The Project Commissioner is emerging as a pivotal figure in commissioning-led governance – bridging strategic intent, delivery oversight, and public value assurance. As infrastructure systems grow more complex, fragmented, and outcome-sensitive, this role must evolve from passive funder or contracting authority to active steward of system-wide coherence.

This paper defines the Project Commissioner as a transdisciplinary leader who governs complexity, aligns intent with capability, and ensures that infrastructure delivers what matters.

Infrastructure today is no longer just about building assets – it’s about delivering outcomes that matter. As complexity grows and public trust declines, professionals across project planning, engineering, asset management, and delivery are being called to lead differently.
ICxA is the professional home for those ready to step beyond silos and become certified commissioning professionals – leaders who shape outcomes, navigate complexity, and deliver lasting public value. Join the movement and join the elite 1% of commissioning leaders making a true impact on today’s most complex projects.

Project management lacks integrated, experience-informed, and conceptually coherent knowledge. It over-indexes on process and under-delivers on strategy, adaptability, and outcome assurance. While project management methodologies to optimize for cost and schedule may work for smaller less complex systems, these methodologies break down for larger more complex systems. What got you to a certain level on smaller projects won’t get you to a higher level on complex megaprojects.

A new approach to manage risk and project outcomes is required – a new leadership and governance approach to manage outcomes, not just cost and schedule. There is too much at stake to cut corners on complex projects. When the legacy project management approach is applied to major capital projects, they often end up years late and millions/billions over-budget. A new leadership mindset to focus on outcomes is required for today’s complex projects.

The Institute of Commissioning & Assurance is on a mission to fix the broken and antiquated construction industry. That is a huge and audacious goal, but great things have never been accomplished by aiming for small goals. To do this, projects need leadership and governance that are aligned with achieving project outcomes, individuals that have delivered major capital projects in the past and know what it takes to align systems and teams to build the infrastructure that society depends on. A new governance structure is required, with commissioning-led governance at the helm to guide all project groups to successful outcomes.

Without commissioning, projects cannot deliver fully operational systems built for decades of reliable use. When installation becomes the goal instead of readiness, the result is fragmented systems that don’t work together, can’t be operated with confidence, and fail to deliver the purpose the project was meant to serve.

Yet despite its central role in achieving true project outcomes, commissioning remains an informal, undervalued process – never codified as a governance discipline or recognised for its strategic value. It has operated quietly in the background, sustained by technical teams and institutional memory, but without the authority to shape outcomes at scale.

This paper calls for a strategic shift: commissioning must evolve from a hidden technical function into a recognised governance discipline – one that anchors infrastructure delivery in public value, operational readiness, and outcome assurance.

The UK Government’s Stewart HS2 Review and Crossrail sponsorship reports expose a recurring failure in major infrastructure: fragmented governance, unrealistic forecasting, and late-stage integration. These issues have led to spiralling costs, political backlash, and underperforming assets. 

This paper argues that the most credible and capable individuals to lead infrastructure delivery as Outcome Authorities are those who have risen through commissioning leadership.

Across sectors and continents, the ability to deliver major projects on time, on budget, and with measurable public value is under threat. From aerospace and infrastructure to energy and climate programmes, the delivery crisis is no longer anecdotal – it’s systemic. This paper synthesises three powerful perspectives from Jared Isaacman’s ( @rookisaacman ), Alexander Budzier’s (University of Oxford ), and The Economist ’s critique of America’s fragmented construction industry.

We are entering a decisive chapter in how societies imagine, deliver, and govern critical infrastructure systems. One where the stakes are higher, the systems more complex, and the consequences of failure harder to absorb. And yet – too often – we still govern projects as if they were linear, siloed, and one-dimensional.

Surprisingly few projects are genuinely aligned to deliver their intended outcomes. It’s time for a new level of systems-thinking project governance.

We are entering a decisive chapter in how societies imagine, deliver, and govern critical infrastructure systems. One where the stakes are higher, the systems more complex, and the consequences of failure harder to absorb. And yet – too often – we still govern projects as if they were linear, siloed, and one-dimensional.

Surprisingly few projects are genuinely aligned to deliver their intended outcomes. It’s time for a new level of systems-thinking project governance.

Canada and the UK stand at the forefront of transforming infrastructure
performance – not by coincidence, but by design. Both nations have embedded
outcome-focused governance across national policy, institutional frameworks, and
delivery practice.

This paper discusses the Infrastructure for Good Barometer – developed by the Economist Impact – which ranked Canada first and the UK second globally for advancing infrastructure that delivers societal, environmental, and economic value.

As infrastructure delivery enters a new era of complexity, scrutiny, and social responsibility, the limitations of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting frameworks are becoming increasingly apparent.

While ESG successfully elevated the conversation around sustainability and ethical investment, its translation into governed outcomes remains inconsistent and often superficial.

This paper introduces Socio-Technical Outcome Assurance (OA) – a nextgeneration paradigm that advances ESG by embedding stakeholder requirements, lifecycle traceability, and asset system transparency into the DNA of infrastructure creation and operational excellence.

Most infrastructure failures don’t happen because people weren’t working hard – they happen because no one entity was leading with the outcome in mind.

It’s time for a new governance paradigm to deliver project outcomes in alignment with expectations at the outset.