Agency delivery workshop / 5 MIN READ
Leave the paused project in a state someone can restart
Record what stops, what must continue and what needs revalidation before a client project resumes.
AI-assisted research and analysis for the SNS Creative Fieldbook
Sources checked 2026-11-06
A paused project still has obligations, materials and people connected to it. A deliberate pause prevents silent work and unmanaged costs, while a restart review checks whether the old plan still fits the present situation.
What you will leave with: A pause record and a separate restart-readiness decision.
Use this when
- A client asks to suspend delivery while an internal decision is pending.
- Work is about to restart after a substantial interruption.
This is not unilateral authority to suspend contracted work, terminate an engagement or change fees and obligations without approval.
Confirm the authority and scope of the pause
A practitioner paper published by PMI recommends revalidating assumptions when a project restarts. Prepare for that review by making the current pause precise and authorized.
Identify why work is stopping and which parts are affected. Ask the responsible commercial or legal owner to review contractual consequences and required notices. A client contact’s casual request may not settle all obligations. Confirm whether any safety, support, security or other essential activity must continue. Do not stop a required service merely because the creative or delivery workstream has been paused.
Capture the current state and ongoing commitments
Record completed work, work in progress, open decisions and material awaiting approval. Preserve the correct versions in the approved location, with access limited to those who need it. Avoid a broad instruction to “save everything” that creates unnecessary sensitive copies.
List supplier bookings, reserved resources and costs that may continue during the hold. Have their accountable owners decide what can be released, maintained or changed under the relevant agreements. Explain the effect on availability without promising that the same people or dates will remain open indefinitely. Make the unresolved commercial questions visible rather than assuming a pause means no further cost.
Define the trigger and owner for review
Choose a concrete condition or review date for considering restart and name who will check it. A vague instruction to resume when the client is ready can leave every party with a different understanding of readiness. Record the authorized contact for updates during the pause.
State what the team should do if the expected condition is not met. Escalate through the agreed owner rather than continuing speculative work to stay busy. Keep the client informed of material changes to dependencies or availability that affect the paused plan. Do not repeatedly request a decision when the agreed review point has not arrived unless a meaningful consequence has changed.
Replan before resuming delivery
At restart, check the objective, scope, approvals, materials, dependencies and available team against current conditions. Identify changes since suspension and route their implications through the appropriate decision process. An old launch date does not become feasible merely because it remains printed on the project plan.
Obtain the required restart authorization and communicate the updated next steps. Reconfirm responsibilities with returning or replacement contributors and ensure they can access the approved material. Retain the pause history so unresolved decisions do not disappear. The project resumes when the relevant owners accept the current plan, not when somebody quietly begins working from an obsolete brief.
Make the reasoning concrete.
A fictional client pauses a campaign while changing its product offer. A month later, it asks the agency to continue toward the original launch date, but the photographer’s booking has been released.
Resume the old schedule unchanged
Opening: Treat the pause as a gap with no consequences.
Hypothesis: The client hears an immediate yes.
Risk: The plan relies on unavailable resources and outdated product information.
Review restart readiness
Opening: Check the new offer, supplier availability and approved scope before setting the revised plan.
Hypothesis: The team can make a realistic delivery commitment.
Risk: The launch arrangement may need authorized changes.
The agency uses the pause record to show what was preserved and released. The client and accountable owners review the changed dependencies, then approve the practical restart plan rather than assuming the former schedule survived.
Take the questions into your next brief.
Use these prompts in your own notes. Nothing is submitted from this page.
Authority
Who approved the pause and what does it cover?
State
What work, decisions and materials remain?
Continuing obligations
What must still be maintained or paid for?
Trigger
What condition and owner control the next review?
Restart
Which assumptions and approvals need updating before work resumes?
Watch for the wrong conclusion.
- Treating a pause as cancellation of every obligation.
- Promising indefinite resource availability.
- Restarting from the old plan without checking what changed.
Your next action
Prepare a one-page pause record for a suspended project and identify the decision needed before anyone restarts work.
Sources & scope
The workflow, worksheets and hypothetical examples are original editorial analysis. Sources support only the identified principles. No measured business results or named human reviewer are claimed.
- PMI: Managing information technology project restarts →Primary practitioner conference paper · Supports: The paper recommends revalidating project assumptions at restart; the client-project pause record is an original operational adaptation.