When a project only moves when pushed, the problem is rarely the project team. Nobody on the business side decides

When a project only moves one step each time you push it, check one thing first: can the business person who comes to your meetings make a decision on the spot?

If the answer is always “let me go back and ask,” and one question drags on for a week, stop relying on the project team to chase harder. Escalate in writing first: where it is stuck, for how long, and which milestone it will hit. Send it to the business side’s top manager, and ask for someone who can decide.

The project team pushes every day: sending requirements for sign-off, booking review meetings, chasing testing. The business side moves when pushed and stops when not. A few months later you look back: the team did plenty of work, but progress won’t go up. The problem usually isn’t the project team. It’s that nobody on the business side is in charge. There are five signs a project is stuck, each deeper than the last, and the deeper it goes, the harder it is to recover.

This post covers: what each of the three parties owns, the five signs, how to break through at each layer, and what to do when vendor staff leave or aren’t capable enough.

1. Three parties, and the business side is where it usually stalls

Our project teams usually have three parties:

• IT: owns the systems and the technical design, and is usually where the project manager sits
• Business: warehousing, production lines, purchasing, planning. They raise requirements, make decisions, and assign people
• Vendors: development and implementation; equipment suppliers count here too

Of the three, IT initiated the project and the vendors are paid under contract, so both have reasons to push forward. The business side is different: the system is for them, but the project is extra work on top of a day job that is already full. That is why the business side is where things usually stall.

2. Five signs a project is stuck, each deeper than the last

A project doesn’t get stuck all at once. It slides down one layer at a time. These are the five signs we watch:

1. No key business owner: nobody from the business side is on the project; IT is guessing the requirements
2. Someone, but no response: the names are on the list, but nobody replies to sign-off requests and nobody shows up to meetings
3. A response, but nobody can decide: whoever comes always says “let me go back and ask,” and one question drags on for a week
4. Nobody coordinates internally: the business lead doesn’t step in to assign their own people; you need key users for testing and they can’t find the time
5. The team pushes one step, the project moves one step: everything waits for the project team to chase; if the team doesn’t chase, nothing moves

Whichever layer you see, use that layer’s fix.

3. How to break through at each layer

Layer 1, no people: ask for people by role. Warehousing, production line, purchasing, planning: every role needs a key user, plus a logistics planner. The project manager should be in the room when they are picked, choosing people who are experienced and willing to learn, not whoever the department sends to tick a box (covered in the earlier post on key users).

Layers 2 and 3, no response, no decision: escalate in writing. Write it down and send it to the business side’s top manager: which item is stuck at which step, for how long, and which milestone it will affect. Make sure they know, and have them send someone who can decide. Ten verbal reminders are worth less than one email (covered in the earlier post on risk and schedule).

Layer 4, no coordination: know who to go to. To coordinate people and time, go to the head of the business department. Go straight to frontline key users only for hands-on work. When frontline people can’t find the time, it’s often not that they don’t want to; their manager hasn’t given them the time. Go to the wrong person and the more you chase, the worse it gets.

The last layer is the result of the first four. Once you’re at “push one step, move one step,” more chasing from the project team won’t fix it. Go back through the first four layers, find where it’s stuck, and use that layer’s fix.

4. Vendor staff: when people leave or aren’t capable

Besides the business side, the other place projects often get stuck is vendor staff.

When someone leaves: full handover inside the vendor first. Vendors swapping people mid-project is common. What we require: before someone leaves, the vendor sorts out and completes the handover internally, so the new person can take over, and only then do we let them go. Otherwise the new person starts asking everything from scratch, and things already confirmed have to be confirmed all over again.

When someone isn’t capable: on-site interview, stay only after a trial. If the vendor sends someone who isn’t up to it, we require their people to go through an on-site interview, then a trial period, and they stay only if they pass. If that still doesn’t work, we ask for more people. Milestones are carried by all three parties; the project can’t be held up on the vendor’s side.

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On your project, can the business person who comes to meetings decide on the spot?