By Sydney Mabalayo, Strategy and Business Development Director: SPM
There are projects that look right on paper. The scope is clear, timelines are defined, and the commercial terms are workable. From the outside, it reads like a straightforward piece of work. Those are often the ones you need to be careful with.
Because what sits behind the scope is not always stable. You start asking a few questions and things don’t quite line up. The maintenance history is thin. The way the asset is being operated has changed over time. The people responsible for it have changed as well. What is written down and what is actually happening are not the same thing. You can still take the work. Many do. But you need to understand what you are stepping into.
In this environment, the risk is not always technical. It is structural. You are entering a system where decisions have been layered over time, often without continuity. Work has been done, but not always carried through properly. Small issues have been managed around instead of resolved. The system holds, but not for the reasons it should. That changes the nature of the engagement. You are no longer working on a defined problem. You are working inside a condition that has been evolving for years. The scope might say one thing, but the reality will ask something else of you once you are on site.
That is where many projects start to move. Not because the work is difficult, but because the environment is inconsistent. You begin to see gaps that were not visible at the start. Decisions that should have been made earlier now sit with you, and the line between what was scoped and what is actually required becomes less clear.
From a business development perspective, this is not a surprise. It is a pattern. The question is not whether this exists. The question is whether you choose to enter it.
There is a tendency to treat every opportunity as something to be secured and then managed. That thinking is rarely challenged, even when the signs are there. Work is taken on because it can be, not because it should be. And once you are in, you inherit everything that was not addressed before you arrived. The gaps, the shortcuts, the decisions that were delayed or avoided all become part of your scope, whether they were priced or not. By the time that reality becomes visible, it is too late to step back. The business carries it, and the cost is not only commercial. It shows up in stretched teams, compromised focus, and work that never quite settles.
Some environments will absorb time, attention, and resources without ever settling into a predictable state. You remain in a constant cycle of responding, adjusting, and working around conditions that do not hold. The work gets done, but it does not build forward. It does not create a base you can rely on. Over time, that has an effect on how you operate as a business. It pulls you into reactive work, stretches your teams in ways that are not always visible externally, and makes planning harder because the starting point is never fully reliable.
That is why selection matters. Not in the sense of walking away from difficult work, but in understanding the difference between complexity and instability. Complex environments can be worked through. They require depth, experience, and discipline, and there is a path to control even if it takes time. Unstable environments are different. They shift underneath you. The more you try to stabilise them within a limited scope, the more the gaps move elsewhere. You are not building on a foundation. You are trying to correct one while standing on it.
Those are the decisions that sit before any contract is signed. They are not always visible in formal processes. They are formed through experience, through recognising patterns, and through being honest about what a piece of work will demand beyond what is written down.
Business development is often described as growth. In practice, it is just as much about restraint. Because how a business grows is shaped by the work it agrees to take on, and just as importantly, the work it chooses not to.