MPA

Booking update: Two-day conference places, including overnight accommodation, are now fully booked. Limited places are still available for Day 2 only (Tuesday 13 October). Please contact eleanor.mortimer@majorprojects.org to enquire about availability.

From connectedness to delivery: Making the ecosystem learn

The 2026 Annual Conference builds on the scale and ambition highlighted at the 2025 conference on "Improving connectedness of major projects". 

In last year's conference we heard that the scale of the UK pipeline of infrastructure, defence and service transformation programmes is necessitating a more integrated and portfolio management approach, particularly with 'place' as an anchor. However, despite the enhanced joined up thinking, a challenging delivery gap remains. 

This year's conference turns to this delivery gap challenge: why, despite decades on inquiries and reviews, do we continue to encounter the same issues? Using examples such as the 2026 Lovegrove Review, to the 2012 NAO Report on the Assurance of Major Projects or all the way back to the 1994 Latham Report on construction productivity, we will examine the tendency to generate insightful lessons without embedding the learning that leads to change and improvement. 

Academic literature distinguishes between two types of institutional learning: Learning as knowledge (reports, lessons learned) and Learning as change (different decisions, behaviours, outcomes). 

When delving into these types of learning, it could be considered for major projects, that: 

• The sector is stuck in single-loop learning with a bias towards knowledge. 
• Governance systems often reinforce defensive routines. 
• Lessons are generated but not institutionalised. 
• The real challenge is shifting from episodic learning to systemic learning. 

How do we shift towards 'learning as change' so we can avoid the Groundhog Day of encountering the same issues and challenges without successful resolution over and over again? 

Drawing on other sectors, we will explore what it takes to make learning systemic and embedded into delivery. Automotive integrates supply chains and standardised systems; technology firms create cultures of experimentation and continuous feedback; and mega-events rely on rehearsal and real-time adaptation to deliver at pace. These approaches offer practical models for institutionalising learning in major projects as we explore how we can apply them. 

We will also consider the role of governance. Not as an approvals or compliance exercise, but as a mechanism for enabling transparency, challenge and continuous feedback. Finally, the conference will ask whether a more affective, human-centred approach (focused on behaviours, culture and psychological safety) can help translate lessons into action. 

If 2025 was about connecting projects, 2026 is about delivery, through making that connected ecosystem learn! 

Keynote 

Jonathan Simcock is the author of The Delivery Gap: Why Government Projects Really Fail and What Can Be Done About It, published in 2025. 

He has extensive experience and deep expertise in the leading, assuring, governing and advising of very large projects in complex environments. 

Since 2017, he has held a portfolio of non-executive and advisory positions. Notably, he served on the Submarine Delivery Agency board in the UK Ministry of Defence, including three years as chair; and he was a non-executive director of Sellafield Ltd. Prior to this, Jonathan spent four years as Chief Executive Officer of Smart DCC Ltd, the company responsible for Great Britain's smart metering project. He is also a former Executive Director of the Major Projects Directorate in the UK Office of Government Commerce, a precursor of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, and had a 25-year career with Shell, initially as an engineer, then in various project and production management, commercial and strategy roles. 

Booking your place 

Our two-day conference places, including overnight accommodation, are now fully booked.

We do, however, have limited availability for members to attend Day 2 of the Annual Conference on Tuesday 13 October, without overnight accommodation.

Attendance is included in your membership fee and places remain limited to one per member organisation, subject to availability.

Please contact eleanor.mortimer@majorprojects.org to enquire about a Day 2 place.