Ask any team why their last big tech project didn’t go to plan, and you’ll probably hear the same thing: "We just didn’t have the time."
But time isn’t really the issue. Capacity is.
Because when you look at the calendar, the time was there. Maybe it was a three-month implementation window. Maybe there were regular check-ins. Maybe the vendor delivered their part on schedule. But the people meant to drive the project internally? They were also juggling range planning, supplier calls, campaign sign-offs, returns analysis, and ten other things with equal priority.
What tech projects need isn’t time in theory. It’s time in practice. Focus. Headspace. Decision-making bandwidth. And most brands don’t have that lying around.
The myth of the BAU overlay
One of the biggest traps is thinking you can run a major system project on top of business as usual. But business as usual is already full.
You can’t retrofit big decisions into 30-minute windows between meetings. You can’t sense-check workflows while dealing with the returns backlog. And you definitely can’t implement something like ERP by squeezing it in around the edges.
That’s not a time problem. That’s a capacity problem.
What we see in failed projects
The signs are almost always the same: key workshops where attendance is patchy or participants are half-distracted, decisions that get kicked down the road or made in isolation, unclear ownership across departments, and retrospectives full of should-haves, could-haves, and what-ifs.
We’ve sat in retros where teams say, "We just didn’t have the time to get the data right." But they had three months. The issue wasn’t duration. It was that no one had the capacity to think clearly, clean the data, or challenge the logic.
What capacity really looks like
It’s not just a diary entry. It’s protected time. A project lead who isn’t pulled into daily BAU. A steering group that can actually steer. A business that’s prepared to slow down a little now to move faster later.
Capacity is having the right people, in the right headspace, at the right time. It’s rarely convenient. But it’s always necessary.
What to do instead
If you know you don’t have the internal capacity, don’t bluff your way through.
Start with an audit. Map your workflows. Understand your data gaps. Build out a phased plan that doesn’t rely on heroics. And make sure someone owns the project properly, not as a side hustle.
Sometimes the most strategic move is to wait. Create capacity first. Then launch.
Final thought
Tech platforms aren’t magic. They won’t solve resourcing issues. In fact, they expose them.
If your last project failed, don’t blame the tool. Ask whether anyone truly had the space to make it succeed.
Because if no one owns the future, it won’t happen.