📋 Who’s Checking the Work?
Ever sat in a project governance meeting and realised — it’s the same faces, month after month — presenting progress, reviewing it, and signing it off?
Same people running the programme. Same people assessing if it’s on track. Same people approving the next phase. No fresh eyes. No real challenge.
Essentially — they’re marking their own homework.
🤔 How did anyone decide that was a good idea?
It’s human nature — if your job depends on the answer being “fine”, the answer will always be “fine”. But that’s not governance. That’s an echo chamber.
We don’t need complicated frameworks. We need one simple thing: people around the table who have no stake in the answer. Independent assurance means someone else gets to grade the work. Someone who can ask the awkward questions — and stay in the room when they do.
Because when projects go bad, the question always ends up the same: “Why didn’t anyone speak up?”
Make sure the answer isn’t: “Because no one was allowed to.”