#95 - Beware 'sunshine reporting'!
28 Jan 26
Delivery areas that consistently report only good news should immediately trigger concern. Not because success is implausible, but because complex delivery environments always generate friction, trade-offs and risk. When none of that is visible, leaders are likely seeing a filtered version of reality. Sunshine reporting is rarely neutral; it is usually a sign that risk is being hidden, normalised, or suppressed.
What?
Sunshine reporting is the practice of presenting delivery status as consistently positive, stable, and on track with little or no mention of emerging risks, constraints or difficulties.
It often appears reassuring:
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Milestones are met,
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Metrics remain green,
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Confidence is high,
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Escalations are rare.
But in practice, delivery work does not behave this smoothly for long. When it appears to do so, the reporting itself becomes the anomaly.
Why?
Delivery is inherently messy and dependencies shift, capacity fluctuates and trade-offs are made daily. If none of this ever surfaces, one of three things is usually happening:
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Problems are being deliberately hidden,
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Problems have been normalised and no longer feel 'reportable',
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People do not believe it is safe or useful to raise concerns.
Over time, teams adapt to what the system rewards. If optimism is rewarded and friction is penalised, reality gets edited.
The consequence is serious. Senior leaders begin making decisions based on fictional stability. Plans appear robust and confidence remains high. Then delivery suddenly 'fails without warning' when in fact the warning signs were present all the time. They just never surfaced.
How?
What should leaders look for?
A simple diagnostic question helps:
'What would worry me here and how would I hear about it?'
If the answer is unclear, the system is already brittle.
In healthy delivery environments:
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Good news and bad news travel at roughly the same speed,
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Risks are surfaced early, while options still exist,
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Reporting includes tension, uncertainty and trade-offs,
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Leaders actively signal that bad news is information not failure.
Leaders should pay particular attention to areas where:
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Reporting never changes tone,
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Risks only appear once outcomes are already locked in,
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Language becomes vague, euphemistic or overly confident.
These are not performance signals, they are safety signals.
In Summary
Leaders do not need more positive reporting. They need honest signalling, early friction and uncomfortable truth.
Sunshine reporting may feel reassuring, but it often masks growing delivery risk. If everything is always green, the right response is not celebration it is curiosity.
Because the role of leadership is not to receive good news. It is to create the conditions where reality can be spoken, especially when it is inconvenient.
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