You know how it usually goes


PPP = Prolonged, Painful, and Pointless.

But not this time.

Somehow, against all odds, cultures, and acronyms…

The New Royal Adelaide Hospital in South Australia didn’t just avoid disaster — it delivered.

Let me break it down for you:

  • Australia’s most expensive hospital project at the time.
  • $2.3 billion AUD.
  • A maze of private, public, and clinical stakeholders.
  • 800 beds. 40 operating theatres. 100% public access.

The predictions?

“Too complex.”
“Healthcare PPPs always end in tears.”
“Get ready for claims, arbitration, and political carnage.”

But guess what?

They finished it.

And not just finished — they pulled off a clinical-grade, digitally-integrated, energy-efficient mega-hospital that actually works.

The secret sauce?

  1. A private consortium (SA Health Partnership) that didn't play the blame game.
  2. A government team that didn’t change the brief 64 times.
  3. A dispute resolution process that got used before lawyers smelled blood.

Crazy, right?

How couldn’t I have thought about it?

A PPP that respected scope, handled conflict like grown-ups, and even came out functional on the other side.

How could it be possible…

Anyway.

Some still say it was luck.

I say it was proof that PPPs can work… if you don’t staff them with saboteurs.

Do you want some blood?

Take a look to the lessons below?

$799.50

The 15 Top Lessons of a PPP Project Nightmare

Learn about:
The number 1 killer of Projects
Why this was not going to be just "another construction project, mate"... Read more

​

PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day.

PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com

PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below.

Vicente Valencia

Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇

Read more from Vicente Valencia

For the last few days, I’ve been watching PAW Patrol: The Movie with my son… Several times. You know… school holidays… At this point, I could write the technical due diligence report without using my notes. An idiot becomes mayor of Adventure City. His first infrastructure idea? Put a loop in the metro line. A loop. For a train full of people. On the first trip, logically the train gets stuck upside down and everyone needs to be rescued. It seems someone forgot to calculate that a train is...

I’m going to China in a few days. Suppliers. Factories. Meetings. And plenty of opportunities to discover that what I thought I knew was wrong. Preferably before transferring any money. In big infrastructure projects, that timing matters rather a lot. Take Brisbane’s Clem7 tunnel. In April 2010, its operator announced that 1.24 million vehicle trips had been made through the tunnel during its first three weeks. Almost 59,000 a day. Lovely numbers. But meaningless… If you stopped at that...

Look at this story told to me by Muhammad Danish, a top expert in PPP... Pakistan. A road to be built. A few years ago. Inflation was running wild. Prices were changing so fast that a contractor could buy materials on Monday and regret being born by Thursday… until he discovered he could sell them for a fortune on Sunday. The government’s advisers saw the problem. If the private partner had to carry all the price escalation risk, the bids would be absurdly expensive. Or there would be no bids...