James (Jim) D'Arcy

My city is currently undertaking a road improvement project in my neighbourhood. According to the City of Edmonton (2026), its micro-surfacing program is a cost-effective way to extend the lifespan of existing roadways. That makes perfect sense.

The problem is what happened just before the project began. Roughly two weeks before the micro-surfacing crew arrived, another crew repainted the road markings. They refreshed the crosswalk, added a lane separation line approaching the intersection, and painted a left-turn-only arrow in the left lane.

As shown in this photo, when the micro-surfacing work was completed, all of those freshly painted markings have been effectively erased.
This is more than an unnecessary expense. It illustrates the cost of poor coordination between projects. The city paid for work that was destined to be undone within weeks, which will require the markings to be repainted.

Additionally, this kind of sequencing undermines public confidence by creating the impression that departments are operating in silos rather than working from a coordinated plan. Senge (1990) would say that the unnecessary repainting represents “rework” and is a symptom of “fragmented planning.”

This is a great example of why taking an organizationally holistic approach to planning and project coordination saves both time and money.

Many leading academics in the fields of systems thinking, strategic planning, and operational planning tell us that holistic planning recognizes that the many parts of a system do not exist in isolation. Instead, they are interconnected activities that compete for shared resources, affect one another’s outcomes, and collectively shape organizational performance. “Operating in silos is ineffective. Effective coordination across departments helps ensure that work is sequenced logically, resources are used efficiently, and duplication or rework is avoided” (Project Management Institute, 2021).

Integrating planning across functional areas reduces waste, improves decision-making, and enhances stakeholder confidence by demonstrating that the organization is operating toward common objectives rather than as a collection of independent units.

References

City of Edmonton (2026). https://lnkd.in/gUwGGSzH

Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.

Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday.