Ask someone at desk level what projects are running in their department and they can usually answer. Ask the same question at SLT level, across the whole organisation, and the answer gets vaguer fast. Somewhere between those two levels, visibility breaks down, and what remains is a partial picture assembled from whichever project happens to be loudest that month.
The Gap Between Perception and Reality
What leadership thinks is happening and what is actually happening are not always the same thing. A project can run for months with a full team and a budget line while barely registering at a strategic level, simply because nobody consolidated the view. Meanwhile a much smaller piece of work gets disproportionate attention because someone senior happens to be close to it.
Questions Worth Asking at Every Level
- What projects are running in this department right now
- Does anyone above department level have visibility of all of them
- Does each project align to the strategic direction of the organisation, or has it simply continued because it started
- Who sponsors it, and would it survive being asked to justify itself again today
The Pet Project Problem
Not every project earns its place through strategic alignment. Some persist because someone senior championed it once and nobody has felt able to question it since. These projects consume resource and attention that could go toward work with a clearer line to organisational priorities, and they rarely get challenged, because challenging them means challenging whoever is attached to them.
Why This Is a Governance Question, Not Just a Reporting One
Consolidated project visibility is not about producing another report. It is about someone being able to answer, honestly, what is running, why, and whether it still deserves the resource it has. Without that, prioritisation becomes guesswork, and the projects that get funded are the ones that are visible or vocal, not necessarily the ones that matter most.
Building the Full Picture
Getting an accurate answer starts with a single, current inventory across departments, cross-checked against strategic priorities rather than assumed to align with them. It is unglamorous work, and it is exactly the kind of work that tends to get skipped because nobody owns pulling it together.
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