A System Built on Belated Checks

Cost planning should anchor a project, not pursue it after decisions are finalised. Yet on too many projects, cost input enters once the design is locked. By then the course is set and the conversation is on compromise.

This is not a minor lapse. Data from The Primestone Group shows that when cost estimators are involved at the start, projects stay within budget 80 per cent of the time. Delay cost engagement, and the odds drop sharply to 60 per cent. Projects are also 30 per cent more likely to hit deadlines if cost control is embedded early.

The Real Cost of Late Costing

Too many projects overshoot expectations:

• Nine out of ten construction projects exceed their initial budgets, typically by 28 per cent. Poor estimating is to blame for around 32 per cent of those overruns.
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• In Australia, large infrastructure projects often exceed both time and budget. Overruns of 9 to 20 per cent are common, with some ventures soaring to 80 per cent over their original budgets.
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These are not anomalies. They are the norm, because cost is treated as retrospective compliance rather than proactive collaboration.

The Consequence of Reactive Cost Intervention

This isn’t just about dollars. It’s about design integrity and professional agency.

When cost enters late, the knock-on effects are immediate:

• Innovation is replaced by value engineering. Elegant design becomes pragmatic fallback.
  
  
• You pivot from compass to crisis manager.
  
  
• Deliverables shrink while stress deepens.
  
  

When cost planning is positioned at the end, creativity is punished, not celebrated.

Real-World Contrast

When cost planning is early and collaborative, outcomes often defy conventional trade-offs. A project we observed saved 15 per cent on budget without compromising function or quality.

By comparison, late-stage cost intervention often triggers a chain of redesigns. Budgets still overrun, sometimes by 20 per cent or more. These are slow burns that betray both the intention and the intentioned teams.

Why the System Encourages Reverse Design

It is not that professionals don’t know better. They do. The problem lies in how processes are structured.

Procurement pressure, political timelines, the tendency to rush approvals, all push cost planning to the margins. Designers are told to be creative, while cost becomes a trailing question. And so the system sees creativity as deliverables, not collective calibration.

Breaking the Loop

You can’t fix this from within backward-looking workflows.

Instead, it starts here:

You insist cost planning happens during concept, not completion.

You include cost consultants as co-creators, not critics.

You embed contingency buffers of 5–10 per cent from the outset.

Because when cost is part of the dialogue, not an afterthought, you protect not just overrun risks, but professional purpose.

Final Thought

When “Can we afford this?” becomes the opening question, too often, everyone loses.

Cost should not be an epilogue. It should be part of the story from chapter 1.

Don’t plan in reverse. Cost ahead. Design with reach. Build better.