A mandatory framework built for someone else's project
A government agency has mandated a stage-gate delivery framework across all change work. It was designed for 18-month programmes and requires, among other things, a 40-page business case at gate two, an independent assurance review with a four-week lead time, and a full benefits realisation plan before build. You are leading a four-month regulatory reporting fix: twelve people, a fixed statutory deadline, and a solution that is largely determined by the regulator's specification. Your team is currently spending around 30 percent of its effort on framework documentation, and the independent review slot would consume a quarter of the remaining schedule. Internal audit requires that gate artefacts be retained and evidenced.
1. How would you tailor the framework, and what would you refuse to cut?
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Tailoring is permitted and expected in almost every staged framework; what is not permitted is silently ignoring it. The distinction to make is between the purpose of an artefact and its format.
Tailor:
- Business case: the 40 pages exist to justify optional investment. Here the investment is not optional - the statutory deadline sets the requirement. Replace it with a two-page decision note covering cost, deadline risk, options considered and the consequence of not delivering. Same purpose, proportionate format.
- Assurance review: a four-week lead time is incompatible with a four-month project. Book a scoped review against the two or three highest-risk areas - data accuracy and regulator acceptance - rather than a full-programme review, and negotiate the lead time down at the point of booking.
- Benefits plan: most benefits here accrue to the regulator and to avoided penalties. State them once, briefly, and do not elaborate a benefits tracking structure the project cannot own.
Refuse to cut:
- Gate decisions with a named accountable owner, recorded with a date.
- Evidence that the regulator's specification has been met, and any testing that demonstrates it.
- Artefact retention. Audit's requirement is about evidence, not page count; a retained two-page decision note satisfies it.
Before any of this, get the tailoring approved in writing by the framework owner, not assumed.
2. The PMO rejects the tailoring on the grounds that the framework is mandatory. How do you respond?
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Arguing that the framework is disproportionate will not win, because the PMO's position is defensible on its own terms. Reframe the conversation around the risk the framework is trying to manage.
Response structure:
- Accept the obligation, contest the application. Confirm that the framework applies and that you will be audited against it. Then present the tailoring as a documented deviation with rationale, which is a recognised route inside most frameworks - far stronger than a request for exemption.
- Quantify the conflict. State plainly: at current documentation effort the project spends roughly 30 percent of available capacity on artefacts, and the four-week review lead time consumes a quarter of the schedule. Those two facts together make the statutory deadline unachievable. This is not an argument about preference; it is a statement that the mandated process and the mandated outcome cannot both be met as specified.
- Put the decision where it belongs. Ask the PMO to choose between three options with stated consequences: approve the tailoring; accept a documented delay to the statutory deadline; or provide additional resource to satisfy the full framework. A framework owner can decline a tailoring request, but declining it while also owning the resulting deadline breach is a different decision, and the options paper forces that ownership.
- Keep it in writing and keep it factual. No criticism of the framework, no escalation until the options paper has been answered.
If the PMO maintains the position, escalate once, with the options paper attached and the deadline consequence stated in the first paragraph.