Why Projects drift off course costing the economy millions each year.

In most organisations, project failure rarely looks like failure at the start.

The plans are detailed. The budgets are approved. The engineers are competent. The governance is in place.

And yet, somewhere along the line, projects slow down, costs rise, rework increases, and what should have been a straightforward delivery becomes a drawn-out exercise in “getting it back on track.”

The uncomfortable truth is this: most project drift isn’t caused by poor execution—it’s caused by a quiet, early misunderstanding.

Usually at the start of a project, everybody - operations, engineering, procurement, and delivery teams all believe they agree on the outcome.

When in actual fact - They don’t. This is because they are all sitting in different seats at the table.

• Engineering is focused on technical compliance.

• Operations is focused on maintainability.

• Procurement is focused on cost and supplier delivery.

• Project management is focused on timeline and governance.

The misunderstanding is not one big disagreement—it is hundreds of small mis-alignments that accumulate:

• A specification interpreted slightly differently

• A constraint assumed but never confirmed

• A “minor change” that shifts downstream effort

• A success measure that was never fully shared
  

Each one seems manageable in isolation. Together, they create rework, delay, and cost inflation that no one explicitly approved.

When teams are not anchored to a clear, shared definition of success, three things happen:

1. Local optimisation replaces system thinking Each team does what looks right from their perspective, even if it creates friction elsewhere.
   

2. Decisions get pushed upwards

   Without clarity, people escalate rather than decide, slowing delivery.
   

3. Rework becomes normalised

   Misalignment is discovered late, when it is expensive to fix.
   

This is why experienced teams can still deliver late, over budget, or with disappointing impact.

When outcome thinking is introduced at any stage of the project, conversations shift and the higher outcomes of the project get seen again - over and above fussing around the misaligned detail.

This alone can bring a project back on course, yet it is rarely done.