Your governance system is producing one signal.
Your project is producing another.
This article finds out which one is lying.
Why this matters before you read further
The gap between controlled and looking controlled is invisible until it isn't.
RAG status stays green. Reports go out on time. Stage gates get signed.
Meanwhile the site is running off WhatsApp. The vendor committed to a date nobody verified. The RAID log has seventeen open items with no owner and no deadline.
By the time the gap becomes visible, it is already expensive, political, and slow to fix.
The PMO takes the question: "How did we not see this coming?"
The answer, almost every time: the signals were there. Nobody asked the right questions.
The five questions
Read each one. Answer yes or no. Be honest — not optimistic.
Not a kickoff deck. Not an email thread. Not a set of meeting notes from the first steering call. One document. Written. With assumptions listed, acceptance criteria defined, and explicit out-of-scope items named. A document that — if someone challenges "was that included?" in this week's meeting — you can open, point to, and close the debate in sixty seconds.
Not in principle. Not at milestone level. This week — at task level, at supplier level, at handoff level. If you called the site supervisor right now and asked what is happening today, would the answer match what is in the schedule?
Not a category. Not a responsible team. One named person. Not "soon" or "next sprint." A specific date by which the decision must be made. Not "escalate if needed." A stated consequence if the item is not closed by that date.
Not confirmed it with procurement. Not got a commitment email. Verified it. Drawings frozen. Materials ordered. Approvals complete. Capacity available on the dates promised.
Same inputs going in — same data cut, same format. Decisions made, not just discussed. Actions assigned to named people with dates. Commitments re-confirmed or flagged as slipping. Not a status update. A control loop.
The instinct to ignore this
Most PMO Directors who read those five questions will instinctively answer yes — then qualify it. "Mostly." "In principle." "We're working on it."
That instinct is the problem.
A project that is mostly under control is not under control. It is a project where the exceptions have not surfaced yet.
"We would know if something was serious" is not a control system. It is hope with a governance label on it.
Two nos is the threshold.
One no is a gap. Two nos means you have two plans running and you do not know which one is real. Three or more means the gap between your governance system and your operating reality is already costing you — in rework, in delays, in credibility — whether you can see it yet or not.
The question is not whether the gap exists. It is how wide it already is.
Find out in 21 questions.
The Delivery Control Readiness Diagnostic scores your programme across all five control pillars — scope, plan, decisions, vendors, cadence. Instant result. No meeting required.