When major infrastructure projects fail, the diagnosis is almost always the same: coordination broke down. Misaligned objectives. Too many stakeholders. Too many handoffs [and dependencies]. Too many moving parts [with unclear ownership of risk].

According to Gord Reynolds, that diagnosis is comforting, familiar, and wrong.

The problem is not that people are unwilling to coordinate. The problem is that we keep asking coordination to compensate for a system that makes failure the default outcome.

Coordination is treated as a behavioral challenge when it is, in reality, a structural one.

The coordination illusion

In post-mortems and progress updates, coordination is often framed as a matter of effort. If teams communicated more. If meetings were better run. If information flowed more freely. If everyone simply worked together.

But Reynolds has watched this play out too many times to accept that explanation.

Well-intentioned people show up. Working groups form. Memorandums are signed. Dashboards are circulated. And still, projects stall, costs rise, and risks surface late, when they are hardest to fix.

The issue is not a lack of goodwill. It is that the rules governing how infrastructure is planned, designed, and delivered are outdated. We are trying to manage modern, interconnected systems using frameworks built for a different era.

No amount of coordination can overcome rules that make critical information optional, accountability diffuse, and early truth-telling inconvenient.

The hidden work that decides outcomes

What actually determines success on complex infrastructure projects happens long before construction begins, and often outside the spotlight.

It is the work of establishing shared standards. Of agreeing on authoritative data sources. Of defining who has the power to make decisions when trade-offs arise. Of surfacing conflicts early, when they are still cheap to resolve.

This work is invisible when it is done well. When it is missing, its absence becomes painfully visible later.

The problem is that under current governance models, this hidden work is rarely required. It is encouraged, sometimes praised, but not enforced. When schedules tighten or political pressure mounts, it is the first thing to be deferred.

Coordination then becomes a substitute for structure. Meetings replace mandates. Alignment replaces accountability. And dysfunction is quietly organized rather than eliminated.

Why the rules matter more than effort

Reynolds challenges the assumption that better behavior alone can fix infrastructure delivery. In his view, the system itself must change.

Other jurisdictions have already recognized this. Countries that have made meaningful progress did not simply ask people to coordinate more effectively. They changed the rules.

They mandated shared data standards. They required participation in national asset registries. They treated digital representations of infrastructure as core public assets, not optional add-ons. In doing so, they reduced ambiguity, surfaced conflicts earlier, and forced decisions to happen when they could still influence outcomes.

The lesson is not technological. The tools already exist. The lesson is institutional.

As long as participation in shared systems is voluntary, coordination will depend on personalities rather than process. And when personalities change, progress evaporates.

Infrastructure digitalisation as accountability

Reynolds is clear that infrastructure digitalisation is not a buzzword, and it is not innovation theatre. It is what happens when leaders stop waiting for perfect information and start using the tools already available to manage reality as it is.

Digital twins, for example, are often misunderstood. They are not about forcing agreement or eliminating conflict.

“Digital twins aren’t about agreement,” Reynolds says. “They’re about dialogue. You don’t eliminate conflict by ignoring reality.”

When done properly, digital tools sharpen coordination by removing excuses. They force earlier truth-telling. They make it harder to hide behind ambiguity or defer responsibility until it is too late.

They do not replace judgment. They expose where judgment is required.

This is why practical efforts to standardize data, mandate sharing, and embed digital practices into delivery matter. Not because they are clever, but because they make accountability unavoidable.

Leadership beyond expertise

These views did not emerge from ideology or theory. They were shaped by watching real projects sink into bureaucratic quicksand while everyone involved worked hard and meant well.

“These insights weren’t born from ideology,” Reynolds says. “They were born from watching real projects sink into bureaucratic quicksand. After a while, you develop a focused impatience with anything that blocks progress.”

That impatience is not about speed for its own sake. It is about discipline. About refusing to accept systems that reward delay, obscure responsibility, and normalize preventable failure.

Leadership, in this context, is not about better facilitation. It is about having the courage to change the rules so that coordination becomes embedded, not optional.

Delivery, not coordination, is the goal

Coordination is a means, not an outcome. Delivery is what matters.

If we want infrastructure that performs better, costs less, and fails less often, we have to stop treating information as a privilege and start treating it as infrastructure. We have to stop managing dysfunction through meetings and start designing systems that make success easier than failure.

Better coordination alone will never get us there.

Different rules might.