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The Perils of Proceeding Without Project Sign-off

November 16, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices, Requirements Management

The Perils of Proceeding Without Project Sign-off
By Tim Ingram-Smith

One of the Project Management traps I have fallen into many times is proceeding without full sign-off from the client or project sponsor. Often a proposed assignment has had such as sense of urgency that I as project manager, always keen to support the client’s pressing need, have embarked on a project or deliverable without a clear or definite approval.

Perhaps there was a deadline, or a product launch, or a rendezvous with another piece of development, or some other cannot-be-shifted, must-begin-right-now reason; perhaps it was just that after so much discussion and scoping and presentations to the board and rework and re-costings and so many people drafted in and the client almost yelling to commence, that I was sure that the project must be started, now.

Here’s what I do now – I hold back!

No matter how helpful I thought I was, nor how urgent getting started was said to be, I realize I should not move forward to actual billable work until the client or project sponsor has literally signed up.

Starting this project without sign-off is like setting off on a journey to meet someone when they haven’t yet confirmed their exact location: I set off down the wrong road and spend ages driving back and forth trying to find them.

When I proceed without sign-off it always turns out – some substantial work later – that the client has in fact not given me the green light after all, not approved the scope, not signed-off the cash, won’t accept the output and wants the whole thing re-doing, from scratch. I’ve burned money, used energy, confused my team, annoyed my client, and put a rod in the hands of my boss – and I can do without all those things!

I say to the client, we’d love to start, we’re ready to go, could you please just sign and return this works order giving us your authority to proceed.

Of course it turns out, the client isn’t ready to go, they haven’t secured their internal approval, and they’re not fully comfortable with the scope, they can’t sign-off the works order/purchase order. And that’s exactly why I should not proceed without sign-off.

Not that waiting for the green light is always easy: the project may truly be urgent, my technical experts may only be available for a short “gap in the clouds” before they’re moved elsewhere, or maybe my resources are burning internal dollars waiting on this client. But that’s no reason to have them spending effort, energy and goodwill on a project path that will soon reach an unsatisfactory terminus. So I try to keep my resource deployed on other productive activity as long as possible, then shift quickly when the deal is signed.

A signed-off scope is much more valuable to all parties than the “goodwill” I hoped was accumulating: it outlines the task, it shows the route, it details the agreement between parties, it’s enforceable in a court, and it’s the bedrock of my authority as a project manager.

With the works order or purchase order in place, backed up by a signed-off scope and work-plan, the whole project will go much better.

Tim Ingram-Smith is a web development manager and technology director. He is always interested in ecommerce, project management and ideas to tackle business problems.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 and is filed under Project Management Best Practices, Requirements Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 person has left a comment

Hello Tim, great post, thank you. I translated it to French and added my own experience at the indicated URL. Michel.

Michel Operto wrote on November 23, 2009 - 11:58 pm | Visit Link

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