Pessimism is the order of the day
A pessimist is an optimist with experience. Today, there is no shortage of experiences that feed pessimism:
- There is too little money for infrastructure maintenance;
- Delaying essential maintenance increases future renewal costs by 1 to 2% each year;
- The Netherlands football team cannot win a match on penalties.
Our future is at stake
Two prominent provincial executives are sounding the alarm.
New housing developments are being built. The people who will live there must be able to get home, and they also need a connection to the electricity grid. Rather than shrinking budgets, we need to make the pie bigger, according to Jeroen Olthof, provincial executive in North Holland.
His counterpart in South Holland, Jeroen van Dijken, rightly points to the underlying issue: cutting infrastructure spending amounts to rationing scarcity. Because infrastructure is a prerequisite for economic growth, we need systemic change that creates room for both maintenance and expansion.
The key question
At present, we are collectively moving backwards. Every additional year of deferred maintenance leads to higher renewal costs in the future.
The key question is therefore: how do we move from here to a situation in which there is enough funding not only for maintenance, but also for infrastructure expansion?
Prioritisation and productivity
The letter that Vincent Karremans and Annet Bertram sent to the House of Representatives on 19 June, and the subsequent debate, received considerable attention.
The emphasis was on prioritisation: which infrastructure assets do we maintain or renew, and which do we not?
The counterpoint that Karremans and Bertram also made received less attention: how can we increase productivity in the infrastructure sector?
That issue is crucial to the future of both the sector and the Netherlands.
Increasing productivity means delivering more infrastructure projects with the same money and the same people.
At first sight, this may not appear feasible. Contractors already report excessive workloads. Shortages of skilled professionals, such as welders, planners and site managers, make the situation even more difficult.
Promising results from Flow initiatives
Flow principles increase productivity while reducing workload. This is achieved not by working harder, but by removing obstacles to flow and aligning the interests of the parties involved more effectively.
Three forms of Flow are required.
Incentive Flow ensures that the client, contractor and other parties do not each optimise their own interests, but work together towards the same objective.
Team Flow enables people to overcome their differences and, often without realising it, stop working against one another and instead complement and strengthen each other. It is remarkable what people can achieve when everyone shares in the credit.
With Project Flow, work moves smoothly from start to completion, without unnecessary waiting, multitasking, resource conflicts or hidden buffers.
If any one of these three is missing, delays, disputes, claims, escalations and waste arise.
When all three are present, something entirely different emerges: a system that delivers more projects with the same people and less pressure.
The Province of Zeeland has had positive experience with this approach and has increased the productivity of its project organisation by more than 20%. It also reports greater job satisfaction.
Other provinces have now also created the conditions for major progress. In my view, this could lead to even greater acceleration of flow. Several contractors are increasingly viewing their processes through a Flow lens. This can help to improve both productivity and job satisfaction further.
The upward spiral
It is telling that the term downward spiral is used more often than upward spiral.
But the logic can also be reversed:
- Hidden waiting time can become additional capacity;
- Conflicting interests can become shared objectives;
- Work pressure can become healthy focus;
- Scarce skilled professionals can be deployed and supported more intelligently.
This creates an upward spiral: the logic above leads to better flow, better flow leads to more completed projects, and more completed projects lead to greater confidence and job satisfaction. Prioritisation remains necessary. But the real breakthrough lies in collaboration and improving flow.
Even more important than the most important minor matter: football…
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Willem de Wit © Copyright 2026, Mobilé 4 flow & innovation
Founder & Managing Director of Mobilé 4 flow & innovation.