Managing the inner world of infrastructure

Stakeholder participation in major infrastructure projects is a multi-faceted and controversial topic. This paper introduces some of the more immediate issues and attempts to show that experience in so-called first-world projects is equally relevant in the third world. It suggests that every project exists in an ‘outer’ physical world and an ‘inner’ world of the collective minds of stakeholders, and that the creation of a communications environment in which the two worlds can begin to align is essential to success. This is now increasingly possible thanks to the internet and mobile telephony and, as demonstrated by experiences on the £6 billion Denmark–Sweden fixed link, it can lead to an almost utopian working environment of complete trust and absolute integrity.