PMI UK South Wales and Southwest England Branch Event: Psychological Safety: Beyond the Buzzword in Project Delivery. 29th October 2026

This event is taking place in CSM Room O0.23, Cardiff School of Management, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Llandaff Campus.

Projects rarely fail from poor plans; they fail when people stay silent. Psychological safety isn’t a buzzword; it’s a performance lever that determines whether delivery succeeds or fails.

Let’s cut through the noise: today we are seeing that project environments aren’t failing because of poor methodology, lack of governance, or insufficient tools. They’re failing because people don’t feel safe to speak

Psychological safety has quickly become a popular term across organisations, but in many cases it remains misunderstood, misapplied, or reduced to a superficial culture statement. In project delivery, this isn’t just a cultural issue; it’s a performance risk. When teams hold back concerns, soften bad news, or avoid challenge, risks escalate unnoticed, issues surface too late, and decision-making becomes flawed.

This event, Psychological Safety: Beyond the Buzzword in Project Delivery, takes a practical and honest look at what psychological safety really means in the context of delivering projects, programmes, and portfolios. It moves beyond theory to explore the real behaviours, signals, and environments that either enable or undermine open communication.

We will examine common delivery challenges such as “green” reporting masking underlying issues, the impact of fear on escalation, and the unintended consequences of traditional governance approaches. More importantly, we will focus on what can be done differently, at individual, team, and leadership levels, to create conditions where people feel able to speak up early, challenge constructively, and contribute fully.

The session will provide actionable insights and practical takeaways that can be applied immediately, helping to reduce delivery risk, improve transparency, and ultimately enhance project outcomes.

Speaker

James Evans is a PMO Leader and Programme professional with over 13 years’ experience across NHS Wales. He leads PMO transformation and builds delivery capability in complex public sector environments, strengthening governance, clarifying accountability and improving performance in complex systems. His Master’s research explored psychological safety in project settings and its measurable link to delivery outcomes, risk transparency and sustainable performance. An APM Fellow, author, speaker and international mentor, James is the founder of Evactus, a growing professional community advancing modern project leadership practice. He is regularly invited to speak to organisations across sectors on psychological safety, working with leadership teams to create environments where challenge is expected and risk is surfaced early. His work sits at the intersection of governance and human behaviour, arguing that project success depends as much on how people speak up as on how plans are written.