The True Enemy of a Project Is Not Risk. It Is the Illusion

In this episode, Ricardo explains that the true enemy of a project is not risk, but illusion. Although teams dedicate significant effort to risk management—creating registers, assessing probability and impact, and defining mitigation plans—many failures arise from collective self-deception. Unrealistic schedules, underestimated budgets, and overly ambitious scopes are often accepted to satisfy expectations and gain approval. Unlike uncertainty, which is natural in complex environments, illusion is culturally constructed and reinforced by pressure, incentives, and overconfidence. The planning fallacy drives teams to underestimate time and cost. Effective project leadership means confronting illusions early, making trade-offs explicit, and protecting reality. Projects fail not because of known risks, but because uncomfortable truths are ignored.

Listen to the podcast to learn more!

Download (10 MB)

Episode transcript

The transcript is generated automatically by Podscribe, Sonix, Otter and other electronic transcription services.

Hello, everyone. Here is Ricardo Vargas, and this is the 5 Minutes Podcast. And today I want to talk about something that may sound really uncomfortable. The true enemy of a project is not a risk; it's the illusion. We spend a lot of time managing risks. We build a risk register. We classify probability and impact, and we define a mitigation plan. And of course, this is super important. But most project failures I have seen in my career, they did not happen because of a risk that became a reality. They happen because people choose to believe in a convenient narrative, an optimistic schedule that everyone knew was unrealistic, a budget that was approved to make the business case just look more attractive, or a scope that is manageable only on paper. And this is not risk management. This is collective self-deception. There is a big difference between uncertainty and illusion. Uncertainty is natural. Illusion is constructed. Uncertainty is part of the complex environment we live in. Illusion is part of our own culture. Many times, the organization does not want the truth. It wants approval, it wants speed, it wants a green light, and the project manager is in the middle of this tension. And if you are not careful, you start adjusting your estimates to fit expectations. You compress buffers. You assume best-case productivity. You ignore integration pain. You treat dependency as if they are magically resolvable, and your project begins already fragile. The planning fallacy plays a major role here. We consistently underestimate time and cost. Not because of a lack of intelligence or understanding, but because we are strongly influenced by pressure, incentives, and overconfidence. Sponsors want ambition. Executives want acceleration. Teams want to be seen as capable, and nobody wants to be the person who says, come on, folks, this will take longer. But leadership in projects is not about pleasing people. It's not about pleasing people. It's about protecting reality. A strong project manager is not the one who creates the most beautiful Gantt chart, but the one who has the courage to challenge illusions early. To say that if we want this deadline, we need to remove parts of the scope. If we keep this scope, we need more budget. If we keep both, we must accept a higher risk. Illusion removes trades off reality, forces them, and projections are, in a sense, about managing trade-offs. You cannot get everything, but when illusion dominates, trade-offs disappear from the conversation. Everything suddenly seems possible until execution begins. And then reality becomes brutal with delays, with cost overruns, with stress, with reputational damage. Remember, managing risks is technical. Confronting illusion is leadership. And that is where your true value as a project professional is, not in controlling what might happen, but in clarifying what is truly happening. Projects do not collapse because of what we knew they collapse because of what we decide to ignore. Think about that. Reflect on that. I hope you find this episode insightful and see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.

Menu

Resources & Insights

Products & Services

More Resources & Insights

Ricardo Vargas

Podcasts

The True Enemy of a Project Is Not Risk. It Is the Illusion

Search in Podcasts

Latest podcast episodes

Book recommendations