Answer extracted from the Beyond The Plan podcast — listen to the full episode below.
What are the pre-project red flags that indicate delivery failure is likely?
Governance failures precede project delivery failure, and the warning signs appear before work even starts. Unclear sponsorship with no executive accountability, contested or unclear scope, a weak business case, unsecured budget, and lack of organizational change readiness are all red flags that predict failure is already predetermined.
The clearest signal comes from unclear sponsor accountability. Without a named executive who owns the outcome and bears responsibility for success, governance breaks down immediately. This isn't about having a sponsor on paper—it's about a person with real authority, real skin in the game, and real consequences for failure.
When scope remains contested or undefined, teams are already operating in chaos. Nobody knows what success looks like, boundaries shift constantly, and decisions get made reactively instead of deliberately. This ambiguity invites mission creep and ensures that stakeholders will pull in different directions from day one.
A business case that fails to articulate intended benefits is particularly dangerous. Projects driven by what Isabel Grae Garaway calls "Stars in Eyes" or vanity projects—where sponsor enthusiasm replaces rigorous reasoning—are almost guaranteed to deliver disappointment. The business case must answer why this project exists and what concrete outcome it will produce.
Unsecured or contested budget creates constant friction. When money is promised but not locked in, or when stakeholders argue over resources before work starts, the project enters delivery with a fundamental credibility problem. Teams cannot operate effectively when funding is unstable.
Organizational change readiness is often overlooked but critical. If the organization cannot absorb the change that a project is meant to create, then delivery success becomes technically possible but organizationally impossible. As discussed in this episode, governance structures must account for resistance at all levels, not just process resistance but cultural inertia as well.
"Governance always precede delivery failure. You can tell a project that's going to fail before it's even started."
Isabel Grae Garaway — Governance Expert. Grae Garaway began her career in defence, where she developed deep expertise in robust governance frameworks and risk management across large-scale infrastructure and complex programs. She is recognized as a thought leader on fit-for-purpose governance, specializing in how organizational structures enable or prevent project delivery success.
The deeper insight—one that separates experienced delivery leaders from those still learning—is that governance is not scary or bureaucratic. It's a way of enabling delivery, not hindering it. Poor governance often masquerades as risk management when it's actually just compliance theater. Real governance answers a single question: do the right people have the right information to make the right decision at the right time?
None of these red flags require a project to proceed. Each one is an opportunity to stop, reassess, and either fix the root cause or cancel the initiative altogether. Waiting until work has started to discover these problems is far more expensive than addressing them in the planning phase.
See also
What makes the New South Wales Investor Assurance Framework considered best-in-class governance practice?
The framework, created in 2012, is risk-based assurance rather than budget-based, features independent challenge from external experts, and maintains clear accountability structures that enable organizations to prevent project failure before work begins.
How should governance scale across projects of different sizes and risk profiles?
Governance should be relative to the risk. If a $200 million program building an airplane or major infrastructure requires extensive governance because the risk is high, then a smaller project at lower risk requires proportionally less governance structure.
What is the difference between minimum viable governance and minimum governance?
Minimum viable governance is not minimum governance—it is the amount of governance that is just right to get the required outcome. It means creating structures and systems that enable the right people to make the right decisions at the right time to manage project risk.
Key takeaways
- Unclear sponsor accountability and weak executive ownership are the strongest predictors of project failure.
- Contested scope, weak business cases, and unsecured budget all signal deeper governance problems that will surface during delivery.
- Organizational change readiness must be assessed before work begins, not discovered mid-project.
- "Stars in Eyes" projects—driven by enthusiasm rather than substantive business reasoning—carry built-in failure risk.