The royal route in projects

To celebrate King’s Day, the national holiday in the Netherlands that marks the birthday of King Willem-Alexander, Quilyx is publishing a special blog today about a concept that often comes up in projects: the royal route.

In projects, people often talk about the royal route. By that, we mean the most careful and highest-quality route to achieve the results and reach the objective. It is usually the route in which all the logical steps, dependencies, quality safeguards, and decision points are properly taken into account. Precisely because of that, it is also often the route that takes the most time. And that is exactly why people so often choose to deviate from it.

The expression itself is typically Dutch, but the dilemma behind it is universal. Every project, whether in the Netherlands or in an international setting, faces the same question: do we follow the careful, well-understood route, or do we trade part of that certainty for speed?

The royal road traditionally means taking the proper or usual way, without shortcuts, and it also carries the idea of doing something in an open, straightforward, and well-ordered manner. In project management, that is a powerful image. The royal route is not necessarily the shortest path, but it is often the most carefully designed one.

The royal route as an image

The royal route can best be imagined as a well-maintained winding road through a wooded landscape. It follows the terrain instead of fighting it. It takes you past the key points along the way. The road is visible, passable, and thought through. You know where you are, where you are going, and what kinds of risks you may encounter.

That does not mean the route is free of danger. There may still be obstacles, delays, and the well-known bears in the road. But because the route is broadly known and deliberately designed, it remains more manageable and more predictable than the alternatives.

Why people so often move away from it

In real projects, there is always pressure. Pressure on time, on budget, on attention, or on political expectations. That is why the temptation to leave the royal route is often so strong.

Instead of following the proper road, people try to find a path through the woods that joins the main route again further ahead. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it even saves time. But there is usually a price.

That price is often paid in three ways:

• lower predictability
• higher risk
• more pressure on people and the organization

The moment you step away from the royal route, you also step away from the known sequence of processes, controls, and logical dependencies. That makes it harder to see what still lies ahead. And that is exactly why these faster routes usually become less predictable.

Shorter does not automatically mean cheaper

One of the biggest misunderstandings in projects is that a faster route will also be a cheaper one. In practice, the opposite is often true.

Reducing time usually costs money. Extra people may need to be added. Priority has to be forced. Work is pulled forward before the right conditions are in place. Teams are asked to improvise. Engineers are interrupted so that “just this one thing” can be arranged quickly.

Sometimes that really is necessary. But it almost always increases pressure and frustration inside the organization. People are pulled away from their normal work. Processes are bypassed. Quality checks are squeezed. What looked like a shortcut starts to feel more like disruption.

Quality comes under pressure as well

Time and money are not the only things affected. Quality often comes under pressure too.

When you leave the royal route, you are not only skipping time. You are often also skipping steps that were there for a reason. Certain checks become lighter. Documentation falls behind. Design choices are made faster and with less reflection. A solution may appear ready, but the foundation underneath it can become less stable.

That is what makes the royal route so important. It is not simply the longest route. It is often the route in which quality is best protected.

Does that mean you should always follow it

No. The royal route is not a dogma. It is a reference point.

Its value lies in making visible how much time, money, and effort are needed to reach a high-quality result in a careful way. That is especially useful when the end point is clear, for example when a system has to be decommissioned or a piece of infrastructure must be ready by a specific moment.

That does not mean you can never leave that route. Sometimes it is entirely reasonable to do so. But it should be a conscious choice, with a clear view of the risks and consequences.

When a more adaptive approach fits better

Once the end result becomes less sharply defined and several different roads can lead to a good outcome, a more adaptive approach often makes more sense.

In those situations, it is less useful to map out the full journey in detail from the start. Instead, you move in shorter stretches. You learn as you go. You show the client or sponsor where you are, what has been done, what has been learned, and what the next step should be.

That way, the journey may be less fixed, but it remains visible and shared. The client does not end up waiting in one part of the forest while the project team is somewhere else entirely, wondering where the time and money went.

You can also combine both

In many projects, the smartest choice is not to pick either the royal route or the shortcut, but to combine both.

The royal route remains the original reference. It shows the most careful and best-understood way to reach the objective. But along the way, teams can still decide to choose a different path for part of the journey. Sometimes that means moving through bushes and rougher ground because the time gain is worth it and the risk is understood. Sometimes it means returning to the original route because it safely goes around a ravine that was underestimated earlier.

That kind of flexibility only works when there is enough calm and trust in the project. Without calm and trust, every deviation from the royal route quickly turns into panic-driven improvisation. And that is when the risk of getting lost, or ending up in a swamp, increases dramatically.

Why the royal route is such a useful idea

The strength of the royal route is not that it must always be followed. Its strength is that it gives a project a common reference point.

It helps make visible:

• what the careful and proper route would be
• which quality is protected by following it
• how much time and money that route requires
• and what the likely consequences are when you move away from it

That leads to better conversations. Not arguments about right or wrong, but clearer discussions about trade-offs.

And that may be the real value of the royal route in projects. Not that it must always be taken, but that it helps everyone understand what is being traded away when another path is chosen.