How organisations apply Collaborative Working in complex delivery environments

Oct 7

6 min read

Multi-party projects in complex, regulated environments do not usually fail because organisations lack technical capability. They fail when governance, commercial arrangements and day-to-day working relationships are not structured to manage shared risk.

In the first two blogs in this series, Elysium EPL introduced the concept of Collaborative Working and explored why informal, relationship-driven collaboration can create material delivery risk. This third article moves from concept to application. It considers where Collaborative Working is most valuable, how it can be applied in practice, and what leaders can look for when assessing whether it is relevant to a current or upcoming program.

Elysium EPL is a capability provider for the Institute for Collaborative Working Australia. The team supports organisations to apply Collaborative Working as a business discipline through training, education and practical implementation in complex, multi-party delivery environments.

Where is Collaborative Working applied first?

For organisations moving from interest to evaluation, the next step is to identify where Collaborative Working could provide the greatest value, and whether current delivery arrangements are strong enough to manage relationship-driven risk.

Collaborative Working does not require organisations to transform every relationship or delivery arrangement at once. In practice, it is most effective when applied deliberately to the environments where relationship, coordination and governance risk are most likely to affect outcomes.

For Australian Government agencies, Defence programs, infrastructure projects and other regulated delivery environments, this distinction matters. Collaborative Working should be aligned with existing commercial, contractual and assurance frameworks, rather than treated as a separate cultural initiative or a one-size-fits-all approach.

Organisations typically begin where the delivery environment is complex enough that informal collaboration is no longer reliable. This may include:

high-risk, multi-vendor programs with fragmented accountability.
long-duration delivery environments where personnel turnover affects continuity.
programs with complex interfaces and shared or overlapping responsibilities.
regulated environments where probity, governance and auditability are essential.
delivery portfolios where multiple organisations need to coordinate decisions, information, and risk.

These are the contexts where goodwill and individual relationships are least likely to provide a reliable foundation. A structured Collaborative Working approach helps organisations define how they will work together before misalignment becomes delay, rework, or escalation.

Before implementation begins, organisations should assess readiness, leadership commitment, and the business case for collaboration. Aligned with the ISO 44001 Collaborative Business Relationship Management framework, this creates a practical foundation for deciding where Collaborative Working should be applied, what outcomes it needs to support and how it can be integrated with existing delivery arrangements.

Scaling without disruption

A defining characteristic of Collaborative Working is its scalability. The flexible eight-stage framework can be applied to organisations and projects of any size, from small to large, complex and multi-partner alliances.

It can be applied:

at the level of a single program or partnership.
across portfolios involving multiple suppliers or delivery partners.
progressively, as organisational capability and confidence mature.

Because it is designed as a system, the Collaborative Working framework can be replicated and applied to larger-scale projects due to the body of knowledge and operational awareness that grows with each collaborative relationship.

Collaborative Working in practice

The practical application of Collaborative Working is well established internationally, particularly in large scale infrastructure and public sector environments. The examples below show that structured collaboration can deliver higher-value outcomes when it’s embedded in governance, commercial models and decision-making.

Example: Heathrow Terminal 5

Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5) was a large infrastructure project designed to handle 30 million passengers per year. The project would involve 50,000 people and was split into 16 projects valued between AUD $19.3 million and AUD $387.8 million.

Before delivery commenced, an analysis identified poor collaboration and reluctance to assume responsibility for risk as the factors most likely to cause a project failing to be delivered to budget, time and quality. For this reason, they moved away from traditional adversarial contracting and instead implemented a bespoke relational contract that embedded shared risk management into the way the project was governed and delivered.

They also integrated client and supplier teams, co-locating them requiring them to work together from the outset. This meant collaboration was not seen as an informal behaviour or a desirable cultural attribute. Rather, it was designed into the commercial model, governance arrangements and delivery approach.

The project was delivered on time and within budget and the success of the collaborative commercial framework led to its adoption by other projects and multiple awards.

What this example demonstrates is that Collaborative Working is most effective when it is applied before delivery risk becomes entrenched. The value comes from creating a structured environment where organisations can manage shared risk, resolve issues early and maintain alignment in complex environments.

