Two status reports landed in the same week. One said the programme was on track. The other said it was at risk. Both were right.
The programme lead reported on track. Against the plan that had been agreed, the milestones were being hit. Nothing in that report was false. The committee report said at risk. Against the original business case, the assumptions underneath had already shifted. Nothing in that report was false either.
Two functions measured the same programme against two different baselines. Both were accurate. Neither was complete. And no one was accountable for deciding which version the organisation would act on.
So the programme ran on both at once. Planning continued against on track. Worry accumulated against at risk. The gap between the two reports was never closed, because closing it was no one's job.
There is a second layer here, and it is the harder one. On track is rarely a neutral measurement. It is often a position. Naming a programme at risk has a cost — it invites questions about who let it drift, it slows the narrative, it exposes the person who says it first. So the status stays green a little longer than the facts support, not because anyone is dishonest, but because the structure makes green the safer thing to report.
When two reports disagree and both are right, the question is never which number is correct. It is which baseline the organisation has decided to steer against — and whether anyone is allowed to say the quiet part: that on track and at risk are describing the same programme.
Cordula Buss · Plan A2C / Helping finance and programme leaders build steering logic that works.