When a major civic development project goes sideways, people tend to focus on the visible symptoms first: construction delays, cost overruns, or unforeseen site conditions. Those are the problems that show up in progress reports and make headlines. But after years working on complex public-private partnerships at Edgemoor, I’ve found that those issues usually trace back to decisions that were made long before anyone broke ground.

Often the underlying issues are surprisingly simple. The goals were never clearly defined, the wrong team was assembled, or the chemistry between partners wasn’t right. Sometimes the people who actually needed to make decisions weren’t even in the room. By the time those gaps show up during construction, they’ve already become embedded in the project. At that point you’re no longer solving the problem. You’re managing the consequences of decisions that should have been addressed much earlier.

Because of that, one question tends to guide how we approach every new engagement: are we setting this project up for success?

Over time that question has shaped the way I think about development work. The patterns show up consistently enough that they’ve become a set of principles I try to apply on every project I take on.

Understand What the Client Actually Wants

The first question on any new engagement is deceptively straightforward and basic: do we actually understand what this client wants?

Not what we assume they want, not what another client in a similar sector wanted, and not what fits neatly into an existing playbook. The real question is what this client, in this moment, with their specific constraints, stakeholders, and goals, is actually trying to achieve.

It sounds obvious, but it’s where a surprising number of projects begin to drift off course. One of the biggest mistakes we see institutions make is going to market before they’ve fully clarified what they want the project to accomplish. Procurement becomes a kind of fishing exercise, with the hope that the responses will help define the goals. The result is confusion, midstream pivots, and a lot of wasted effort on all sides.

Once those goals are clearly defined, the next step is assembling the right team. And here we draw a distinction that matters more than people often realize: having the right firms involved is not the same as having the right people at the table.

Put the Right Team and the Right People in Place

Once the goals are clear, attention shifts to team assembly. And here we draw a distinction that matters more than people often realize: having the right firms involved is not the same as having the right people assigned to the work.

A pursuit team can have all the right company names on the cover page and still be set up to underperform. What ultimately matters is the individuals doing the work, their experience, their capabilities, and whether they actually have the time and attention to devote to the project.

That’s a question we come back to repeatedly: do we have the right firms involved, and just as importantly, do we have the right people in the room? And beyond that, do those people actually have the bandwidth to perform at the level the project requires?

That last point matters more than many people acknowledge. In this industry, the same senior professionals are often committed across multiple pursuits and projects at the same time. The difference between a team that has the talent and one that has both the talent and the time can determine whether a project runs smoothly or constantly struggles to keep up.

For us, assembling the right team is one of the most important decisions we make on a project, and it’s something we spend a significant amount of time thinking through before we commit. Pursuing a project isn’t a short-term effort. Once we decide to move forward, we know we’re likely committing the core leadership team to that work for the next five years or more. That’s not a decision we take lightly.

Because of that, we put a great deal of care into determining who will be involved and whether the team we’re assembling is truly the right fit for both the project and the client. One thing we pride ourselves on at Edgemoor is maintaining consistent leadership throughout the life of the projects we pursue. The people involved at the beginning are the same people guiding the work through delivery, which creates continuity, accountability, and ultimately a better outcome for the client. It also makes their job much easier, because they’re working with the same leadership team from start to finish.

Make Sure the Chemistry Is There

Of everything we consider when evaluating a project, client chemistry is one of the factors that often gets overlooked. In reality, it’s one of the hardest risks to manage and one of the most consequential.

Complex civic partnerships span years. They involve multiple stakeholder groups, shifting political landscapes, and the kind of operational friction no contract can fully anticipate. Problems will surface. The real question is whether the relationship between the developer and the client is strong enough to work through those moments without breaking down.

Can the client keep the bigger picture in mind when a minor issue starts absorbing disproportionate attention? Will they be reasonable when something inevitably goes wrong? And when pressure builds, will the relationship stay collaborative, or turn adversarial?

We don’t treat these as secondary considerations. A technically sound project with a dysfunctional client relationship will struggle. A project built on a strong partnership foundation can weather almost anything.

And this extends beyond the client itself. We also think about the broader ecosystem around a project, including who sits across the table in legal and advisory roles. The right counterparts make complex negotiations productive. The wrong ones can make them exhausting. Putting the right people in the right seats isn’t limited to our own team, it’s something we think about across the entire project environment.

Have Decision-Makers in the Room

One principle we emphasize constantly is the importance of having decision-makers in the room. Anyone who has worked with us has likely heard us repeat this more than once.

Too many meetings end without resolution because the people present don’t actually have the authority to make decisions. Information gets relayed up the chain, nuance gets lost in translation, and decisions get pushed to the next meeting (or beyond). The project slows down while everyone waits for approval that could have been given in the room.

