There’s a comforting moment in most projects when the plan is signed off.
The schedule is locked.
The budget is agreed.
Governance is in place.
Everyone exhales.
That’s usually when the real risk begins.
Most project risk isn’t born in planning. It’s created later — in the small, reasonable decisions that slowly move the project away from what was approved.
A scope change here that “won’t affect the critical path.”
A sequencing tweak there to “help the contractor.”
A risk accepted because “we’ll manage it operationally.”
None of these decisions feel reckless in isolation. In fact, most are well intentioned. The problem is that they rarely come with a re-alignment of accountability.
I’ve written before about how green reporting can mask control, and how projects drift while everything still looks compliant.
👉 (INTERNAL LINK to “Green Status Is Not Control”)
The danger isn’t change itself.
Projects have to adapt.
The danger is change without ownership.
When plans evolve but accountability doesn’t, risk compounds quietly. The baseline still exists, but no one is truly managing to it anymore. The project hasn’t failed — it’s just no longer being actively controlled.
This is where experienced project managers behave differently.
They don’t treat the approved plan as a historical artefact.
They treat it as a live contract with reality.
Every deviation triggers a question:
Who owns the consequence of this change — not just the action, but the outcome?
That mindset is what separates adaptation from drift.
Because most projects don’t blow up suddenly.
They unravel slowly, decision by decision, after everyone thought the hard part was over.
Ben Webb — Project Manager
AIPM Australian Project Manager of the Year (2022)
https://benwebb.au
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