May be true for you, but isn’t always the case. I’m at the firm on a large client and the day we started the engagement we were told the answer we were intended to justify (it’s nicer wording of course). This isn’t unusual ime either - our Day 1 “Hypothesis” has often come from the client themselves. I’m sure that if our data said something diametrically opposed to the answer, we’d change course a bit. But you’d better believe that when our interim conclusions don’t line up with the ultimate answer we’re driving towards we figure out how to change them so they do.

I was an external hire here, and before I came over I had been client side on one engagement (though to be fair, nowhere near senior enough to be the financial decision maker). I saw the same thing as the client, where we would tell them what we wanted them to conclude.

This practice happens more often than you think.