In civic development this is easier said than done. Stakeholder groups are large, reporting structures are layered, and political considerations are often part of the process. But we still see it as essential. The people with the authority to make decisions should be the people participating in the conversation.

When that happens, problems get resolved more quickly, communication is more direct, and the project moves forward. Without that structure, teams can find themselves cycling through layers of approvals that add time and frustration without improving the outcome.

See the Forest Through the Trees

One principle I come back to often is the importance of seeing the forest through the trees.

At its core, it’s about perspective. It means understanding the scale of an issue relative to the scale of the project and responding accordingly. Not every problem needs a full-team summit, and not every disagreement deserves to turn into a battle. Some of the most damaging patterns I’ve seen don’t come from major crises, but from relatively small issues that were allowed to consume far more attention and energy than they warranted.

There’s a simple way I think about it. If you’ve assembled a room full of senior professionals to debate an issue and the dollar value of that issue is less than the cost of having everyone in the room for an hour, something has gone wrong. But the point isn’t the math. It’s about judgment: knowing when to push, when to let something go, when a small adjustment can prevent a larger problem, and when to reserve the team’s attention for the moments that actually matter.

Keeping that perspective also requires trust. It means trusting the people around you to handle the responsibilities they were brought in to manage. No single person can control every detail of a project like this, and the leaders who try eventually lose sight of the bigger picture. I’ve always believed the better approach is to trust the team, maintain perspective, and focus leadership attention where it creates the most value.

Think About What Happens After Delivery

For many developers, the finish line is the day the building is delivered.

But some of the most important questions only show up once people begin using the space. How the building actually functions day to day. How it serves the people who work there. Whether the design decisions, systems, and layout choices made during development hold up over time. Those realities are easy to overlook if you only think about the project through the lens of getting it built.

That perspective became much clearer to me after spending three years serving as CEO of the Howard County Courthouse project company during the operations and maintenance period. It was one of the most instructive experiences of my career. When you’re responsible for the building after it opens, you start to see very quickly which decisions made during development truly matter and which ones don’t.

Living with those outcomes changes the way you approach the work. You start thinking about the project not just as something that needs to be delivered, but as something that needs to function well for decades. It’s a mindset I’ve carried into every project I’ve worked on since.

Follow Through on What You Promised

Our reputation is built in large part on a simple principle: do what you said you were going to do. If we commit to something, we follow through. If we told a community we would produce a newsletter during a project, that newsletter goes out, even if only a handful of people end up reading it. The point isn’t the scale of the commitment. The point is keeping it.

Over time, the accumulation of those small promises matters. Following through consistently is what builds the trust that holds everything else together.

That matters even more on projects like these because they are never abstract exercises. They become deeply personal for the people involved. Teams spend years working on them, and the outcomes shape real communities.

For many of our clients, especially in the public sector, choosing to pursue a project like this involves real risk. Their reputations are tied to decisions that are visible, consequential, and often politically sensitive. It’s much easier to avoid that risk and simply keep doing things the way they’ve always been done. The leaders who are willing to step out and try something different deserve partners who take follow-through just as seriously as the pursuit itself.

Make the Work Fun

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the environment around a project matters a lot. The teams that genuinely enjoy working together tend to do better work.

Projects like these take years and demand a tremendous amount of time and energy from everyone involved. But when the right team comes together, something else often happens too. People build real relationships along the way. The process becomes something they enjoy being part of, not just something they have to get through.

Some of my favorite moments on projects aren’t the big milestones, they’re the smaller moments where the team connects: sharing a meal after a long day, laughing about something that happened in a meeting, or just getting to know each other beyond the roles we all play during the project.

Those kinds of relationships change the dynamic of the work. When people like and respect each other, collaboration becomes easier, problems get solved faster, and the entire experience becomes more rewarding. And when the project is finished, the people who were part of it usually look back on the experience with a real sense of pride in what they built together.

The Discipline

None of these ideas are especially complicated. Over the years the patterns have become clear: successful projects begin with a strong understanding of what the client is trying to accomplish, the right people around the table, and a working relationship built on trust. They continue to move forward when decision-makers stay engaged, when the team maintains perspective as issues arise, and when everyone involved remains focused on the long-term success of the project rather than the short-term friction that inevitably appears along the way.

Recognizing these principles is one thing, but applying them consistently over the life of a project requires real discipline, especially in the moments when it would be easier to cut a corner, defer a difficult conversation, or allow a small issue to grow simply because addressing it properly requires more effort.

That discipline starts with a simple question that should be asked at the very beginning of every engagement and revisited throughout the life of the work: are we setting this project up for success?