The £100 Million Vanity Trap: Why Green Dashboards Hide Red Reality

Episode notes

In this episode, Ian brings together an extraordinary crew with over 100 years of combined delivery experience to tackle one of the most expensive problems in modern project management: the gap between looking busy and delivering actual business value. Joining Ian are Steve Forbes, Peter Wichmann, with 30 years of insurance IT delivery, and Roy Thomas, with 25 years of transformation experience across telecoms, energy, and financial services. This isn't a theoretical discussion—it's hard-won wisdom from professionals who've navigated the complexities of large-scale delivery and lived to tell the tale. The conversation reveals why 73% of strategic initiatives fail despite appearing successful on dashboards, introduces the "watermelon problem" that's costing organisations millions, and provides practical frameworks for measuring what actually matters. You'll discover why sponsors make emotional decisions without data, how the sunk cost fallacy kills projects that should succeed, and what needs to be true all the time for your delivery to survive funding reviews.