Regulators of deep-sea mining projects are becoming increasingly hesitant about the concept of adaptive management as a tool to facilitate compliance and continuous improvement. Adaptive management is a relevant and useful instrument to ensure that the mine plan is successfully implemented throughout the life of mine, in parallel with optimum environmental performance and compliance.CITATION:Grogan, R L, 2018. Adaptive management in deep sea mining - looking like you know what you're doing when it's never been done before, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2018, pp 20-22 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).