What does “что-то пошло не по плану” mean in Russian?

Что-то пошло не по плану is the go-to Russian phrase when events spiral away from the original idea. The verb пошло is the perfective past of идти (“to go”), so the phrase captures the moment a plan stops moving in the right direction — “something went not according to plan.” It sits squarely in everyday neutral speech: neither slang nor formal, it fits a boardroom debrief just as easily as a group chat.

The structure is reusable: swap что-то for anything — всё пошло не по плану (“everything went wrong”), встреча пошла не по плану (“the meeting went sideways”). You can also use the imperfective present for ongoing trouble: всё идёт не по плану (“nothing is going according to plan”). In the clip, the mayor of New York launches a live Twitch Q&A and asks viewers to write questions in the chat — but forgets to hire moderators. The moment the chat realises there is no moderation, ASCII mushrooms, rockets, a portrait of Xi Jinping, and a plea to play Minecraft flood the stream. The anchor delivers the verdict with a single line: что-то пошло не по плану — and the phrase earns its meaning in real time.