Reimagining assurance: reflections from the PMI Global Executive Council

In April, I had the opportunity to lead a ‘Council Conversation’ at the Project Management Institute (PMI) Global Executive Council – a peer-to-peer forum bringing together senior project delivery leaders from across the world.

The format is deliberately different. It’s not a presentation. It’s a conversation: candid, practical, and rooted in shared challenges. The topic we ran a session on, ‘Streamlining assurance in a complex and fast-paced world’ struck a chord.

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with participants engaging openly and drawing clear parallels with the challenges they are facing in their own organisations.

What follows are some reflections from that session – both on the direction we are taking in UK Government Project Delivery, and what this tells us about the future of assurance internationally.

Moving beyond assurance as a ‘point-in-time’ activity

One of the most consistent themes, across sectors and geographies, was a shared frustration: assurance is too often seen as something that happens to projects, rather than something that actively helps them succeed.

In many organisations, it remains anchored in:

• stage-gate reviews
• approval processes
• retrospective scrutiny

But this model is increasingly out of step with the reality of modern delivery. Projects are now more complex, more decentralised and more dynamic in how they evolve. Assurance has not always kept pace.

In the UK, through the work of Government Project Delivery, we are asking a more fundamental question: what if assurance was designed as a continuous, insight-driven capability that supports delivery, rather than a periodic compliance exercise that judges it?

This shift, from control to confidence, is how we are starting to rethink the system.

Clarifying what assurance is (and what it is not)

We spent a surprising amount of time on something quite basic, but important: distinguishing assurance from adjacent functions.

We explored three concepts that are often conflated:

• audit: looking backwards; checking what happened
• approvals: deciding whether something should proceed
• assurance: looking forwards; providing confidence about likely outcomes

This distinction matters. If assurance is seen purely as compliance or oversight, it will always be experienced as friction.

But understood differently, it becomes a strategic capability that sits alongside delivery, not above it. One that provides risk visibility and supports better decision-making, rather than just passing judgement on them.

That reframing resonated strongly with participants.

Seeing assurance as a system, not a set of processes

Another strong theme was the need to elevate our thinking.

Too often, assurance conversations get bogged down in processes, tools, templates and review cycles.

What came through clearly was a growing recognition that a foundational principle has been forgotten. Assurance needs to be understood, and designed, as a system.

In practice, that means thinking across multiple perspectives:

• the investor: how we protect value and public money
• the system steward: how we oversee portfolios and risk across delivery
• the delivery organisation: how teams are supported to succeed

Participants reflected on how rarely these perspectives are brought together coherently.

At Government Project Delivery, we’re deliberately working to align governance, capability, culture and data into a more integrated assurance model.

From episodic reviews to continuous insight

Perhaps the most energising part of the discussion focused on what modernised assurance could look like in practice. Several common design principles emerged.

Integrating real-time data

Rather than relying solely on periodic reviews, organisations are exploring how data can provide live insight into delivery performance and risk.

Embedding learning loops

Assurance should not just identify issues. It should enable continuous learning across portfolios and programmes.

Strengthening accountability

As decision-making becomes more decentralised, assurance must support clarity about who owns risk, decisions and outcomes.

Aligning governance

This means reducing duplication and ensuring assurance is proportionate to risk, rather than uniformly applied.

Leveraging AI and analytics

There was strong interest in how emerging technologies can complement, rather than replace, human judgement in assurance.

Changing the culture: from barrier to partner

If there was one area where views were most aligned, it was this: culture matters as much as process.

In too many organisations, assurance is seen as bureaucratic, risk-averse and a barrier to progress.

Our shared ambition is to move towards an assurance culture that is:

• trusted
• collaborative
• actively supportive of delivery

This is not just about changing language. It requires changes in behaviours, incentives, capability and how assurance is experienced day to day by the people doing the work.

What this means for delivery in the UK and the international community

What struck me most from the conversation was how universal these challenges are.

Whether in government or the private sector, organisations are facing similar questions like:

• how do we maintain confidence in delivery in increasingly complex environments?
• how do we balance control with empowerment?
• how do we use data more effectively to anticipate risk rather than react to it?

The UK’s work through Government Project Delivery is one response, but it is part of a much wider, global shift.

There is a real opportunity here for the international project delivery community to:

• share emerging practice
• test new approaches
• learn collectively

That, ultimately, is what made the Council Conversation so valuable.

A final reflection

If I took one thing away from the session, it is this: assurance is at its most powerful not when it controls delivery – but when it enables it.

Getting there requires more than incremental change. It requires us to rethink assurance as a system that is designed for a world that is faster, more complex, and more interconnected than ever before.

That is the journey we have started in the UK.

And based on the conversation I got to lead, it is a journey many others are now embarking on too.