Where Does Your PPP Project Get Stuck?

Written By Tom Teerlynck

Negotiate not just the deal, but also the relationship.

Too many infrastructure projects stall or fail at the early stages — often not because of weak teams or flawed design, but because alignment is missing and relationships are neglected.  I’ve seen this again and again over the last 25+ years, working on dozens of large and mid-sized public-private partnership (PPP) projects across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

Projects drag on for years, only to be launched with suboptimal outcomes — or never reach implementation at all. The ripple effects are familiar: sunk costs, eroded returns, public funds wasted, reputational damage, strained relationships, and strategic goals quietly abandoned.

But I’ve also led highly complex PPPs that moved swiftly from concept to financial close — laying the groundwork for long-term success, economic development, and healthy relationships between public and private partners.

What made the difference?

Not technical capability — most teams are strong in that — but the ability to align interests early and build resilient relationships that hold under pressure.

It’s the difference between negotiating just the deal… and negotiating both the deal and the relationship.

The problem

PPP projects bring together a broad and often fragmented ecosystem: governments, developers, investors, lenders, regulators, contractors, and the public — each with their own goals, constraints, and timelines.

If these interests aren’t actively managed and aligned, the complexity quickly turns into breakdowns and delays:

  • Projects stall at the MoU or early-discussion stage;

  • Key agreements drag on endlessly;

  • Permits, priorities, or political realities shift midstream;

  • Relationships deteriorate, and tensions escalate into conflict.

The root cause

While PPPs are technically, financially, and legally sophisticated, it’s often the human and institutional dynamics that derail progress. The real friction comes from how people interact:

  • Misaligned interests — conflicting priorities, hidden agendas, political pressure, and divergent timelines;

  • Weak communication — lack of trust, poor listening, cultural disconnects, and unspoken concerns;

  • No structured process — limited stakeholder mapping, poor negotiation preparation, zero-sum thinking, and no roadmap to closure.

Most organizations are well-equipped to deliver on technical execution — development, engineering, finance, legal, operations. But few are built to handle the critical moments of dealmaking: when alignment must be forged, tensions resolved, and relationships built — all while moving toward agreement in a complex, high-stakes environment.

This is rarely a failure of the team. It’s simply not what they’re set up or trained to do.

What it takes in practice

What these moments require is:

  • a systematic approach that addresses both substance and relationships; and

  • a deep understanding and management of stakeholder dynamics, institutional complexity, and negotiation behavior.

A structured, adaptive approach

Deal making isn’t improvisation. It requires a clear strategy — and the ability to adapt as events unfold.

Across projects and geographies, I use a five-phase methodology that integrates both technical substance and people dynamics. These phases aren’t linear — I cycle through them multiple times as new issues, players, or tensions emerge.

1. Diagnostic

Understand the real issue, the players involved, and how (or whether) the process is currently structured.

2. Strategic Preparation

  • Develop deep familiarity with the subject matter and context;

  • Map stakeholders — direct and indirect, influencers and spoilers — along with their interests, resources, and barriers;

  • Define priorities, walkaway points, credible positions, and outline a zone for possible agreement;

  • Prepare tone and narrative: how to assert, how to listen, and how to handle difficult moments and tactics.

3. Process Design

  • Create a negotiation structure that’s firm yet flexible;

  • Define who participates, in what format, and what escalation paths exist;

  • Balance formal and informal discussions; ensure all key players are involved, consulted, or informed.

4. Negotiation & Resolution

  • Open discussions in a way that builds trust;

  • Surface interests behind positions and explore workable options;

  • Respond strategically, not reactively;

  • Manage emotional and political dynamics — both at and away from the table;

  • Build toward agreement while protecting relationships.

5. Post-Negotiation Follow-Through

  • Ensure implementation steps are managed with care;

  • Maintain relationships to avoid disruption;

  • Capture key lessons and prepare the team for what’s next.

The people dynamics

Complex deals aren’t just about terms. They’re also about people.

Technical preparation is essential, but what sustains progress is how people engage. In negotiations, outcomes depend on striking a deliberate balance between:

  • Effective assertion — being clear and firm about your interests, your reasoning, and walkaway points, in a way that commands respect without provoking defensiveness; and

  • High empathy — genuinely striving to understand the other side’s perspective and constraints, listening closely, reading the room, and keeping the dialogue constructive.

This balance isn’t a soft skill — it’s a strategic one. It helps uncover what truly matters for each party and stakeholder — including the unspoken — and enables solutions that are workable and durable.

People remember how you handled the moment —  and how you handled them — especially under pressure. Demonstrating firmness with respect, and empathy without compromising your core interests, builds credibility and trust. It positions you as someone who can find a way forward, even in the toughest situations.

But it’s not one-size-fits-all. This approach must be tailored — to the issue, the situation, and the individual. Consistently getting that calibration right is what transforms difficult interactions into durable progress.

I applied this approach — the five-phase methodology and deliberate management of people dynamics — during the negotiation of a first large power project in an emerging market. The agreements were signed just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because we had invested considerable time not only in the commercial and technical details, but also in building sustainable relationships across the ecosystem, we were able to negotiate two additional major projects — during the pandemic, mostly online.

Within less than ten months, three projects were secured totalling over USD 2.3 billion. We had laid the foundation for a durable, long-term partnership.

Conclusion

Public-private partnerships are essential for delivering infrastructure that serves the public while leveraging private-sector strenght. And it’s in the development phase that the next 20 to 30 years are shaped — across commercial, technical, financial, and legal dimensions.

It’s also in this phase that relationships are built — or broken.

But with consistent, deliberate preparation — focusing on both substance and people — and a strong approach to managing relationships, PPP projects can move to closing more smoothly, and start off on the right foot for a sustainable partnership.

Tom Teerlynck