Direction is often formed and locked before the full consequences of early decisions are visible. Oxford University and University of Sydney research, building on Kahneman’s work on behavioural bias, identifies optimism bias at the approval stage as a primary cause of major infrastructure and property project benefit shortfalls. In Australia, the Grattan Institute found that governments overspent by approximately A$34 billion on major transport infrastructure over two decades, with more than half of major projects exceeding their initial cost estimates. The root cause is not technical failure. It is untested logic at the decision stage.
That performance gap appears at two distinct points in a project’s life.
The first is at the front end, when the team is assembled and ambiguity is high. Every specialist is waiting for a unified direction to work toward. Without it, each discipline fills the gap its own way. Briefs pull in different directions. The project reaches approval having resolved the technical questions but not the fundamental one: will this actually work for the people it is being built for, commercially, operationally, and humanly. No specialist is positioned to hold that question. It requires a position outside every specialist mandate.
The second is just before capital is committed, when the approvals are in place but the human and commercial logic embedded in them has not been independently assessed. At that point, key real-world conditions are being set: how people will actually use the space, where operational pressure may emerge, what will attract scrutiny after opening, and what becomes costly to correct once built. This work operates at that point, not across the life of the project. It does not slow delivery. It clarifies direction before delivery begins.
When either point is missed, projects may face avoidable consequences after opening, when change is slow, visible, and expensive. For developers that means rectification cost and investor exposure. For government it means something harder to manage: a project that does not perform as promised, scrutinised publicly and on record. For the advisory firms that shaped the direction, under-performance puts their professional standing and future work at risk.
Most projects have experts in every discipline. What they rarely have is someone positioned to hold the question that sits across all of them: will this actually work for the people it is being built for, commercially, operationally, and humanly?
MGM Strategic Advisory exists at that position. Outside any single discipline, outside the delivery incentive structure, and engaged at the two moments where the answer to that question is most consequential.
At the front end, when direction is forming and ambiguity is high, the work synthesises the competing inputs across commercial, operational, spatial, cultural, and human dimensions into a single clear direction. One that the development team can navigate by across years, that survives leadership changes and consultant rotations, and that gives every discipline a shared premise to work toward. That direction needs to be embedded in the briefing documents and governance structures that govern the project across its life, including the operational phase after opening. Without that, it tends not to survive the handover from development to management.
Just before capital is committed, when legal, financial, and planning work is in place, the work assesses whether the human and commercial logic embedded in the approved parameters will actually hold. Who will come. Why they will stay. Whether the operational model can sustain the place once it opens. Whether the brief is clear enough to guide the consultants who follow. What constraints have been set that may limit the project’s capacity to perform. Where the conditions are not fully aligned, performance will be constrained by the weakest link.
The output in both cases is decision-grade clarity: specific enough to strengthen a board submission, identify opportunities to enhance performance, and locate where the thinking needs attention before it becomes expensive to address.
This work is advisory only.
Michael Major does not design, manage, plan, or implement projects. He does not hold a position within delivery teams, nor does he sit within the commercial incentive structures that govern them. The engagement is with Michael directly, from initiation to completion. There is no handover to a junior team.
The engagement is typically initiated by a senior sponsor, project director, Group Executive or a principal of a major project advisory firm at the point where independent consequence clarity is needed. The value of this advisory rests on its position outside the delivery structure. A firm that may be retained for work after approval cannot hold the same position.
The work is limited to the upstream commitment stage, when the cost of getting direction wrong is still avoidable. What it produces is independent judgment on whether the human and commercial logic of a project is sound, and where it needs attention before decisions are locked in.
The work is not geographically constrained. Human behaviour is consistent in its fundamentals across markets. What differs between cities, regions, and countries is the cultural context that shapes specific behaviours. That distinction is part of the analytical work, not a barrier to it.
A sound approval does not guarantee sound performance. In other high-scrutiny sectors, independent consequence review before major commitment is routine. This advisory brings that same discipline to complex property and civic decisions, at the point where it still makes a difference.
