The Director Who Never Says No
A government department's programme to digitise a paper-based licensing service has been running five months. The blueprint was signed off by the programme board, but the service's operations director - who controls 60% of the 400 affected staff and sits on the board - has not released the four nominated subject-matter experts for design workshops since month two. She says the design "won't survive contact with real casework" and that her team is at 92% utilisation on a backlog. Attendance at stakeholder forums has fallen to 6 of 22 invited. The programme manager's monthly highlight report rates stakeholder engagement as green, because the director attends board meetings and has never formally objected to anything.
1. Diagnose what is happening. Is the green rating defensible?
Read the worked answer
The green rating is not defensible, and the reason is a definition error: the report measures attendance, but engagement is contribution. Six of 22 at forums and zero SMEs in workshops is a measurable collapse in contribution.
The director's behaviour is best read as active non-compliance with a plausible operational alibi. She has not objected because objecting at board level would make her the blocker; withholding people achieves the same outcome at low personal cost. Two things follow:
- The programme has a real delivery risk: blueprint areas touching casework are being designed without the people who do the casework, so late rework is close to certain and its cost is not yet estimated.
- The programme manager has a personal credibility problem, because a green rating has told the board there is nothing to see.
The 92% utilisation figure should be treated as data, not as an excuse to dismiss. If it is true, the design work genuinely cannot be staffed as planned and the plan - not the director - is wrong. If it is not true, the programme manager needs the number tested rather than argued about.
2. Set out the programme manager's next three moves, and say when escalation becomes the right answer.
Read the worked answer
Move 1 - buy the constraint instead of contesting it (weeks 1–2). Verify the 92% figure with workforce data. Then offer a concrete trade: two SMEs for three days a fortnight, with backfill funded from programme budget, or workshops held in her building at shift handover times. This converts an abstract demand for cooperation into a costed, refusable offer - which is far more useful than another meeting request.
Move 2 - give her ownership rather than attendance (weeks 2–4). Ask her to co-chair the design authority for casework, where she can test the blueprint rather than criticise it from outside. Her objection - 'it won't survive contact with real casework' - is a design input; the engagement failure is that there is no forum in which it becomes one.
Move 3 - correct the reporting (immediately). Move the rating to amber/red with a specific ask and a named owner. A red with a plan is survivable; a green that turns out to be false is not.
Escalation: escalate if there is no release of SMEs within four weeks of the costed offer, and escalate in writing to the sponsor as a delivery risk with a benefit impact, referencing the blueprint areas now being designed without operational input. Do not frame it as a personality conflict, and do not escalate before the offer exists - an early escalation by a five-month-old programme against a board member usually ends with the programme manager moved, not the director.