Misclassification: Silent Killer of Projects

Misclassification Is the Silent Killer of Projects

Many projects do not fail because they are badly managed.

They fail because they were mislabelled as projects.

Early in the life of almost every major initiative, a decision is made — someone asks what kind of thing is this? And the organisation reaches for the most familiar answer available.

“It’s a project.”

Once that label is applied, the machinery engages. Budget is allocated. A Project Manager is appointed. A plan is produced. Milestones are defined. Governance spins up. Reporting cycles lock in. From that point on, the organisation behaves as though the nature of the work has been settled.

Usually, it hasn’t.

Misclassification is subtle. It does not announce itself with chaos or incompetence. In fact, everything initially looks reassuringly professional. Roles are clear. Artefacts are produced. Progress is tracked. From a distance, it appears controlled.

That is precisely why misclassification is so dangerous.

The Comfort of Calling Things “Projects”

Organisations are anxiety-reducing machines. Faced with uncertainty, they look for familiar shapes that allow decisions to proceed. A “project” is one of the most comforting shapes available. It implies order, sequence, and eventual completion. It suggests that with enough discipline, effort, and reporting, the outcome can be delivered.

And most importantly, “projects“ get funding.

But many initiatives labelled as projects are not delivery problems at all.

They are political processes.

They involve competing interests, informal power, external decision-makers, and incentives that cannot be aligned on a Gantt chart. Progress depends less on execution and more on consent. Silence often matters more than activity. Timing matters more than efficiency.

Calling this work a project does not make it manageable.

It simply makes it recognisable.

What Misclassification Looks Like in Practice

Misclassification rarely shows up as an obvious mismatch. Instead, it manifests as a series of reasonable responses that quietly compound.

The plan shows slippage, so reporting is tightened.

Milestones are missed, so pressure increases.

Escalations are raised, so language becomes more careful.

From the inside, it feels like underperformance.

From the outside, it looks like a delivery problem.

But the work is behaving exactly as it should — just not as the plan expects.

Consider any initiative that depends on union consent, regulatory approval, ministerial sign-off, or cross-agency agreement. On paper, the critical path runs through preparation: documents, designs, readiness reviews. These are tangible, controllable activities, so they dominate the plan.

Yet the real constraint lies elsewhere. It lies in whether the right people feel safe enough, incentivised enough, or politically able to decide.

No amount of technical readiness can force that moment.

The team works harder. Artefacts improve. Readiness increases. And nothing moves.

Delivery is blamed for what is, in reality, stalled consent.

The Predictable Consequences

Once work is misclassified, three things almost always follow.

First, the scope is wrong.

The plan fills with activities that are measurable rather than decisive. Busyness increases while leverage remains low. The team becomes productive in the wrong direction.

Second, the team is wrong.

Skilled deliverers are put in charge of problems that require negotiators, translators, and insiders. People with influence but no formal authority are sidelined because they do not fit the delivery model.

Third, the measures are wrong.

Progress is tracked against milestones that have little relationship to when real decisions will be made. Reports become detailed, polished — and irrelevant. None of these is what really moves the dial.

None of this feels irrational in the moment. Each adjustment is defensible. That is why misclassification persists.

Why Organisations Resist Re-classifying the Work

Admitting misclassification is uncomfortable.

It implies the original framing was wrong. It raises questions about sponsorship, capability, and authority. It suggests the organisation does not fully control the outcome — something most governance systems are designed to deny. It puts funding at risk.

There is also a reputational dynamic at play. Projects can be late or over budget. Political processes can simply stall. The former implies poor execution. The latter implies limited influence.

Many leaders would rather be seen as struggling executors than constrained actors.

So the fiction is maintained. The plan is refreshed. The language softens. Hope is invested in the next phase.

Time passes.

The Real Cost of Getting It Wrong

Misclassification rarely appears in post-implementation reviews. It is too abstract, too implicating, and too uncomfortable. Instead, failure is attributed to execution, resourcing, or leadership.

But misclassified work does not usually fail loudly.

It fails quietly.

Through fatigue.

Through attrition.

Through loss of credibility.

By the time the organisation acknowledges what was really going on, the opportunity has usually passed.

The irony is that many of these initiatives could have succeeded if they had simply been identified correctly at the start.

Not because naming removes complexity — but because it determines how we pay attention, where we apply effort, and what we accept as progress. Is it really a project? Are we running the right project?

A Simple Test

Ask one question, honestly:

If we executed perfectly, could this still fail because someone did not agree? Or changed their mind?

If the answer is yes, you are not running a project.

You are navigating a political process.

Treating one as the other is not a technical error.

It is a failure of judgment.

And judgment — not planning — is what ultimately determines whether work survives contact with reality.