A powerful sponsor asks openly for a project to jump the published priority order and the override is recorded, so the project moves fast and the cost of saying no falls on the controller.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
The capital planning process at a paper and packaging manufacturer ranked every project over $500,000 on a published scorecard. In June, the chief commercial officer needed warehouse automation at a site serving a customer whose contract renewal depended on faster loading, a project scored fourteenth. She wrote to the engineering director and the capital committee chair asking for it to move ahead of a boiler replacement scored second, with the contract value and the renewal date attached. The committee met by phone and approved the override, recorded in the intake system with her name and the reason. The engineering director told the plant manager whose boiler slipped into the next year, and sent him the committee note. The plant manager objected in writing, and the committee confirmed the decision with his objection attached. The customer renewed for three years.
Why it works
A direct request from a powerful sponsor makes the override easy to grant, since the controller can point to a recorded decision by someone with authority. Refusing costs the controller something real, the displeasure of a senior colleague, so honoring the published order becomes the harder choice. Recording the override keeps the queue credible, because everyone can see when and why it was set aside. It works when the sponsor has a reason the committee will accept and the standing to ask, and when overrides stay rare enough that the published order still means something.
The thinking behind it
Robert B. Cialdini Cialdini's Influence (1984) describes the pull of authority: people tend to defer to those who appear to hold legitimate position. A request from a senior sponsor carries that weight with a resource controller, which is why the override is easy to grant and costly to refuse. Putting the request in writing and recording the decision keeps the authority visible, so the controller is carrying out a decision and not doing a favor.
When it fits
Senior sponsors with a time-sensitive business reason, such as a client commitment or a regulatory date, and the standing to ask a priority committee for an exception, can make the request. It needs a reason you can put in writing, and you need to be willing to have your name on the override.
How to use it well
Make the request in writing, to the controller and to whoever owns the published order.
- State the business reason, the value at stake, and the date that makes it urgent.
- Ask for a recorded decision, with your name on it.
- Acknowledge which project will slip, and offer what you can to its owner.
- Use it rarely, since every override spends some of the queue's credibility.
The record protects you. A recorded override is a decision, and an informal one is a favor that someone will resent.
What it costs and where it backfires
Owners of the projects that slip will resent it, and if your reason does not hold up, your next request will meet a harder committee. Frequent overrides make the queue meaningless, and you lose the cover it gave your own work. A backchannel request with no record, or a controller told that refusing will cost them their budget or career, would take it past hardball: the first conceals the decision, and the second is a threat beyond your authority.
When it is used on you
Bumped by an override, ask who authorized it and on what grounds, and ask that the reason be logged. Compare what shipped with the published scores, and if overrides become frequent or go unrecorded, escalate the pattern with peers whose work also slipped.