Construction Project Governance: Why Coordination Beats Funding in Alberta

Alberta has one of the largest construction pipelines in Canada. Industry estimates put the province’s inventory of major capital projects in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and construction employment in Alberta grew faster than in any other province in early 2026. Yet the biggest risk to that pipeline is not money, and it is not only labour. It is coordination: who actually runs each project, end to end, when government, municipalities, private owners and contractors all have different goals.

This article looks at the labour numbers, at what research says about why large projects derail, and at the governance practices that keep complex projects on track.

The labour gap is real

Labour shortages are well documented. ATB Financial, citing BuildForce Canada projections, reports that Alberta’s non-residential construction sector will need to hire about 42,400 workers by 2035, more than half of them to replace retirements. With roughly 26,900 new entrants under age 30 expected, a gap of about 15,500 workers remains, and that is under a status quo scenario that excludes new major projects.

Other indicators point the same way. ATB notes that the job vacancy rate for specialty trades reached 4.3% in the second quarter of 2026, compared with 3.1% across all industries, and that 18.4% of construction workers are now aged 55 or older, up from about 10% in the mid-2000s.

These are serious constraints. But labour shortages do not explain why some well-funded, well-staffed projects still fail while others succeed in the same market.

Why large projects really derail

Professor Lavagnon Ika of the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, who studies major infrastructure projects, argues that common explanations such as planning errors or optimistic estimates are incomplete. In a February 2026 interview he summed up the problem in a phrase that every project manager will recognise: each actor has its own project within the project.

Governments, municipalities, community groups, owners, designers and contractors all bring legitimate but different objectives. Ika describes three kinds of uncertainty that interact on large projects:

• Rational uncertainty: technical unknowns and incomplete data.
• Political uncertainty: conflicting interests among stakeholders.
• Psychosocial uncertainty: personal ambitions, professional identities and the stories organisations tell themselves.

Projects derail when these forces pull in different directions and nobody has the authority, or the incentive, to correct course.

What coordination failure looks like on site

In practice, coordination failure is rarely dramatic. It shows up as small, repeated frictions:

• Design decisions waiting for approval from someone who is not in the meetings.
• Consultants working from different drawing revisions.
• Municipal requirements discovered late because nobody owned the permit strategy.
• Change orders approved by one party and disputed by another.
• Problems escalated by email chains rather than decided.

Each issue costs days. Together they cost months, and in a market with scarce labour a lost month can mean losing a crew to another project.

Governance practices that work

1. One accountable project lead

Every project needs one person or team accountable for the outcome from feasibility to handover, with the authority to make decisions or to obtain them quickly. Shared responsibility without a clear lead usually means no responsibility.

2. A clear decision matrix

Who approves design changes, budget transfers, schedule changes and claims? Writing this down in a simple responsibility matrix at the start avoids most disputes later.

3. Interests mapped early

A stakeholder analysis at feasibility stage identifies what each party actually needs: a municipality may care about public realm and traffic, an investor about yield and timing, an operator about functionality. Designing for these interests early is cheaper than negotiating them during construction.

4. Uncertainty managed explicitly

A risk register with owners and actions, reviewed regularly, turns uncertainty into decisions. Contingency should be linked to identified risks, not treated as a general reserve.

5. Single source of project information

One current set of drawings, one schedule, one change log. When every party works from the same information, coordination becomes much easier.

6. Regular, short decision meetings

Weekly coordination meetings should end with decisions, owners and dates, not only with updates. Open issues older than two weeks should be escalated automatically.

Why this matters more now in Alberta

The Canadian Construction Association reported that Alberta’s construction employment grew by about 4,700 jobs in early 2026, the largest gain among the provinces it cited, while building investment in the province declined in late 2025. More work is competing for the same experienced people, and margins are under pressure. In that environment, a project that wastes time on internal coordination loses its place in the queue for trades, equipment and approvals.

Questions to ask before you commit to a project

• Who is accountable for delivery, end to end?
• What does each stakeholder need from the project, and where do those needs conflict?
• Who can approve changes, and how quickly?
• How are risks identified, owned and reviewed?
• Is there a single, current source of drawings, schedule and costs?

If these questions do not have clear answers, the project has a governance gap, and no amount of funding or labour will fully close it.

The bottom line

Alberta is growing, and its construction pipeline is large. But growth does not mean every project gets delivered. Labour is a constraint, money is a constraint, but governance is often the deciding factor. The projects that succeed are the ones where someone is clearly running the project, end to end.

If you are scoping a project in Alberta and want a second read on its structure and governance, see my construction project management services or contact me.

Frequently asked questions

How many construction workers will Alberta need?

BuildForce Canada projections cited by ATB Financial estimate that Alberta’s non-residential sector must hire about 42,400 workers by 2035, leaving a shortfall of around 15,500 after new young entrants.

Why do large construction projects fail?

Research by Professor Lavagnon Ika suggests that beyond technical errors, projects derail because stakeholders pursue different objectives and uncertainty is not managed through clear governance.

What is project governance in construction?

It is the structure that defines who is accountable, who makes which decisions, how risks and changes are managed and how information flows between all parties.

Sources

• ATB Financial: Who is going to build? Part 2
• University of Ottawa: Grands projets d’infrastructure, au-delà des dérapages (Lavagnon Ika)
• Canadian Construction Association: Economic Report, Spring 2026

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