The Real Reason IT Projects Stall and It’s Not the Code

Ask any CIO why their digital project is late, and you’ll hear familiar suspects: “scope creep,” “integration issues,” “vendor delays.” But under the hood, those aren’t causes, they’re symptoms.

The real killer of IT projects? Decision paralysis.

Modern buying committees can have up to 17 stakeholders, each with their own goals, fears, and calendars. The CFO wants ROI, IT wants stability, operations want usability, and legal wants a nap. The result is predictable: weeks of email loops, “alignment” meetings, and decisions made by whoever gives up last.

By the time the team actually picks a partner, they’ve lost both momentum and confidence. And that’s before the first line of code.

At Hightech Kaunas Cluster, we’ve been involved in more than one project that died in a spreadsheet. The tech wasn’t broken, the team was. A manufacturer, for instance, spent eight months debating ERP vendors without agreeing on what “success” looked like. Once Definra got involved, they ran a one-day alignment workshop, mapped measurable outcomes (inventory accuracy, not “transformation”), and made the decision in a week. That ERP went live in three months.

Here’s the unspoken truth:
The longer a decision takes, the less likely it is to be the right one. Not because of bad intent, but because every new voice introduces new uncertainty.

How to break the deadlock:

1. Define the problem in business terms. “We need automation” isn’t clear. “We spend 40 hours a week on manual data entry” is.
2. Nominate a single owner. Consensus sounds democratic. In practice, it’s a license for endless discussion.
3. Get external structure. A neutral tech partner can help frame trade-offs faster than internal debates can resolve them.

Big integrators love complex governance; it keeps the billable hours flowing. Smaller, senior-led teams, like those within the Hightech Kaunas Cluster, prefer clarity. We help clients align, decide, and deliver. No politics, no paralysis.

Projects don’t fail at launch. They fail in meetings.
Fix the alignment, and the code will follow.