The decision was made on a Tuesday. Steering committee, full attendance, clear minutes. Three weeks later nothing had moved, and nobody had said no.
Every programme has a map of who decides. It sits in the governance deck: the committee, the sponsor, the escalation path. That map is accurate. It also leaves out half of what you need to know.
The second map shows who can stop a decision without ever opposing it. Usually they are not in the room. They control something the decision depends on: the people who will do the work, a budget line, a system, a sign-off further down. They never have to vote against anything. They only have to not deliver.
In my projects this is most often the line manager. The committee approves the plan, the plan needs two of their people, and the line manager agrees, because refusing a programme that leadership wants is expensive in that moment. Then the day job keeps its priority, as it always will, and the programme gets what is left.
Nobody blocked anything. The decision simply ran out of capacity.
This is why decisions that look final in the minutes still stall. The first map records who agreed. It says nothing about who has to act for the decision to become real, and whether agreeing cost them anything.
So draw the second map. Take the last decision your programme committee made and list every person whose action it depends on, whose approval does not count here. Then mark each one: were they in the room when it was decided?
• If most of them were absent, you are holding a request, and the minutes call it a decision.
• If one of them loses something by delivering, expect the decision to stall exactly there.
The rule behind it: a decision is only as strong as the weakest yes from someone who was never asked.
Cordula Buss · Plan A2C / Helping finance and programme leaders build steering logic that works.