In this episode of The Critical Path, we unpack Decision Debt: the hidden backlog of unmade or delayed decisions that quietly extends schedules, drives rework, and makes programmes slip late especially in complex, regulated environments. When key choices (often around interfaces, requirements, risk, or governance approvals) aren’t made on time, teams keep moving on assumptions. Those assumptions eventually collide at integration, test, and acceptance, where changes are slow and expensive.

Using a real-world style example of a late interface decision between two teams/suppliers, we show how “busy progress” can still lead to downstream redesign, repeated testing, and weeks of avoidable delay.

You’ll leave with a simple control set to reduce decision debt: establish a decision cadence, assign a single decision owner, distinguish two-way vs one-way door decisions, and implement decision SLAs with clear escalation. The takeaway: you often don’t have a delivery speed problem, you have a decision flow problem.

A green dashboard doesn’t mean a healthy project, it often means you’re measuring the wrong things, or rewarding the wrong behaviours. This episode explains why status reporting drifts toward “green” when red is punished, when RAG ratings are subjective, and when teams report activity (tasks closed, documents delivered) instead of readiness (integration, testability, verified capability). Using a realistic programme example, we show how projects can look stable for months while risk quietly compounds until integration or verification exposes the truth and recovery becomes expensive. The fix isn’t prettier reporting; it’s clearer thresholds for green/amber/red, stronger leading indicators (rework, defect trends, requirements churn, integration readiness), and leadership that makes early escalation safe and useful. Key takeaway: a green dashboard without evidence isn’t reassurance, it’s risk.

In complex programmes, plans are essential but they are not reality. This episode explores what leadership looks like when the schedule no longer reflects the system you’re trying to deliver.

We discuss why plans fail in complex, regulated environments, not because of poor planning, but because of emergence, interdependencies, and late discovery. Using a real-world example, the episode shows how protecting the plan can sometimes create bigger problems downstream, especially during design reviews and system integration.

The key message is that control in complexity doesn’t come from stricter adherence to the plan or greener dashboards. It comes from understanding the system, questioning assumptions, and making deliberate trade-offs.

When the plan stops being the point, leadership shifts from managing milestones to orienting people, surfacing risk early, and adapting intelligently—while keeping the outcome firmly in focus.