Communication between the digital agency and the customer. What if the customer does not have time to complete his part of the project by the deadline?

Question

Project management

Good morning everyone!

In mobile and web development, there are often projects that are carried out jointly by the contractor and the customer. For example, a customer hires an agency to develop a mobile application and provides its design, technical specifications, API, etc. to create it.

It often happens that the customer does not have time to complete his part of the project. For me, as an agency manager, this is a negative scenario, as the project deadline increases and I have a downtime of specialists who cannot start work.

From my experience, such cases arise when:

1. The customer made a mistake with the assessment of his part of the project
   
2. More priority projects appeared on the customer's side and he decided to redistribute resources at his own discretion
   
3. The contractor did not provide clear requirements to the customer. Especially when it comes to API or design
   

I would like to hear your experience in solving such situations and how you build communication with such customers.

Answer 1

In any contract, actions should be prescribed in case of non-compliance with the conditions of either party. If there is no such thing, then no one really owes anyone anything but to finish the work and pay for it.

Answer 2

Do not start work until you have everything you need.