The steering committee wants all requirements frozen before discovery ends. What should we explain?
Premature certainty requirementShow which requirements are stable and which depend on evidence not yet available. Offer a bounded discovery decision and explicit change limits rather than claiming certainty you do not have.
What to do now
- Classify known needs and unknowns
- Explain the decisions discovery will inform
- Set learning and spending boundaries
- Agree the next evidence-based commitment point
When to escalate
Escalate when
A forced freeze would lock in an unvalidated or unsafe solution.
Who decides
The delivery owner and relevant governance authority
Example
A team fixes mandatory business outcomes while testing alternative workflows before detailed scope approval.
Mistake to avoid
Signing a complete baseline that everyone expects to replace immediately.
Prevent a repeat
Check whether governance decisions use real delivery evidence rather than forcing incompatible reporting rituals.
Suggested ApprovedFlow setup
- Projects
- Tasks
- Documents
- Approvals
Keep decision milestones and iterative task work connected, with explicit evidence required at each approved gate. See the platform
Related cases
- Our hybrid process has all the meetings from both methods. How do we simplify?Duplicated delivery ceremonies
- Management wants annual commitments, but uncertainty is high. What can we commit to?Long-horizon commitment uncertainty
- Our steering committee meets but rarely decides anything. How do we fix it?Governance without decisions
- A privacy assessment is requested after requirements are frozen. What now?Late privacy impact assessment