Risk Perception Gaps as Early Warning Indicators of Potential Predictable Project Surprises: Results from a 5 Year Survey in São Paulo Brazil

Background: Breakdowns in project communications have been long identified as a major contributing factor to project failure. Post-mortem analyses frequently reveal that critical risk warnings existed well before failure but were not communicated properly or were ignored.Objectives: To measure, prior to project failure, the prevalence and direction of risk perception gaps and communication failures between project participants and their leadership, as perceived by participants, across a five-year multi-cohort dataset collected in São Paulo, Brazil.Methods: An anonymous, voluntary, survey was administered across ten independent cohorts of experienced professionals in São Paulo Brazil between 2021 and 2025. Respondents assessed both their own risk perceptions and their perceptions of leadership's views using the Risk Perception Map (RPM) framework (Ribeiro, 2013).Results: 76.8% of respondents perceived misalignment with leadership prior to project failure, with 74.1% perceiving themselves as less optimistic than leadership (95% CI: 66.0%–82.2%). Communication failures occurred in 79.2% of high-risk scenarios (95% CI: 71.3%–87.1%). Patterns are considered statistically significant (χ² = 11.022, df = 3, p = 0.012)Conclusions: Risk perception gaps were systematicaly found across the five-year multi-cohort survey.These findings contribute empirical evidence to debates in organizational silence and project risk management, demonstrating a form in which risk perception gaps can be surfaced as indicators of risk communication failure between leaders and project participants and as early warning indicators of potential predictable project surprises, offering organizations a complement to existing risk information gathering and analysis tools.