Recovering a 200-Day Delay & Preventing Recurrence
How Clarus Caelum Rescued a Multi-Billion-Dollar Infrastructure Program
The Situation
A state transport infrastructure agency discovered its central engineering “back-office” was 200 days behind schedule. Seven major projects were waiting on drawings, calculations, approvals and on-site works; milestones were at risk and contractor claims were looming.
Portfolio
Seven live infrastructure projects worth several billion dollars.
Bottleneck
A central back-office engineering team running 200 days behind on design reviews, calculations, approvals and site-works.
Impact
Project delivery teams stalled, milestones slipping, and cost-escalation risks mounting.
Team Structure
Back-Office Engineering Team
Responsible for technical artefacts, assurance, sign-offs and on-site work across the portfolio.
Seven Project Delivery Teams
Depended on the back-office engineers to keep programs and contractual milestones on track.
Phase 1 – Immediate Fire-Fighting
Portfolio-wide risk Sweep
Logged every outstanding engineering activity for every project.
Classified each task as Low, Medium, High, Very High, Critical or Past-Due.
Clarify the Target
Fast-tracked all Very High, Critical and Past-Due items.
Reallocated engineers to short, sharp sprints until the worst backlog was cleared.
Daily check-ins
Fifteen-minute calls with each project director to surface blockers and keep decisions flowing until the target issues are resolved.
Outcome: Milestone slippage stopped, recovering the 200 days of delay in 45 days and providing space to tackle the underlying causes.
Phase 2 – Root-Cause Analysis
Uncontrolled work intake
Project teams bypassed managers and dealt directly with engineers, so the true workload was invisible.
No activity-management tool
Disparate Excel sheets and email trails meant no single source of truth.
Poor visibility for project teams
No regular meetings, no shared view of the systems-engineering process, frequent surprises.
No priority-setting mechanism
When two projects needed the same engineer, there was no data or process to decide which came first.
Outcome: Underlying causes identified, providing actionable targets for redesigning a system that prevents recurrent issues.
Phase 3 – Process Redesign
We created a fresh Interface Control Framework that balanced each project’s preferred ways of working with the discipline required to manage demand. Key elements included:
Single front door
All requests now flow through back-office managers; direct calls to individual engineers are off-limits.
Jira task management
Every activity is logged with scope, deadline and risk code; real-time dashboards flag ageing items.
Fortnightly project updates
Engineers and individual project teams meet to review progress and emerging risks.
Fortnightly portfolio council
Back-office managers and all seven project managers negotiate clashes and reset priorities.
Impact-analysis protocol
Conflicting tasks are ranked on cost, time, quality, customer impact and safety, providing a clear basis for priority calls.
Living process guide (ICD)
An online playbook updated as lessons emerge, enabling rapid onboarding and continuous improvement.
Implementation was staged over six weeks with training and short “how-to” sessions, allowing team members to ask questions and develop their understanding.
What We Delivered
Backlog eliminated
200-day delay progressively removed without compromising quality.
Schedule certainty restored
Project teams regained confidence in engineering deliverables and could plan against milestones.
Sustainable governance
The new framework is now business-as-usual, preventing a repeat of the problem.
Take-Aways for Infrastructure Leaders
Visibility before velocity
You can’t fix what you can’t see; mandate a clear intake process, so responsibilities and workload are clear.
Systems thinking beats heroics
Fire-fighting buys time, but only a well-designed process keeps you on track.
Objective priority calls
A simple, multi-factor impact assessment ends guesswork and protects value.
Regular cadence creates calm
Short, scheduled forums replace crisis emails with proactive decision-making.