In engineering projects, we dance our way around uncomfortable truths rather than learning ways of confronting them like adults. With estimates that everyone knows are too optimistic, risk assessments that seldom include the real risks, and progress reports painted in yellow and green, project managers present schedules they don’t believe in to bosses who know those plans are full of it, and everyone nods and moves forward with the farce as long as the customer is okay with it. In any other context, promising what you can’t deliver has its own term: fraud. However, this is a term that does not appear in every engineering project’s dictionary.