The short version
- A launch date without named gatekeepers is an estimate dressed as a commitment.
- The gates that hurt are the ones nobody listed: security review, legal, pricing sign-off, brand approval.
- Ask who can stop this, not who is involved. Different question, different answer.
- Put each gate, its owner and its lead time in the plan at kickoff, where the client can see it slip.
A launch date is only real once every gate has a name against it. On one engagement the date slipped twice because two approvals nobody had listed sat with two people who had never been in the room: one holding security review, one holding pricing sign-off.
What is a launch gate?
Any approval that can stop a release regardless of whether the work is finished. It is not a task and it does not appear on a delivery plan, which is exactly why it gets missed.
The work can be complete, tested and staged, and still not ship because one person has not looked at it. That person is frequently not in the project channel.
The gates worth listing before a date is agreed:
| Gate | Usual owner | Typical lead time | What it blocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Security or IT review | IT or InfoSec | 1 to 4 weeks | Anything touching customer data |
| Legal or contract review | Legal or founder | 1 to 3 weeks | Terms, claims, DPAs |
| Pricing sign-off | Finance or CEO | Days to weeks | Any published price |
| Brand approval | Marketing lead | Days | Customer-facing design |
| Data processing agreement | Legal plus vendor | Weeks | New tooling in the stack |
Which gates get missed most often?
The ones owned outside the marketing function. A security or IT review on anything that touches customer data. Legal on claims, terms or a data processing agreement. Finance or leadership on pricing. Brand on anything customer-facing at a company with a strong identity.
Each one is reasonable. Collectively they are the difference between a date and a wish, and they surface in the last week rather than the first.
How do you find them at kickoff?
Ask a different question. Not who is involved in this project, which produces the working team. Ask who can stop this from going live, which produces the real list.
Then ask each named person for their lead time and what they need from you. A security review is not a day. A legal review of pricing claims is not an afternoon. Those numbers belong in the plan before a date is agreed.
Do not ask who is involved. Ask who can stop this, and write their name next to the date.
Who should own the list?
You, not the client, and it belongs in whatever document the client actually reads.
Clients rarely have a consolidated view of their own approval chain, because each gate lives with a different function and none of them think of themselves as a dependency. Assembling that list is genuinely useful work and it is usually the first time anyone has seen it written down.
What do you do when a gate blocks you?
Say it in the status update the week it happens, name the gate and the owner, and do not soften it. A blocker reported late reads as an excuse. A blocker reported the day it appears is information the client can act on.
Keep shipping everything the gate does not touch. A blocked launch is not a blocked week, and the fastest way to lose confidence is to let one dependency stall visible progress.
The habits that keep a blocked week from becoming a lost month are covered in why we ship weekly and what belongs in a client update.
Frequently asked questions
What is a launch gate in a marketing project?
Any approval that can stop a release regardless of whether the work is finished. Security review, legal sign-off, pricing approval and brand approval are the common ones. They are not delivery tasks, which is why they rarely appear on a project plan.
How do you identify gatekeepers at project kickoff?
Ask who can stop this from going live rather than who is involved in this project. The second question returns the working team. The first returns the people who hold approvals, who are often not in the project channel at all.
Why do launch dates slip even when the work is finished?
Because approval lead times were never counted. A security review can take a month and a legal review of pricing claims can take weeks. If those were not in the plan, the date was an estimate of build time rather than time to launch.
Who should own each gate?
One named person per gate, agreed at kickoff, with their lead time recorded. Shared ownership of an approval means nobody schedules it, and it gets discovered in the final week.
How should you report a blocked launch to a client?
In the status update the week it happens, naming the gate and its owner, without softening it. Reported late it reads as an excuse. Reported immediately it is information they can act on, usually by applying internal pressure you do not have.
Should work stop when a gate blocks a launch?
No. Keep shipping everything the gate does not touch. A blocked launch is not a blocked week, and letting one dependency stall visible progress is the fastest way to lose a client's confidence.
Sources
- Chua Network delivery data across 8 client accounts (internal fact bank)
- Chua Network engagement records, anonymized (internal experience bank)
