Numbers don't lie, but people sometimes do (to themselves)

3 November 2025·Billy Cheung

Source: Pexels

I worked in a consultancy firm that took project planning seriously - every hour, every person, every task.
As the project management office and resource manager, I oversaw the full project portfolio for the offices in the region, at times stepping in as the de facto project management lead, monitoring progress and escalating issues to the global leadership when they arose.

One project kept catching my attention.

Every week, the planned resource consumptions differed from the actuals significantly.
When I asked for a reliable re-forecast - for the benefit of that project and the wider resource planning - the project manager, proudly citing his PMP as proof of expertise, insisted the project was "perfectly on track", and told me that updating plans was "impractical" and "not how real PMs work".
This conversation repeated again and again. I'd point out the variance; he'd insist it was "normal". I suggested escalation; he claimed he had "everything under control".
In the end, the project closed with a huge deficit, and the leadership demanded answers from him — ones he couldn't justify.

That experience stuck with me - not because it was dramatic, but because it revealed how easily "on track" can become self-deception.

"On track" means more than being on schedule

It's a basic principle, yet we often overlook. A project isn't "on track" just because the tasks are ticked off on time.

The project triangle - scope, time, cost - exists for a reason.

If staying "on schedule" means doubling the resources or overspending the budget, the problem hasn't gone away — it's only changed shape.

Source: What Is the Project Management Triangle? (Coursera)

Measure what's really being delivered, not just what's being done

The project manager in that story blindly believed that everything was fine because the project milestones were on time.
In his view, being "on schedule" was the proof that the project was healthy — as if time alone could measure success.

What truly matters isn't just to check off the to-do list, but to inspect and compare what's been delivered (the actual results achieved, or the value) with what's been spent (the time and cost invested).
When those two don't line up, it's a red flag - no matter how good the timeline looks.

In PMBOK (short for the Project Management Body of Knowledge, the framework behind the PMP certification), this is called Earned Value Management (EVM) - a simple yet powerful way to see whether the value earned matches the effort and cost expended. When done well, it highlights early warning signs long before the numbers turn red.

Had it been used properly in that project, the misalignment would've been obvious long before the closure meeting.

Projects live within organisations, not outside them

One of the biggest oversights was the project manager's view of authority. He acted as though his project existed in its own little world - client first, everything else later.

But projects don't live in isolation. They sit within structures, processes, and governance models that define how authority actually works.

He also failed to recognise that internal teams - the PMO, resource management, and even the leadership - were stakeholders too, and focusing solely on the client instead.

Ignoring them isn't autonomy; it's recklessness.

In the PMBOK language, again, this touches two key areas:

• Stakeholder Communication & Engagement - success depends on engaging all stakeholders, not just those funding the project.
• Enterprise Environmental Factors & Organisational Process Assets - a project's execution is shaped by the processes, approval paths, reporting lines, and other organisational constraints.

Understanding these isn't "impractical" - it's how a project stays aligned with the ecosystem that sustains it.

There were more lessons, of course. But these three - the importance of seeing beyond the schedule, keeping an eye on what the numbers really say, and understanding how the organisation works - still guide me whenever I review a project plan or produce one myself.

Because "on track" isn't a feeling, a guess, or a PowerPoint colour.

It's a balance of numbers, people, and process. When any of them are ignored, the project starts lying to itself.

Numbers don't lie.

But people sometimes do, especially when they want to believe their project is fine.