At the time of writing, the Australian Government is supporting a wide range of billion-dollar infrastructure projects. Similarly, Defence, National Security and other public sector organisations increasingly involve multiple agencies, suppliers and delivery partners. For the greatest delivery success, it’s important we learn from projects like Terminal 5 and recognise that structured collaboration can help strengthen governance, assurance and delivery confidence without replacing existing contractual or commercial frameworks.

Are you ready to apply Collaborative Working?

For many organisations, the decision to apply Collaborative Working does not begin with a new framework or standard. It begins with recognising where delivery performance is being constrained by the way relationships are currently governed, risks are shared and decisions are made.

The following questions are intended as a practical sense-check for senior leaders considering whether Collaborative Working may be relevant to their current or upcoming projects. They are not a formal assessment, but they can help identify whether relationship-driven risk is already affecting, or could affect, delivery confidence.

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, Collaborative Working may provide a practical delivery lever.

1. Delivery environment

Are we delivering, or about to deliver, a program or project involving multiple agencies, suppliers or delivery partners?
Is the scope of work considered complex?
Does delivery success depend on ongoing coordination and joint decision‑making, rather than discrete hand‑offs?
Are interfaces between organisations a recurring source of delay, rework or escalation?

If the answer to these questions is yes, relationship‑driven risk is already present.

2. Governance, accountability and leadership commitment

Do we have clear, shared governance arrangements across organisational boundaries?
Do we have demonstrated commitment to collaborative working from our leadership?
Are decision rights, escalation paths and responsibilities consistently understood by all parties?
When issues arise, do they tend to escalate through contracts rather than being resolved collaboratively?

If governance relies heavily on goodwill, informal relationships or individual capability, risk exposure is likely increasing as complexity grows.

3. Risk management and assurance

Are relationship and interface risks explicitly identified and managed, or assumed to be “covered” by the contract?
Would we be able to demonstrate to an auditor or regulator how collaborative risks are being governed?
Is delivery confidence dependent on a small number of key individuals?

Where relationship risks are unmanaged or unarticulated, assurance is often weaker than leaders assume.

4. Value add

Is there a clear case for additional value that can be generated by a collaborative approach?
Can we clearly measure the added value provided by collaboration?

Collaborative Working can be applied at multiple stages, but it is most effective when organisations recognise the need before issues become entrenched. Identifying signals early provides an opportunity to strengthen delivery arrangements before issues become embedded and significantly more difficult to address.

Interpreting your answers

If several of the questions above resonate, Collaborative Working may provide a practical framework to strengthen governance, clarify shared responsibilities, and improve delivery confidence.

As a capability provider for the Institute for Collaborative Working Australia, Elysium EPL supports organisations to move from interest to practical application. This includes helping leaders assess collaborative readiness, identify relationship-driven risk and design approaches that align with existing commercial, contractual and assurance requirements.

Our goal is not to create ongoing dependency but rather to help build the internal capability, governance and behaviours required to sustain effective Collaborative Working practices over time.

Elysium EPL can support organisations to:

assess collaborative readiness and relationship-driven risk.
identify where governance, accountability and delivery arrangements are misaligned.
define where Collaborative Working should be applied first.
design practical, standards-aligned approaches that can be implemented within existing delivery environments.
build internal capability so collaborative practices can be sustained beyond initial implementation.

Contact us today to learn how we can help your organisation gain more value out of collaborative projects and / or agreements.

Brett Ackroyd

Director

Point of Contact for Collaborative Working.

An original founder of Elysium EPL, Brett has more than 20 years' experience advising government and private sector organisations on strategic procurement, commercial, legal, and organisation design matters for large, complex projects. He specialises in supplier engagement models and collaborative commercial arrangements that deliver value from complex outcomes.

Brett has led multidisciplinary teams on multibillion-dollar procurement programs and helped organisations design collaborative operating models that achieve strong commercial outcomes. He is also the Managing Director of the Institute of Collaborative Working Australia, promoting Collaborative Working as a recognised business discipline.