The work is most consequential on projects where the following conditions are present.
A major project is approaching approval or capital commitment. The human and commercial logic embedded in the project’s approvals has not been independently assessed. The people making the decision will be held accountable for what opens, not just what gets approved.
Direction is still forming at the front end. The development team is navigating competing inputs without a clear, durable premise to work from. The brief has not yet resolved what the project is fundamentally trying to achieve for people.
Senior sponsors want independent confidence that the project’s logic will hold, commercially, operationally, and behaviourally, before direction is locked and delivery begins.
Long-term use and post-opening scrutiny will matter. The decisions being made now need to be defensible later, on record, at the point where they were made.
The governance structures and operational conditions that will determine long-term performance have not been established before capital is committed, leaving the asset vulnerable from the moment it opens.
This discipline helps delivery proceed with clearer direction, stronger commercial logic, and fewer late-stage reversals.
The question that guides this work has been the same since the late 1980s: does the experience match what the project is promising?
Princes Square in Glasgow opened in 1988 as a boutique shopping and dining destination. The development direction was already established when Michael Major joined the project: Covent Garden of the North, Charles Rennie Mackintosh as the design reference, five floors to be leased at a uniform rate regardless of level. The architect had the circulation. The brief was set. What remained was translating that intent into a coherent retail experience that could actually be built and that Glaswegians would recognise as theirs. Working across every surface, material, and detail the shopper would encounter, and translating that into a well-articulated direction across the whole centre, was the task. When revisited in 2015 the original design was largely unchanged, more than half the original tenants were still trading, and the centre was functioning as a community gathering place as much as a retail destination. Following new ownership in 2024 it has undergone full recovery, near-full occupancy, and renewed footfall. The original design and character held across thirty-seven years.
The same pattern has repeated across different project types and scales. Woolworths commissioned a ten-day study tour of forty supermarkets across the United States to help formulate a design brief. The value was not observation alone but the synthesis of what was seen into something commercially actionable. On a technology office park development, Michael was called in to establish the commercial, spatial, operational, and human logic before development decisions were made. His assessment produced an organising framework for the entire precinct. Two major development phases followed, each building on that direction.
In New Zealand, Michael formulated strategic briefs for retail and commercial clients including H&J Smith Department Stores, conducted peer reviews for Kiwibank and Remarkables Park, provided an advisory paper on Sanitarium New Zealand covering commercial, operational, and human behaviour dimensions, and completed written feasibility studies for residential subdivision developers and landowners. The work was commissioned and consequential before MGM Strategic Advisory was established.
Michael Major’s MDM thesis, Strategic Branded Experiences, investigated the integration of three-dimensional branding and neuroscience in the built environment. In 2003 he spoke at the International Conference on Thinking in Phoenix on Soul Emergence, an early articulation of how environments generate belonging, identity, and long-term human attachment to place.
He is Co-Founder of the Institute of Neuroarchitecture, sits on the Brisbane Transport, Logistics and Mobility Subcommittee and the Creative Brisbane Collab Corporate Advisory Board, and in 2025 gave three presentations at the State of Australasian Cities Conference on the role of neuroarchitecture in city planning.
All work is provided strictly in an independent advisory capacity, focused on upstream and decision-making only.
Clients retain responsibility for all decisions, approvals, delivery, and implementation.
Michael Major does not provide design, legal, financial, or delivery services.
If a project is at the front end and the direction has not yet resolved, that is the moment. When the development team is pulling in different directions and the premise underneath the project has not been clearly established, that is when the work is most consequential.
For projects approaching capital commitment, an independent upstream consequence review can strengthen confidence before direction is locked and board approval is sought.
If you are quietly asking, “Will this actually work once people arrive?”, this is the moment to engage
To discuss a project, contact Michael directly via email or LinkedIn. The first conversation is about fit as much as scope.
Michel G Major BA (Hons), MDM
I am Co-Founder of the Institute of Neuroarchitecture, a not-for-profit initiative advancing understanding of how environments influence human behaviour, wellbeing, and long-term outcomes.