As a professional project manager with nearly 30 years of experience both as a client and as a consultant, I have both good and bad experiences of this relationship. When I started Maroon Consulting, my aim was to move beyond a standard transactional relationship towards something more meaningful that delivered value even after the end of the contract period.
Working across different projects and industries has ensured I have a vast knowledge base to draw on and apply different approaches. However, what my assignments and deeper research have consistently shown is that the traditional consulting model, characterised by knowledge extraction and siloed expertise, is giving way to collaborative partnerships.
What this research clearly shows is that the project management consulting landscape is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Traditional models, characterised by transactional relationships and siloed expertise, are giving way to collaborative partnerships grounded in capability development and shared accountability.
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- The New Imperative: Partnership, Not Prescription
The conventional consulting model generates dependency rather than resilience. When the consultant departs, organisations often revert to previous patterns, having gained limited capability for managing complex projects independently
The future demands a different approach:
- Working “With” Clients: Research examining major UK infrastructure projects, including High Speed One, Heathrow Airport Terminal 5, Crossrail and the London 2012 Olympics, found that adaptability, flexibility, and the design of the roles and responsibilities between clients and delivery partners are critical ingredients of programme management. Megaprojects should be delivered through a collaborative relationship with clients, not for clients¹.
- Enabling Internal Capacity: A consultant working “with” clients becomes an enabler, transferring knowledge, building internal capacity, and ensuring sustainability beyond the engagement period. In effective consulting relationships, both parties learn and work through every stage of the project².
- Building a Culture of Partnership: Collaborative delivery is described as an organisational culturebuilt with the intention of inspiring high performance in concert with all partners working together as one team. This partnership approach creates the foundation for genuine transformation: shared ownershipand internal capability³ ⁴.
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- Capability Building: The True Measure of Success
The distinction between delivering solutions and building capability represents perhaps the most important evolution in consulting methodology. Traditional approaches often leave organisations no better positioned to handle future challenges. The new paradigm inverts this logic: the consultant’s success is measured not by the perfection of the immediate deliverable but by the strength of capabilities remaining within the organisation.
My commitment at Maroon Consulting has always been to seek how I can improve the client’s project delivery capability, even if in a small way.
Evidence demonstrates the profound impact of prioritising capability:
- Design Thinking Power: Research on design thinking methodologies in project management demonstrates that organisations embracing these human-centred approaches achieve superior outcomes. According to the Project Management Institute’s 2020 Pulse of the Profession report, 59% of project management innovators report using design thinking in their project strategies, compared with just 23% of ‘laggards’. Critically, “these innovators are more likely to meet business goals and to complete projects on time and within budgets, and they are less likely to experience scope creep, project failure and budget loss.”⁵
- Practical Embedding: Practical capability building involves structured mentoring of project sponsors and team leads, and the co-development of tools and frameworks tailored to organisational context. Organisations recognised as project management innovators demonstrate strong commitment to ongoing training as part of their process, with 81% providing continuous reskilling as part of every project workflow.⁶ This is not a peripheral activity; it is central to how transformation actually takes root.
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- Designing for Resilience: People and Data
For lasting change, the new paradigm integrates both Human-Centred Design and Data-Driven Governance.
- Human-Centred Design: This discipline reflects the understanding that organisational change is fundamentally about people, their motivations, and capacity to adapt. Project managers employing this approach design project plans alongside their team and clients, create environments where diverse perspectives are valued, and focus on flattening hierarchies to acknowledge different viewpoints. The research notes that the key outcome is creating conditions “where teams are engaged, motivated, and aligned with organisational purpose.”⁷
- Data-Driven Decision Architecture: Modern consulting must move beyond intuition-based governance. McKinsey analyses describe the evolution toward leader-led “project delivery hubs” (PDHs) fueled by data and analytics. These systems help organisations “objectively develop perspectives on project risks and reveal opportunities to improve project performance or accelerate delivery.”⁸ The consultant’s role is to design the “decision architecture”, ensuring that the right data is visible, to the right people, at the right frequency, so that insights are acted upon. Furthermore, transparent reporting and adaptive planning become the mechanisms through which accountability (public sector focus) and innovation (private sector focus) coexist.
