When we talk about the future, we often focus on our ambitions for it.
Cleaner energy, more resilient infrastructure, digitally enabled organisations, improved healthcare and more sustainable communities. But ambition alone does not create change. These visioning narratives of the future must be translated into practical action, and much of that work happens through projects.
Projects are where strategic goals meet decisions about investment, technology, governance, stakeholders and delivery. They provide a bridge between the future we create and the tangible changes required to make it possible. Through the decisions project leaders make today, they are helping to shape and change the organisations, industries and societies of tomorrow. Through projects global societal challenges can be addressed and solved, and set goals can be achieved.
From delivering outputs to creating outcomes
A project can meet its immediate objectives at the same time as failing to deliver the wider outcome it was intended to support. Because of this, projects often need to adapt significantly during its lifecycle in response to new evidence, emerging technology, stakeholder concerns or changes in its wider environment. This is why project leaders must be able to look beyond delivery. They need to ask not only, “Are we completing the project as planned?” but also, “What future are we helping to create, and is it still the right one?”, “What are narratives of the future that we can collectively action through projects?”
Thinking in future terms does not mean attempting to predict exactly what will happen because in a complex and rapidly changing world, that is rarely possible. Instead, focusing on different possibilities, recognising early signs of change and making decisions can allow a project to remain relevant and resilient. It also means understanding that major projects are rarely isolated pieces of work. They sit within broader organisational, commercial, political and social systems. Decisions made in one area can create consequences elsewhere, sometimes long after the project itself has formally ended.
Turning grand ambitions into practical action
The role of projects becomes particularly clear when we consider the major challenges facing society. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, for example, set out ambitions ranging from clean energy and sustainable cities to responsible consumption, improved health and action on climate change. But achieving these ambitions depends on organisations being able to translate them into coordinated activity. In many cases, a project’s purpose provides a bridge between aspiration and action. They allow organisations to mobilise people and resources around a defined purpose, test new approaches and create infrastructure, services and capabilities that did not previously exist.
Yet projects intended to address grand challenges are also likely to encounter significant complexity. They may involve governments, businesses, suppliers, investors, communities and other stakeholders, each with different priorities and definitions of success. Their benefits may take years to emerge, while commercial and political pressures demand evidence of progress in the short term. Responsibility may be distributed across multiple organisations, making accountability and decision-making more difficult.
Project leaders must therefore be able to work across organisational boundaries, navigate competing interests and maintain a shared sense of purpose. Technical knowledge is essential, but it must be combined with strategic judgement, strong relationships and an understanding of the wider project ecosystem.
Leading when the future is uncertain
Uncertainty is increasingly shaping the environment in which projects operate. Economic volatility, geopolitical tensions, changing regulation, supply-chain disruption and evolving stakeholder expectations can all alter the conditions surrounding a project. A strategy that appeared appropriate at the beginning may need to change as new challenges and opportunities emerge. The instinct in this situation can be to seek greater control through more detailed plans. Planning is clearly important, but no plan can account for every future development.
Project leadership therefore requires resilience. This does not simply mean continuing with the original plan in difficult circumstances. It means developing the capacity to recognise change, consider its implications and respond without losing sight of the project’s underlying purpose. Project leaders also need to pay attention to early triggers: signals that assumptions may no longer hold or that risks and opportunities are beginning to develop. This requires openness to different perspectives, as important information may sit with suppliers, project teams, customers or communities rather than with those holding formal authority. The project leader’s role is not to eliminate uncertainty, but to help people make informed decisions within it.
What does artificial intelligence (AI) mean for project leadership?
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to support project leaders by projecting the future, analysing large volumes of data, identifying patterns, improving forecasts and highlighting emerging risks. It may enable teams to test scenarios more quickly, automate routine activities and access insights that would otherwise be difficult to uncover.
AI capability could make projects more responsive and improve the quality and speed of certain decisions. But access to more information does not automatically produce better leadership. AI systems draw on available data and operate within the parameters established by the user, meaning that their outputs may be incomplete or affected by bias. Project leaders must therefore be able to question as well as use these tools. They need to understand where AI can add value, where human judgement remains essential and who will be accountable for decisions supported by technology.
Technology readiness also depends on whether an organisation has the right systems, governance, culture, skills and trust. Introducing a new technology into a major project can change relationships, redistribute responsibilities and create new forms of risk. The central question project leaders should ask before adopting AI should be “How should we use it, for what purpose and with what consequences?” AI can provide valuable insight, but it cannot determine what future an organisation should seek to create. That remains a human and strategic responsibility.
Major projects are human systems
Despite advances in technology, major projects remain deeply human. They depend on people working across professional, organisational and cultural boundaries. They involve negotiation, interpretation and competing narratives about what the project is intended to achieve. Progress relies on trust between clients and suppliers, constructive relationships with stakeholders and the ability to create shared meaning among people who may see the project very differently.
Project leaders must bring people together, communicate project narratives and create the conditions in which difficult issues can be raised and examined. This becomes particularly important when a project encounters setbacks. A culture that discourages challenge or treats changing course as failure may allow problems to deepen. By contrast, project leaders who encourage reflection and open discussion are better placed to learn, adapt and protect the project’s long-term value.
Developing the ability to shape what comes next
The decisions made within major projects can have consequences lasting decades. For those leading them, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. It requires project leaders to balance immediate delivery pressures with long-term outcomes, commercial priorities with wider social and environmental value, and technological opportunity with responsible judgement. These tensions rarely have simple answers. Project leaders need a strong conceptual foundation that helps them step back from the immediate demands of a project, examine the system around it and make more considered decisions.
This is at the heart of the Leading Major Projects course which I co-deliver at Alliance Manchester Business School.
Across four days, participants explore the skills and principles involved in leading complex projects, including project resilience, strategy implementation, governance, commercial relationships, supplier configurations, project ecosystems, digital resources and technology readiness.
The course moves beyond conventional project management tools and techniques. It gives experienced professionals the opportunity to reflect on their own leadership capabilities, learn from others and apply tried-and-tested frameworks to the realities of their organisations.
The course also draws on AMBS’s wider expertise in complex project leadership. Academics bring perspectives from project management, strategy, organisational psychology, operations and leadership, with particular expertise in areas including governance and accountability, risk management, stakeholder engagement, innovation and systems complexity.
This breadth of knowledge helps AMBS equip leaders with the strategic thinking and practical tools needed to navigate uncertainty, align diverse stakeholders and deliver meaningful outcomes in high-stakes environments.
Ultimately, major projects are among the most powerful means we have of turning ambition into action. Leading them successfully requires the ability to understand complexity, recognise change and make decisions with the future in mind.
