I agree with much of your premise but one problem I run into: If you have these off-the-record meetings, where is your documentation if they say, 'I didn't know

I agree with much of your premise but one problem I run into: If you have these off-the-record meetings, where is your documentation if they say, 'I didn't know it would be late'? In my experience, people not only dislike bad news, they ignore it: First they hear what they want to hear, i.e., what is not threatening to them. 'Project delivery will certainly be late' is heard as 'the next milestone will be late' or 'we're a little behind schedule and will catch up' or 'it's making another project late', etc. It's truly incredible what people will construct in their minds. What's the saying? 'Don't expect people to understand what their salary depends on them not understanding'? Second, like everyone, they ignore or put off dealing with bad news. (Probably, that's a temptation of the OP.) Then they say, 'I didn't know.' It depends on the people and the organization, of course, but you do you protect yourself from being thrown under the bus?