Focus
A Rijkswaterstaat employee is sailing under a bridge in his spare time when he gets the fright of his life: parts of the bridge suddenly fall down. He raises the alarm, and the bridge undergoes emergency repairs. On another bridge, a motorcyclist narrowly avoids disaster when he manages to dodge a hole in the road surface at the very last moment. Again, emergency repairs follow.
We are going to hear these kinds of stories more often in the future. Our civil infrastructure assets are reaching retirement age. Bridges, tunnels, and viaducts built in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s are approaching the end of their lifespan. Unfortunately, there is not enough budget available for maintenance and renewal.
Of course, Rijkswaterstaat is fully aware of this. Its director-general, Martin Wijnen, stated on LinkedIn that essential renewal projects cannot be started due to budget shortages. In an interview with De Bouwcampus, he called on the sector to focus: “because if you do everything, you achieve nothing.”
That strategy is urgently needed. Because insufficient funding is available for renewal, renewal projects are postponed. As a result, repair costs continue to rise. And because repairs and renewals are funded from the same budget, less and less room remains for structural renewal. A downward spiral.
Patience
“I’ve been around in this industry for quite some time,” a manager once confided in me, “I’ve seen many plans come and go… and I’ve learned to be patient.”
You hear that reaction more often. Executives and managers feel that the system is under pressure, but they also see how slowly things change.
“It all takes so long,” a senior executive sighed recently at a conference.
One experienced project manager in my network even decided to quit project management altogether. It had become too complex. He chose to focus on coaching others instead.
That reveals an uncomfortable truth:
This is how the system sustains itself.
How much worse does it have to get before it gets better?
Sometimes you wish you could perform magic.
Magic
Focus is indeed the right strategy. But one crucial step is often missing:
focus on the bottleneck.
Every organization, every project, and every portfolio has only one bottleneck: the factor that determines how quickly projects are delivered.
That also means that improvements outside the bottleneck have no effect on the number of projects the organization delivers.
And that explains why so many changes fail to create real improvement…
People work incredibly hard, yet the system continues to perform exactly the same.
The power of this way of thinking is that it reduces complexity to something manageable. Where organizations often get trapped in overload and fragmentation, focusing on the bottleneck creates clarity and direction.
The results
This approach has been applied concretely at the Province of Zeeland. By consistently focusing on the bottleneck, they adapted the way they work.
The results:
• projects are demonstrably better controlled
• decision-making is faster and more decisive
• and most importantly: projects are brought to market 20% faster
This is not a theoretical model, but a practical result achieved in a complex public-sector environment.
But something else happens as well.
Precisely in an environment where “everything takes so long” and patience has become the norm, confidence returns as soon as productivity increases. Teams regain a sense of control, energy, and momentum.
Invitation
Recently, Sjors Kiemeneij and Steven Mookhoek from the Province of Zeeland demonstrated in a webinar hosted by De Bouwcampus how they achieved these results.
For directors and program managers who recognize that their organization is becoming stuck in complexity, this webinar offers an opportunity to see how things can be done differently. Through this link, you can discover how focusing on the bottleneck makes projects both predictable and faster. If you are short on time, you can also choose to read my shorter LinkedIn post on the subject.
Focus is not a luxury, but a necessity.
The challenge facing the infrastructure sector is immense. Budgets are under pressure, systems are overloaded, and the need for renewal continues to grow.
That is precisely why focus is not a luxury, but a necessity.
Once you know where the real bottleneck is, you no longer need magic to create progress … although it certainly feels that way.
By Willem de Wit
© copyright 2026 Mobilé 4 flow & innovation
Founder & Managing Director of Mobilé 4 flow & innovation.