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Building Bridges Across Organizations

May 6, 2026 By

 

in Project Business

Project Business Management

SERIES ARTICLE

By Oliver F. Lehmann

Munich, Germany

“One of the basic principles governing the creation and performance of legal obligations,
whatever their source, is the principle of good faith.”
–  International Court of Justice

 

Summary   

Four case studies show what happens when the customer–contractor interface comes under stress, and what good governance design can achieve when it holds. The call to action is to strengthen the organizations involved by building integrity and focusing on completing over competing, turning contract parties into project partners.

Risks At Cross-Corporate Interfaces

Project Business Management starts from a simple observation. When a project crosses organizational boundaries under contract – when one organization buys the project from another, with money, scope, schedule, and risk all flowing across the boundary – the project itself becomes the business.[1]† Not a side activity, not an internal initiative, but the commercial relationship in concrete form. Everything that follows in governance, contracting, performance management, and dispute resolution flows from that single fact.

If the project is the business, then the customer–contractor interface is where the business lives. It is also where most of the things that can go wrong do. The interface is the surface across which money flows, decisions are made, information is exchanged or withheld, change is approved or denied, claims are lodged or resisted, and reputations are made or broken. It is the highest-energy boundary in any project business arrangement.

Most project management literature treats this interface as a procedural matter – contracts, change orders, dispute boards, and escalation paths. That is necessary but not sufficient. The interface is also a governance surface, and when governance at that surface fails, the project does not merely run late or over budget. It can mutate. It can become something other than what it was contracted to be: a vehicle for outcomes none of the original parties would have signed up for, and that few will publicly defend afterward. The encouraging news is that the converse is equally true. Where the interface is well-designed and well-tended, projects deliver, partnerships endure, and the surface itself becomes a source of value rather than a cause of distress.

The cases that follow are studied not to indict the parties involved, but to extract the design lessons that make the difference.

This article examines four projects where the interface, in different ways, did not function as the governance design assumed. The Panama Canal expansion, where a sophisticated public-sector owner met a contractor consortium that had bid aggressively. The Venice MOSE flood barriers, where a closed concession structure was the subject of an extensive criminal investigation. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project, where a small African state successfully prosecuted multinational contractors and consultants. And the Sydney Light Rail project, where a contractor alleged that the public-sector owner had withheld material information at tender, a case that illustrates the customer side of the interface as the source of stress. The four cases are drawn from the public record of arbitral awards, court judgments, regulatory sanctions, settled litigation, and plea documents.

More…

To read entire article, click here

Editor’s note: This series of articles is by Oliver Lehmann, author of the book “Project Business Management” (ISBN 9781138197503), published by Auerbach / Taylor & Francis in 2018. See author profile below.

How to cite this article: Lehmann, O. F. (2026). Building Bridges Across Organizations in Project Business, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue V, May. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/PMWJ-May2026-Lehmann-Building_Bridges.pdf

About the Author


Oliver F. Lehmann

Munich, Germany

 

Oliver F. Lehmann, MSc, ACE, PMP, is a project management educator, author, consultant, and speaker. In addition, he is the owner of the website Project Business Foundation, a non-profit initiative for professionals and organizations involved in cross-corporate project business.

He studied Linguistics, Literature, and History at the University of Stuttgart and Project Management at the University of Liverpool, UK, where he holds a Master of Science Degree (with Merit). Oliver has trained thousands of project managers in Europe, the USA, and Asia in methodological project management, focusing on certification preparation. In addition, he is a visiting lecturer at the Technical University of Munich.

He has been a member and volunteer at PMI, the Project Management Institute, since 1998 and served as the President of the PMI Southern Germany Chapter from 2013 to 2018. Between 2004 and 2006, he contributed to PMI’s PM Network magazine, for which he provided a monthly editorial on page 1 called “Launch,” analyzing troubled projects around the world.

Oliver believes in three driving forces for personal improvement in project management: formal learning, experience, and observations. He resides in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, and can be contacted at oliver@oliverlehmann.com.

Oliver Lehmann is the author of the books:

His previous articles and papers for PM World Journal can be found here: https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/oliver-f-lehmann/

 

Filed Under: Lehmann - Project Business Management, Series Articles