New APM paper offers insight into how project leaders can tackle strategic misrepresentation

New insights from Association for Project Management (APM) shine a light on how ‘strategic misrepresentation’ can affect project outcomes and what project leaders can do about it.

Strategic misrepresentation happens when a project is presented more positively than the evidence shows in order to win approval, secure funding, influence stakeholders or justify a preferred decision. It involves conscious deception rather than unintentional errors. Examples may include:

• selective interpretation of data about the project
• deliberate linguistic framing that anchors the project in a particular way, in order to gain advantage
• the imposition of a flawed constraint on the delivery

Strategic Misrepresentation has been identified by Professor Bent Flyvbjerg as one of the most consequential behavioural risks in major projects, with negative consequences including cost overruns, delays, poor decision making, weak governance and, in the worst cases, outright project failure.

In response to this issue, the APM Governance Interest Network has published ‘The Big Bad Wolves in Your Projects or Programmes: Strategic Misrepresentation and What to Do About It’. This paper calls on project professionals to recognise these patterns early, challenge them constructively and build cultures of transparency, psychological safety and evidence-based planning.

The paper argues that it’s often not one lie or mistake that leads to project failure, but rather many connected misrepresentations that sustain a false narrative over time. The causes vary, ranging from delusion to outright deceit, however, in some cases, this can stem from unconscious bias, organisational pressure, or the way information is framed and communicated.

Among the key messages of the paper is the importance of language; the way projects are described and framed influences how people understand risk, progress and project viability. This means bias can show up through wording, framing, simplification and how options are presented.

How project leaders can respond

Although strategic misrepresentation is a persistent challenge in project environments, it is not unmanageable. Practical methods for how project leaders can spot the warning signs and intervene before problems escalate include:

• Awareness – Project leaders need to recognise how something is described can influence how it’s judged by others and understand the causes of deceit and bias.
• Observation – Create trigger points for critical feedback and challenge during key points in the projects lifecycle where misrepresentation may occur, such as first pitch, pre-business case and business stage gates.
• Reflection – Ensure enough time during decision-making, gateway/peer reviews, internal audits and change control processes for reflection. Capture and record the assumptions that inform the decision as well as the sentiments of all those involved.

Carol Deveney, APM Governance Interest Network, said: “Projects of all kinds and all sizes are at risk of strategic misrepresentation. The advent of AI, along with increasing system and reporting automation, presents an opportunity to address this risk or to amplify it. We created this paper to explain the context of strategic misrepresentation along with the psychological and social factors that are behind it. It provides examples of the real impact of this on a number of large projects and offers practical techniques and tools that are suitable for all.”

‘The Big Bad Wolves in Your Projects or Programmes: Strategic Misrepresentation and What to Do About It’ is available in full exclusively for APM members. Access the full paper here.

If you’re not already a member of APM and would like access to this type of content, you can learn more about membership here.