Riskwork in the Construction of Heathrow Terminal 2

Abstract

The failure to manage risk in large-scale infrastructure projects has attracted intense debate. Recommendations suggest rigorous planning and once the contract is in place, the narrative of account-giving emphasizes constructing audit trails to assure delivery commitments. However, this can lead to blame avoidance. This paper develops an in-depth case study of Heathrow Terminal 2 (T2), a £2.5bn construction programme that successfully opened on time and to budget in 2014 despite an initial risk management ethos that emphasized boundary preservation. This is explored through the lens of riskwork, a form of everyday maintenance work that sustained the infrastructure of risk management. A process methodology is adopted to trace the development of the programme into riskwork phases from concerns about ‘one version of the truth’ to strategizing with a ‘dashboard’ to a ‘golden thread’ engaging suppliers in interactive risk talk. This paper demonstrates an important relationship between adaptive risk management infrastructures, innovation and the benefits of learning from emergence. It describes a central role for mediatory instruments such as dashboards, reports and forums in making risks visible and actionable. On a theoretical level it reveals the importance of temporality and path dependency in studying the formation of riskwork infrastructures. It also has important practical implications for policy recommendations that oversimplify the management of risk into a form of accountability management that mitigates risks by demanding compliance. On T2 progress was sustained by paying attention to which ‘residual’ categories of risk were excluded from the risk management architecture. As the programme progressed, riskwork became less about managing compliance and more about learning from emergence.