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- Sustainability and Stakeholder Value
Project management consulting increasingly must grapple with what “success” means beyond the traditional iron triangle of cost, schedule, and scope. In contemporary project management practice, consultants are responsible for designing and strategising the thoughtful and impactful journey for all stakeholders, carefully constructing each phase to ensure a seamless and gratifying experience.
This encompasses several dimensions:
- environmental and social impact;
- alignment with organisational values and strategy;
- quality of experience for employees and stakeholders;
- and long-term value creation rather than short-term extraction.
Leading practitioners recognise that delivery partnerships can achieve “all of the above”, safety, schedule, budget, quality, sustainability, and the legacy of opportunity and return on investment that remain after the work is done.⁹
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- The Consultant as Structural Bridge
One of the most sophisticated roles emerging consultants play is that of structural bridge between traditional organisational silos and the integrated, collaborative approaches required for complex delivery.
This is particularly challenging in large organisations and public sector entities where legacy structures, governance frameworks, and risk cultures are deeply entrenched.
The best consultants do not try to blow up these structures; they work within them while creating space for new approaches.
They build trust with both traditionalists and innovators, translating between different professional languages, and designing governance structures that permit experimentation while maintaining necessary oversight.
This requires political skill as much as technical expertise.
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- Implications for the Future
The transition to partnership-based, capability-building approaches represents a maturation of the field. It reflects that complex organisational challenges require collaborative learning and sustained capability development within the organisation.
If you are seeking project management consulting partners, you must look beyond proposals promising perfectly executed deliverables. Instead, seek consultants who can articulate their approach to capability transfer, their commitment to working alongside (not above) internal teams, and their willingness to be measured on organisational resilience after the engagement concludes.
This is the core mission of Maroon Consulting. Organisations that embrace this necessary shift, and the consultants, like us, who enable it, are positioned to navigate transformation in ways that create lasting, sustainable value.
Let’s discuss how we can build your internal capability for long-term success. – email: sean@maroonconsult.com to talk further or to arrange a free 45 minute review
References
¹ Davies, A., Gann, D., & Douglas, T. (2022). “The Megaproject-based Firm: Building programme management capability to deliver megaprojects.” International Journal of Project Management, 40(5), 102-115. Based on longitudinal study of 78 interviews across UK megaprojects including High Speed One, Heathrow Airport Terminal 5, London 2012 Olympics, Crossrail, Thames Tideway Tunnel, and High Speed 2.
² Mace Group. (2025). “Delivery Partnership: The Model for Megaproject Success.” Retrieved from https://www.macegroup.com/perspectives/articles/2024/july/delivery-partnership-the-model-for-megaproject-success
³ Fischer, C., & Neumann, O. (2023). “An exploration of agile government in the public sector: A systematic literature review at macro, meso, and micro levels of analysis.” Government Information Quarterly, 72(1), X-X. PRISMA method systematic review of 55 peer-reviewed journal articles as of May 2023.
⁴ Meynhardt, T., et al. (2023). “Does agile improve value creation in government?” Information Polity, 26(2), X-X. Comparative qualitative case study of 19 agile initiatives across three German government levels.
⁵ Project Management Institute. (2020). “Pulse of the Profession: Succeeding in an Agile World.” PMI Research Report. Based on survey of project management innovators and laggards across industries.
⁶ Project Management Institute. (2020). Pulse of the Profession Report. 81 percent of project management innovators provide continuous reskilling as part of every project workflow.
⁷ Project Management Institute. (2020). Research on human-centered design methodology applications in project management. Referenced in: ExperiencePoint. “The Human-Centered Project Manager.” Medium, March 25, 2020.
⁸ Ahmoye, D., Blanco, J.L., Koeleman, J., Legrand, O., Parsons, J.C.W., & Ratani, A. (2021). “Project delivery hubs: Analytics for better megaproject outcomes.” McKinsey & Company, August 31, 2021.
⁹ Mace Group. (2025). “Megaproject Partnerships Powering Better Delivery.” Retrieved from https://www.macegroup.com/en-us/perspectives/megaproject-partnerships-powering-better-delivery
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