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Project On-Hold Policy
Project On Hold Policy
Questions and Answers About Projects On Hold
Summary
At 4Thought Marketing we do everything possible to avoid putting your project on hold. We hope you will too!
When your project is on hold, our team members are scheduled to work on other projects and they are not available to answer complex questions, do project work or otherwise perform project activities for you. In addition, there may be additional costs involved to restart your project. For this reason, we strongly prefer to keep the project on track and on schedule.
Putting a project on hold is a last resort and we will do everything we can to secure from you what we need before taking this step.
Here are a few questions and answers about the project on hold status:
Key Questions
Why is My Project On Hold?
Why your project is on hold should be explained in your “on hold” email.
Typical reasons a project goes on hold include:
- Lack of access to a system
- Lack of response to a design document
- Failure to complete an IT or website task
- Not completing UAT (User Acceptance Testing)
- Not giving authorization to launch
- Missing art or content
- Awaiting a bug or issue resolution from a vendor or 3rd party
- Lack of signature with a 3rd party (or us) on a purchase, SOW, or legal document
- We were unable to get responses or schedule needed time with your team members after several attempts.
Why Was Everybody Notified That My Project was On Hold?
A project going on-hold can impact expectations and timelines in other areas and so 4Thought Marketing attempts to keep all team members (both yours and ours) fully informed as to all stage changes regarding a Project, including going On-Hold.
How Will Being On Hold Impact My Project Completion Timing?
Your project launch will be delayed by:
The amount of time it takes you to provide the items holding up the project.
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The amount of time it takes us to reassign and reallocate resources to your project.
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Any additional time it takes our resources to “spin back up to speed” on your project.
How Long Will It Take to Reassign Resources When My Project is Taken Off Hold?
4Thought Marketing assigns resources to projects on Monday afternoons. So the soonest we will be able to restart your project is following the upcoming Monday. However, it may be longer as we are typically scheduled from 0-3 weeks out.
Exactly how long your project takes to reactivate depends on our completion of other projects that have been activated and thus prioritized ahead of yours, while yours was on hold.
Help! My Project Has Been Put On Hold and It Shouldn’t Have Been!
Contact your account manager and project manager and request a discussion as soon as possible. Request that your executive sponsor attend the call. Typically after a project has been put on hold, a few hours pass before we reprioritize/activate other projects and we want to keep your project active if at all possible.
Will This Slow Down My Other Projects?
Possibly, if there are dependencies between the projects. Contact your project manager.
Can I Get Answers About My Project While it’s On Hold?
It depends on the question. Typically we can answer simple questions about your project while it’s on hold. However, even simple answers may be delayed as there are no hours officially allocated to work on the project. For answers that require research/significant effort/billable hours, we may need to reactivate your project.
Will Being On Hold Impact the Cost of My Project?
The reason we have put your project on hold is to minimize the cost to your project. When we spend time repeatedly redoing schedules and pursuing needed items that are not readily available, it costs project management hours and can push a project over budget.
The fact that your project is on hold is indicative that we have probably already spent more time than expected on project management. Now that your project is on hold, we will no longer spend additional time asking your team for awaited items, redoing schedules, etc.
When a project is on hold for a long time, there is usually additional cost/time needed for our resources to “spin back up to speed” on your project. This includes both “mental” time, but may also include reloading your particular systems and test environments as well. This is a natural byproduct of us stopping work on your project for any length of time.
How Can I Get My Project Off Hold?
Provide the needed items and request that your project be taken off hold. During the next Monday resource scheduling meeting, we’ll work to get your project active as soon as possible.
