Major programs and transformations are often heavily governed and resourced by experts, yet still too often finish late, over budget, or short of the benefits originally promised. In a 2022 academic study, Flyvbjerg et al, analysed 5,392 IT projects and found that IT project cost overruns follow a power-law distribution, meaning organisations are prone to underestimating the likelihood and impact of extreme overruns. In a more recent study (2024), Boston Consulting Group surveyed a group of global ‘C suite’ leaders and found that nearly half of respondents said more than 30% of their organisation’s technology development projects were over budget and late.
The phenomenon is not limited to technology projects, Flyvbjerg, Holm and Buhl’s study of 258 transport infrastructure projects (2004), covering rail, bridges, tunnels and roads, found that cost escalation is a persistent feature of major infrastructure delivery across project type, geography and historical period.
This is not usually because organisations lack process. In many cases, the opposite is true. There are steering committees, delivery forums, risk registers, dashboards, benefits documents, dependency logs and detailed plans. The issue is that governance and reporting do not always create confidence. A program can appear controlled on paper while leaders still lack a clear, evidence-based view of whether the work is genuinely set up to deliver the outcomes promised.
So, the problem is not typically the absence of governance. More often, it is that governance creates visibility without necessarily creating confidence. Steering committees meet, reports are produced and risks are logged, but leaders may still be unclear about whether the program is genuinely under control. Information can be filtered as it moves up the organisation, assumptions may not be retested and governance forums can become more focused on status updates than the decisions, trade-offs and interventions needed to protect delivery. There are times when sponsors and steering committee members have not been given the training, support, or delivery context needed to ask the right questions at the right time. This is where external program assurance can play an important role.
Done well, assurance is an independent, evidence-based view of whether the program is genuinely set up to deliver. It looks beyond whether reports are being produced and forums are meeting and tests the underlying conditions for success.
Are the right decisions being made at the right level? Is the plan still realistic? Are the assumptions still valid? Are risks and dependencies being actively managed, or simply documented? Are benefits clearly owned? Is the organisation ready to adopt the change? Does the executive team have a clear view of where confidence is strong, where it is weak and where intervention is needed?
For sponsors and executives, this matters because major programs require more than activity and control. They require delivery confidence. Assurance helps leaders understand whether confidence is based on evidence, optimism, or simply the momentum of the program.
Case study 1: Ready for Success Review for a university program
A Victorian university was approaching a key decision point on a large, inter-school technology program and wanted an independent view of whether it was ready to proceed into implementation.
The program had standard major project (comprehensive) governance in place, and a clear plan and objectives, but there was uncertainty about whether the foundations were strong enough to support the next phase. In particular, while the program was progressing, there were gaps in the way scope, accountabilities, delivery planning and readiness were being understood across stakeholder groups. Different parts of the organisation had different expectations of what success looked like and what needed to be in place before the program moved forward.
Pledge Consulting was engaged to undertake a Ready for Success Review and focused on the practical conditions required for successful delivery.
The review assessed the real and perceived gaps through targeted interviews, document review and structured analysis, we were able to separate genuine delivery risks from general concern and identify the specific areas that needed attention before the next decision point.
The value of the review was that it gave the leadership team a clear and independent view of readiness. Rather than simply highlighting issues, we translated the findings into practical recommendations, including where decisions needed to be clarified, where ownership needed to be strengthened and where delivery controls needed to be improved. We highlighted what needs to be done, when and by whom.
This gave the executive team a stronger basis for decision-making at a critical point in the program lifecycle. It also helped the program team focus on the actions that would most improve delivery confidence before moving into the next phase.
Case study 2: Post Implementation Review for a major utility program
A major utility organisation had completed a complex program that ultimately finished around 50% over budget. While the program had delivered important outcomes, the scale of the cost increase raised valid questions about how the program had been set up, governed, estimated and managed.
The executive team wanted more than a retrospective explanation of what had happened. They needed a practical Post Implementation Review that would identify the lessons that mattered and ensure those lessons were embedded into future projects.
Pledge Consulting was engaged to undertake an independent review of the program. We examined the original business case, cost estimates, governance records, decision points, change control, risk management, reporting, resourcing, vendor inputs and delivery documentation. We also interviewed key stakeholders to understand the decisions, assumptions and pressures that shaped the program as it progressed.
