Across the Fast-track applications lodged since February 2025, the projects that blew out their budgets did not blow them out on technical work. They blew them out on coordination. Here are the five failures we see most often — and what to design in instead.
1. No single document index
Specialists deliver into different folders, with different versions, on different timelines. By lodgement, nobody is sure which traffic report is current. The fix: one shared document index, owned by one person, versioned weekly. Everyone references the index, not the file.
2. Pre-lodgement engagement run as a checklist instead of a strategy
DOC, council, EPA, iwi authorities, NZTA, Heritage NZ — engaged sequentially, with no shared issues log. The same concern raised by DOC in March surfaces again from the council in July, and is treated as new. Fix: one issues log, every stakeholder cross-referenced, every issue routed to a specialist with a date.
3. Cultural impact assessment scoped last
Cultural impact assessments are still routinely treated as a workstream to be commissioned once the technical package is mostly done. That sequencing is backwards. The CIA should be scoped in the first month and run in parallel with the technical workstreams, not after them.
4. No critical-path programme
A list of milestones is not a programme. A Fast-track application has 30+ tasks across 8 workstreams with hard dependencies. Without a critical-path view, slippage on a non-critical task gets the same management attention as slippage on the binding constraint. Fix: a real critical path, maintained weekly.
5. Conditions left to the last fortnight
Draft conditions arrive from the panel late in the process. The temptation is to negotiate them in two weeks. The reality is that good conditions negotiation needs technical input from your ecologist, traffic engineer and stormwater consultant — all of whom moved on to other projects three months ago. Fix: budget for specialist availability through the conditions window from week one.
The good news: every one of these failures is designable-out. None of them require technical brilliance. They require coordination — done properly — from the day the engagement starts.