Delivering at Pace Without Losing Control: Aligning Execs, Vendors, and Delivery Teams

A presentation written for the New Zealand CIO Summit 05 August 2026 @ 1:40pm

Good afternoon CIOs!

Behind you, you might have noticed the rally car sitting on the showroom floor.

Kinda random to see at a technology conference, right!?

The reason its here and what fascinates me about rally driving is that success doesn't come from removing risk. There are too many pot holes to fill and trees to put haybales infront of for that to be realistic!

Success comes from managing risk while maintaining a high speed.

If you slow down too much, you'll lose the race.

If you push too hard, you will crash. I know this!

Technology projects aren't that different.

Every organisation wants to deliver at pace.

Every executive wants control.

The challenge is maintaining both.

In the last twelve months, two New Zealand organisations have each written off more than $30 million on major ICT projects that didn't deliver the solution they promised.

These projects are totally unrelated. They are from different industries, used different technologies and used different project teams.

Yet, in our assessment, they both suffered because executives, vendors and delivery teams were no longer working from the same version of reality.

At Pro Partner, I work alongside Boards, CIOs, vendors, and delivery teams to reduce delivery risk and improve outcomes on critical technology projects.

Today, I'd like to share three things I believe every executive in this room can do to deliver projects at pace without losing control.

They are:

Create healthy tension.

Create accountability.

Create alignment.

And it all starts with asking a simple question.

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A Simple Project Health Check

Think about the biggest project you're involved with right now. It doesn't even need to be a technology project.

Now, imagine I walk into that project and ask four different people this simple question: "what does success look like, and are we on track?"

I ask:

• The executive sponsor.

• The vendor.

• The delivery team.

• The users.

Would I get the same answer?

Because what can happen is this:

• The executive sponsor believes the project is on track to deliver the intended business outcomes.

• The vendor believes they are delivering what was agreed

• The delivery team believes the project is on track because the planned work is being delivered.

• But the users are unsure whether the solution will solve the problems they need solved.

Nobody is deliberately creating risk.

Everyone wants to be successful.

They're simply operating from different perspectives.

And once that happens, pace and control disappears very quickly.

Create Healthy Tension

The first thing executives can do is create healthy tension.

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Now, this is where I might get myself into trouble because I know some of my clients are in the room today. But here goes.

The of the best projects we've worked on had executives who created a heathy tension.

The sort of tension that keeps people engaged, responsive and accountable.

You might hear people say we need to remove pressure from projects. I actually think the opposite is true. People and projects need pressure.

In my experience, healthy tension comes from two executive behaviours.

The first is setting an uncomfortable pace. The second is staying engaged.

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Set an Uncomfortable Pace

I've noticed that projects adopt the pace executives allow them to set.

If a project misses a deadline by two weeks and nothing happens, the project learns that deadlines are flexible. If it happens again the next month, flexibility becomes the culture. And before long, nobody remembers the original plan.

The best executive sponsors I've worked with don't only push harder (and maybe crash)

They make it clear that commitment and time matters.

Preparation matters.

You expect papers before governance meetings.

You expect analysis when decisions are needed.

The next time you set an expectation for pace, if your Project Manager takes a deep breath before answering, "yes", you've probably created about the right amount of tension.

Stay Engaged

Setting the pace is one thing, but maintaining it is another, and that requires staying engaged throughout delivery. This is the second part of creating a healthy tension.

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As executives, you are not trying to manage the project, but you should be trying to understand it. Your contribution is really important.

You should seek to understand the deliverables, even when they're outside your area of expertise. Your experience will identifies gaps, risks and blind spots that nobody else has thought of. When you do that, priorities become more obvious and the project moves faster.

How to manage the resulting pace and experience.

Now, setting a fast pace means issues will surface faster. Imagine yourself setting in that rally car travelling at 200kph, things will start to alarm you that you wouldn't have even noticed at 50kph!

In your project...

• Vendors will raise concerns.

• Delivery teams will identify risks.

• Dependencies will appear.

These are not signs the project is failing. In many cases, it's a sign the delivery engine is working efficiently.

Good projects surface problems early.

Great executive sponsors create an environment where those problems can be seen, discussed, and resolved before they become project failures.

The pace you set and the engagement you maintain directly influence how project teams behave, how quickly decisions are made, and how openly risks are discussed.

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Create Accountability

The second thing executives can do to keep pace and control is: create accountability.

In my experience, clear accountability means you need strong commercials and strong governance.

One of the simplest ways to create accountability is through a well-written Statement of Work or PMP. A simple table containing deliverables, descriptions, owners and due dates can become one of the most powerful governance tools on the project.

I come back to the Statement of Work and PMP multiple times each week. They are my most-used project tools because they create accountability.

Before every planning session, review, or status report, I share these documents with the project team and we answer these questions together:

• Did we deliver in full, on time, to specification?

• What remains outstanding?

• And is the project ready for its next stage?

At major milestones, strong commercials create accountability by making decisions objective. Rather than relying on opinions, the project can be assessed against agreed deliverables, acceptance criteria, and quality standards.

Governance will also have a solid foundation for managing risks, resolving issues, and making informed decisions.

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Create Alignment

The third thing executives can do to create pace and control is: create alignment.

For this, you need a routine and framework for bringing the project team together.

The biggest killer of momentum in project delivery is waiting time. Valuable days can be lost when people are waiting on information, advice or decisions that sit behind emails instead of being addressed through direct conversation.

In our experience, one of the most effective ways to eliminate waiting time is to create discipline and routine in connecting project team members. The best projects establish a regular rhythm of communication and decision-making.

Interestingly, the best toolset I've found for creating alignment comes from Agile delivery. Not because every project needs to be Agile - many of our projects are delivered using traditional waterfall or hybrid approaches. But the ceremonies themselves are incredibly effective.

• Planning sessions

• Regular stand-ups

• Reviews

As a whole project team.

These are structured opportunities for people to discuss specific tasks, identify blockers, make decisions and agree on priorities. And everyone is there to help out.

One of the best projects I'm involved in today spans New Zealand, Australia, India and Europe. One of the most challenging projects I've worked on had everyone located in the same city.

The successful project had a routine and structure for regular conversations between all parties, all around the world.

The other project relied on ad-hoc communication and long email chains. The result was delay, frustration and a lot of waiting time.

The reason I like these ceremonies so much is that they don't just create alignment.

They reinforce everything we've already discussed.

• Ceremonies create accountability because owners are visible.

• Ceremonies create alignment because conversations are frequent.

• And they create tension because the clock is running down on the sprint.

Executives, get yourself to these ceremonies! Keep them in your calendar and drop in every so often.

Observe the discipline and discussion being had.

This will tell you everything you need to know about pace and control the project team has between steering committee meetings.

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Summary

To conclude; The best executive sponsors I have worked with shape an environment where success becomes more likely. They achieve this when they:

• have a healthy tension to drive pace.

• have accountability to maintain control.

• have alignment between executives, vendors and delivery teams.

• And keep asking simple questions.

These are the lessons I have taken from the project's I work on and meeting those involved with these $30M write off's.

The projects that succeed aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets.

Or the best technology. Or the smartest vendors.

They're the projects where leaders deliberately create an environment where project teams can thrive.

Because when you practice these three things, you don't have to choose choose between pace and control. You get both!

One Final Invitation

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One final invitiation from me.

If you'd like to talk about the project you were picturing while I've been speaking, come and see us at the Pro Partner booth.

Come sit in the rally car and enter the draw for a ride tomorrow, where we can talk about how to deliver your next major project at pace, without losing control!

My name is Christopher Gracie and thank you for your time today.