The review identified several contributing factors, including early estimating assumptions that had not been sufficiently tested, scope and complexity that increased over time, decision-making that did not always keep pace with delivery risk and reporting that did not make the emerging cost position clear enough for executive intervention.
Our role was not simply to identify what had gone wrong. We worked with the organisation to translate the findings into practical changes for future programs. This included strengthening the way estimates were classified and challenged, improving cost and contingency governance, clarifying escalation triggers, tightening change control and ensuring future steering committees had better visibility of cost risk before it became difficult to recover.
The review also produced a lessons learned action plan, with clear owners, timeframes and links to the organisation’s delivery framework. This helped move the PIR from a backward-looking exercise to a forward-looking improvement process. The result was a clearer understanding of why the program had exceeded budget, but more importantly, a practical set of changes designed to improve delivery confidence, strengthen financial control and reduce the likelihood of the same issues appearing in future programs.
What good assurance should provide
These examples highlight an important point. Program assurance is not a single review type, report template, or governance checkpoint. It can be applied before a major investment decision, ahead of implementation, during delivery, when confidence is low, or after completion to improve future performance.
High-value and high-risk programs should not wait until problems emerge before seeking assurance. Leading government frameworks, including the UK Government’s Integrated Assurance and Approval approach and the NSW Gateway Assurance model, position independent assurance as a planned series of reviews at key decision points across the project or program lifecycle. The common thread is delivery confidence.
Good assurance should help leaders understand whether the program has the right conditions for success. It should test the quality of the evidence behind the reported position, not simply repeat what is already in the status report.
It should also be practical. Assurance should not leave the organisation with a long list of observations and no clear path forward. It should help leaders prioritise what matters most, understand the actions required and identify who needs to make which decisions.
For sponsors and steering committees, this can be particularly valuable. Major programs often require leaders to make decisions under uncertainty. They are being asked to approve funding, accept risk, resolve trade-offs, support business change and protect benefits. Assurance helps them do this with a clearer view of the facts, the risks and the points where intervention may be required.
For delivery teams, good assurance should not feel like an audit trying to catch them out. It should provide focus, clarity and support. It should help separate noise from genuine delivery risk, strengthen the delivery environment and give teams a better basis for engaging with executives.
At its best, program assurance answers the questions that standard reporting often struggles to answer:
- Are we still delivering the right outcomes?
- Is the plan achievable?
- Are the estimates, assumptions and contingencies still valid?
- Do we have the right people at the table?
- Are benefits clearly owned and realistic?
- Are risks and dependencies being actively managed?
- Is governance enabling decisions, or simply receiving updates?
- Is the organisation ready to adopt the change?
- Where is confidence strong, where is it weak and what needs to happen next?
Ultimately, program assurance is not about adding another layer of process. It is about helping organisations make better decisions on their most important investments.
For us, delivery confidence is the real test of assurance.
- Not whether every template has been completed.
- Not whether every forum has met.
- Not whether the dashboard is green.
The real test is whether sponsors, executives and delivery leaders have a clear, evidence-based view of the program’s ability to deliver the outcomes promised.
That means understanding where the program is genuinely strong, where confidence is weak and where intervention is needed. It means being able to distinguish between activity and progress, optimism and evidence, governance and control.
This is particularly important when programs are complex, politically sensitive, commercially significant, or critical to organisational strategy. In those environments, small issues can become expensive very quickly if they are not surfaced, understood and acted on early.
At Pledge Consulting, our program assurance services are designed to give sponsors, executives, PMOs and delivery leaders an independent, practical view of delivery confidence.
We support organisations at different points in the program lifecycle, including:
• Ready for Success Reviews before a major phase or implementation decision
• Mid-flight reviews where confidence is low, or the program needs an independent view
• Health checks for programs showing signs of pressure
• Post Implementation Reviews to capture lessons and improve future delivery
• Ongoing assurance schedules for high-value, high-risk programs and transformations
Our approach is pragmatic, evidence-based and grounded in real delivery experience. We work with the people closest to the program, test the evidence behind the reported position and provide clear recommendations that leaders can act on.
Because assurance should not just tell you what is wrong.
It should help you make better decisions.
