10 Signs Your Project Is Already Off the Rails (Even If Everyone Says It’s Fine)
- D.B Trench
- Jan 7
- 3 min read
It usually starts in a meeting.
The slide deck is clean.
The status lights are green.
Someone says, “We’re in a good place.”
And yet — something feels off.
No alarms are ringing.
No one is panicking.
The project isn’t “failing” in any visible way.
But if you’ve been doing this long enough, you know that projects rarely collapse suddenly.
They drift.
They soften.
They fail politely.
Here are ten signs your project may already be off the rails — even while everyone insists it’s fine.
1. Decisions Keep Getting “Parked”
Not rejected.
Not escalated.
Just… parked.
Each meeting ends with the same phrase: “Let’s circle back.”
Weeks pass.
The parking lot fills up.
Nothing leaves.
Parked decisions don’t disappear — they quietly become assumptions.
And assumptions are just unapproved scope wearing a disguise.
2. Risks Are Always Described as “Manageable”
Every risk register looks calm when every risk is labeled manageable.
No quantified impact.
No confidence level.
No trigger conditions.
Just vibes.
If every risk is manageable, none of them are being managed.
3. Stakeholders Stop Asking Questions
This one is subtle — and dangerous.
When stakeholders disengage, it often gets interpreted as trust.
In reality, it’s frequently resignation.
They’re not aligned.
They’ve simply stopped expecting clarity.
4. Action Items Exist, But Ownership Is Fuzzy
There are action items everywhere.
But when you ask who owns one, the answer sounds like:
“We’re working on it”
“The team is aligned”
“Someone’s picking that up”
Work without ownership is just movement without direction.
5. Dates Move Quietly
The milestone didn’t slip.
It was adjusted.
No announcement.
No re-baseline discussion.
Just a new date on the next deck.
Quiet schedule movement is how delays become history instead of risk.
6. Dependencies Are “Being Worked”
This phrase deserves its own risk category.
If a dependency has been “being worked” for multiple reporting cycles, it’s not progress — it’s avoidance with good manners.
Unresolved dependencies don’t wait patiently.
They surface later, louder, and usually in someone else’s meeting.
7. Escalation Feels Socially Awkward
You know something’s wrong — but raising it feels… uncomfortable.
Not because the issue isn’t real, but because it might:
disrupt the mood
make someone defensive
label you as “negative”
When escalation becomes a personality test instead of a process, projects start lying to themselves.
8. Metrics Look Clean but Feel Thin
Percent complete is high.
Burn rate looks reasonable.
All indicators are green.
And yet, none of them actually explain what will be delivered next.
Metrics without narrative don’t reveal reality — they obscure it.
9. Delivery Teams Sound Tired, Not Busy
Busy teams sound energized, focused, purposeful.
Tired teams sound flat.
If your delivery team is exhausted early — before pressure peaks — something structural is already wrong.
10. You’re Documenting More Than You’re Leading
This one’s personal.
When you notice you’re spending more time:
protecting emails
clarifying misunderstandings
documenting decisions retroactively
…than actually shaping the work, the project is slipping into survival mode.
That’s not leadership.
That’s damage control.
Why PMs Miss These Signs
Because none of them look like failure.
They look like:
professionalism
patience
optimism
being a “team player”
And because the pressure to stay green is often stronger than the permission to be honest.
What Happens If You Ignore Them
The dashboard eventually turns red — but only after credibility is gone.
By the time leadership notices, the story is already written:
“This came out of nowhere.”
It didn’t.
It was just quiet.
A Final Thought
If your project feels calm, ask whether it’s actually clear — or just muted.
Projects don’t fail loudly at first.
They fail politely.
And polite failure is the hardest kind to stop.
Continue the Story
If this felt uncomfortably familiar, the Sunday Tales explore what happens when these warning signs are ignored — and what it costs the people holding the project together.
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