There is some wisdom in Jim Vaughan’s article and the related comments:
The poor performance of the project usually has less to do with the project manager or the project team and more to do with the systemic failures of the organizational culture to provide the proper tools and governance to allow the projects to succeed. These systemic issues really become the moose on the table that no one wants to talk about. As a result the PM and/or the project team are blamed for the failure.
via Project Managers Should Not Fear the Baseline | CIO – Blogs and Discussion.