The Hidden Cause Behind Delays and Cost Overruns
We often read about schedule delays, cost overruns, or major conflicts in projects. When we ask for the reasons, we find a whole chain of causes, often closely linked. But if you analyze the project process carefully, one key issue appears: wrong decisions.
Decisions -and how they are prepared- have fascinated me ever since I started in airport planning 20 years ago. One reason is probably my earlier MBA management studies, where alongside strategy and innovation, there was a strong focus on systemic organizational behaviour and consulting. One main thing I learned there is observing carefully how organisations act.
Why Decision-Making Is Still Underrated
No one would say decisions are unimportant. Yet strangely, they are treated as a side topic in most project management training. The assumption seems to be that experienced managers already know how to make decisions.
Maybe. But my observation over the last 20 years is different: Especially many architects and engineers are outstanding professionals but still prepare critical decisions too intuitively or not properly at all, simply because they were never taught how.
And in projects as complex as airports, the challenge of decision-making only grows.
Three Typical Patterns of Poor Decisions
The most common consequence of weak decision preparation is simple:
the decision is not taken when the project actually needs it. Difficult decisions put steering comitees under pressure and the easiest way for them to play this back to the project is claiming missing information.
Two other patterns which appear frequently:
- Under-complex Decisions: made based on a perspective that is far too narrow, for example project cost alone. These decisions often happen if one part of a steering committee has relevant more power than the others. Often such decisions are not sustainable enough and must revisited later, creating extra effort for the project.
- Paradoxical decisions: For example: “We need to cut costs by 15%, but quality must remain unchanged” In reality, this is not a decision at all. It often happens when there is not too much power concentrated in the decision-making body, but too little. In trying to satisfy everyone, the group ends up producing a compromise that avoids the real trade-offs.
How to Prepare Better Project Decisions (5 Practical Steps)
A good decision does not start in the meeting itself. It starts much earlier — with disciplined decision preparation.
In my experience, good decision preparation has at least five essential steps:
1. Bring the topic to the decision-making body early enough
Critical topics should not appear on the agenda as a surprise. The decision-making body needs early visibility: What is the issue? Why does it matter? Why does it need to be decided now? And what is the risk if no decision is made at this point?
This early framing is essential. It creates awareness, gives people time to think, and reduces the likelihood that an important decision is delayed simply because stakeholders feel unprepared.
2. Prepare the decision carefully and transparently
A strong recommendation is not enough on its own. Decision-makers need to understand the logic behind it. That means developing a clear storyline: what problem must be solved, which alternatives were examined, and on what basis they were assessed.
Just as important is showing the trade-offs. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each option? What are the cost implications? What is the impact on schedule? What are the operational consequences?
Especially in airport projects, where technical, operational, commercial, and political interests often overlap, a decision can only be robust if these dimensions are made visible and comparable.
3. Build alignment before the meeting
This is the part many people underestimate. I call it “political engineering.” Not in a negative sense, but as a recognition that decisions in complex organizations are rarely made on facts alone.
Stakeholders need to be brought along in advance. Concerns need to be understood early. Possible resistance needs to be identified before the formal decision meeting. In many cases, the real work is not only preparing the slides, but preparing the room.
If key people enter the meeting already aligned on the problem, the options, and the recommended direction, the quality and speed of the decision improve dramatically.
4. Rehearse the decision discussion
For important decisions, a kind of dress rehearsal is extremely valuable. This means testing the storyline, challenging the recommendation, and anticipating the critical questions that are likely to come from the decision-making body.
Where are the weak points in the argument? Which assumptions will be challenged? Which stakeholder may object — and why?
A rehearsal helps sharpen the message, close gaps in logic, and ensure the team is ready to respond with clarity and confidence.
5. Deliver the presentation with focus and discipline
In the end, the presentation itself still matters. A decision presentation is not a data dump. It is not a technical report. Ist a clear story with a focus: a clear problem statement, a structured comparison of alternatives, a transparent recommendation, and a crisp explanation of the consequences of acting — or not acting.
If the presentation is overloaded, unclear, or avoids the real trade-offs, even a well-prepared topic can fail at the final step.
Taken together, these steps make one thing very clear: decision-making is not just a leadership talent. It is also a process capability. And in airport planning, where complexity is high and the cost of delay is enormous, this capability can make the difference between project momentum and project paralysis.
Case study: when a 100million Euro project fails in the first 10 slides
At a major German airport, a terminal’s entire ventilation and air conditioning system had to be replaced. Built around 1974, the system was nearly 40 years old.
The project team -supported by external planners- spent a full year developing a concept to replace the system under live operations. Estimated cost: 100 million Euro.
They did everything right: Thorough technical analysis. Ambitious goals. A more efficient, environmentally friendly system. Detailed cost estimate. All explained in a 60-slide presentation. But in the meeting they never made it past slide 10.
The moment it broke
The CFO asked a simple question:“What’s the return on investment?”, The team pushed back. Quite emotionally: “This isn’t about ROI. This is about preventing technical failure by a completely outdated system.”.
What followed was a short, heated exchange. The project team diverted into a detailed explanations why from a technical point of view there was no other option. But the meeting was stopped.
The message from management was clear:“Rework the proposal so we can actually understand the problem and we want a more economic solution.”
What the slides didn’t show
At the time, I was part of a project management consulting team brought in for critical situations like this. So we started with one simple step: understand the real problem.
In a long discussion with the project manager, a very different picture emerged:
- The system was controlled by outdated pneumatic technology.
- The original manufacturer no longer existed.
- If something failed, only two people could fix it—both already retired.
- They were called in when needed and worked for a few days to keep things running.
So we asked the key question: What happens if they are no longer available? The answer: “In the worst case, we would have to shut down major part of the ventilation system -and most likely the entire terminal!”
From technical proposal to real understanding of risk
The issue was never the technical solution. The issue was that no one had truly understood the risk. So we rebuilt the story – from scratch. Instead of explaining the new system, we made the problem impossible to ignore:
- What does 1974 technology mean?
We showed it – with images: a car from this time, one of the first mobile phones (large as a small suitcase), a musician from that era (pretty wild looking!). - What does “unmaintainable” look like?
A photo of the actual control cabinet with all the old pneumatic plastic pipes…and the fact that it could no longer be repaired. - What happens if it fails?
Clear, tangible operational and financial consequences.
Make it real and tangible
Before the next meeting, we did one more thing: We invited the CFO to the site. In the basement of the terminal, he saw the system with his own eyes. The old control units. The aging equipment (it turned out, that only now he fully understood what a pneumatic system means)
No technical details. No abstraction. Just operational reality. The effect was immediate: When he left that control room, his focus had completely changed.
Tell a story
We also completely restructured the presentation:
- 15 slides instead of 60
- A clear narrative: situation → risk → solution
- Much more pictures than technical information
- Technical details moved to an appendix
And importantly: We showed that the new system would not only require investment – but once installed, significantly reduce operating costs over time.
The outcome
The second presentation was a success. Not because the solution had changed.
But because the decision was presented with a clear storyline and pictures which help to understand and created emotions:
The whole management laughed when the picture of the mid-seventies huge and heavy “mobile phone” came up…and they all nodded in agreement, when we told the story of the two elderly guys who were the only one left able to fix the pneumatic system.
