.

  
  

Each function optimises its part.

But early cross-functional conversations about trade-off (e.g. grade versus recovery), throughput versus variability, capital efficiency versus operational flexibility are often postponed.

Instead of collective FRAMING, teams rely on HANDOVERS.

When issues later emerge such as lower recoveries, higher operating costs, unexpected constraints - these are treated as execution problems. In reality, they were early decision problems that were never explored together.

What about Renewables?

In renewables, the pressure to move fast amplifies the issues.

Projects race from site control to interconnection applications to offtake negotiations.

• Yield assumptions are locked in early.

• Technology choices are made under time pressure.

• Decisions are often made under political pressure

  
  

Engineering, grid specialists, commercial teams, and developers often work in SILOS to meet aggressive timelines.

The result?

Projects that look viable on paper but struggle with big risks that were not fully understood, PPA (power purchase agreements) structures that don’t match operational realities, social and political pressure to show progress and supply chain and market price assumptions that can change when the market changes (or are too optimistic from the start).

When these risks appear, teams say, “No one could have predicted this.” In many cases, someone did but not in a forum where it could shape the decision.

Why people retreat into their own lanes

This lack of collaboration is rarely about ego or incompetence. It’s driven by predictable human and organisational forces.

People are rewarded for FUNCTIONAL EXCELLENCE, not for slowing down to integrate perspectives. Confirmation bias pushes teams to seek information that supports the emerging narrative. Authority bias discourages challenge in top-down environments.

Add cognitive overload and people naturally default to what they know best.

They think ALONE, then report later.

Why this model no longer works

This approach made sense in a world where projects were linear, scope was relatively stable, technology evolved slowly, and consequences unfolded over years.

That world is gone.

Today’s projects operate in environments where assumptions expire quickly, risks cascade across systems, and decisions become irreversible far earlier than teams realise.

McKinsey research consistently shows that the majority of large capital projects underperform, not because teams fail to execute, but because critical trade-offs are never resolved early.

Parallel work without shared decision-making no longer creates speed. It creates early lock-in.

Why AI makes the problem worse 

This gap becomes even more dangerous when organisations try to “fix” it with AI.

AI can optimise models, accelerate analysis, and surface patterns faster than any team ever could.

But AI does NOT create shared understanding. It amplifies whatever assumptions, boundaries, and decisions already exist - THEY CAN BE right or wrong.

When teams lack early cross-functional alignment, AI doesn’t resolve the confusion. It AMPLIFIES IT.

• Engineering feeds one set of assumptions.

• Finance feeds another.

• Commercial teams optimise against a different objective altogether.
  

The result is faster output not better decisions.

In organisations without early framing and shared dialogue, AI often accelerates lock-in.

It gives teams confidence in answers to questions that were never agreed on in the first place. Instead of challenging assumptions, AI can make them look precise, validated, and unquestionable.

In that context, “streamlining with AI” doesn’t reduce risk. It moves teams more quickly toward decisions they never consciously made together.

The cost of staying in your head

When cross-functional collaboration doesn’t happen early, the same pattern repeats.

Teams stay busy. Documents multiply. Assumptions remain implicit. Decisions are deferred.

By the time alignment is forced - often at a gate or crisis - the real choices are already gone.

As one executive told me after a painful post-project review:

“We answered all the questions. Just not together.”

I’ve seen this play out repeatedly

I’ve facilitated lessons-learned sessions across energy projects where teams traced major overruns back to risks that were visible from day one.

The information existed. The risks were known. The signals were present.

What was missing was an early moment where the right people paused together and asked:

What does this mean across the whole system?

That pause never happened.

Why the next generation is pushing back

This is where generational expectations are starting to matter.

Gen Z professionals are far less comfortable with siloed ownership, opaque decision-making, and being asked to execute without context.

They expect transparency, inclusion in early conversations, and clarity about why decisions are made and not just what needs to be delivered.

They are willing to challenge assumptions but only if the system allows it.

Many organisations still don’t.

What works instead

The answer isn’t more meetings or heavier process.

What works is intentional, early cross-functional framing.

Bringing the right disciplines together early and not to solve everything, but to surface assumptions explicitly, raise issues safely, explore trade-offs, understand what becomes irreversible, and decide on measures of success, roadmap, draft stakeholders map and what actually needs to be decided now.

Not every conversation leads to a decision. But every good decision requires the right conversation.

The real shift

The most effective organisations don’t collaborate more. They collaborate earlier.

They understand that progress is not measured by how much work is done but by how clearly choices are made.

In complex projects, the most dangerous signal isn’t uncertainty.

It’s when everyone is busy and no one is deciding.