When the Client Contact Changes, Does the Project Restart? The Most Expensive Invisible Risk in Outsourcing, and Six Defenses

"Who made that call?" — the week the client contact changes, the project restarts

An NT$1.8M order management system, five months in, and the client's project owner resigns. The new contact arrives with a requirements list of their own — eleven items the previous owner had explicitly rejected. Two weeks of clarification, one change order, NT$220,000 added, six weeks late. That is not a technical risk or a requirements risk. It is the risk of knowledge attached to a person.

Four industry myths

Myth 1: "Meeting minutes protect us from turnover." Minutes carry conclusions without reasons, and a conclusion with no reason gets overturned.
Myth 2: "The SOW locks the scope." An SOW locks deliverables, not interpretation: "supports multiple warehouses" has two readings.
Myth 3: "Turnover is the client's problem." Rebuilding consensus eats 3–6% of total project hours, absorbed by the vendor.
Myth 4: "A few more meetings will catch them up." Meetings cannot rebuild context. A searchable decision log can.

The core framework: a decision log

Record every decision that affects scope, cost or schedule in six columns:

ID (D-001) — so it can be cited
Decision — one sentence, verb first
Reason — finance requires manual verification of each entry
Rejected alternatives — and why they lost
Decision maker and date — a named person, client side
Impact — saves 12 dev hours, adds 6 manual hours a month

Rules: update it the day of the meeting, cite IDs in every estimate, hand it to a new contact first. A five-month project runs 30–60 entries at 20 minutes a week.

Contact turnover risk score (0–12)

Score it at kickoff:

Owner is an employee 0 / contractor or consultant 2
Holds decision authority 0 / must escalate 2
Under 3 months 0 / 3–6 months 1 / over 6 months 2
Backup contact 0 / single point 2
Client industry turnover low 0 / high 2
Independent of one executive's preference 0 / dependent 2

0–3: normal minutes. 4–7: decision log and dual contacts. 8+: a contact-change clause in the contract and a 3–5% communication buffer.

Three companies, three conclusions

20-person trading company, owner is the contact: decisions arrive verbally over LINE, so write them back as text and get a confirmation.
120-person manufacturer, IT manager is the contact: typically 6–8, expertise but no budget authority, so map the approval levels.
500-person service chain, contact is an external consultant: highest risk, so add a parallel internal contact to the meetings.

Hidden cost breakdown

Six months, NT$1.8M, one contact change:

Re-explanation and context transfer: 16–24 hours
Requirements re-confirmation and disputes: 20–40 hours
Rework on completed items: 30–80 hours
Idle resources 2–6 weeks, a real loss if nobody is redeployed
Client side: the new contact needs 40–80 hours
Trust reset: one or two extra review rounds
Total: roughly 8–15% of project value, mostly absorbed by the vendor

Vendor scorecard: turnover resilience

Ten dimensions, 0–3 each:

A searchable decision log, not just minutes
Estimates cite decision or requirement IDs
Documents stored where the client can reach them
A second engineer knows this project
Build instructions that actually run
Status reports legible without narration
Requirement changes go through written orders
Proactive flags: "this conflicts with D-017"
Handover package defined in the contract
Free re-onboarding when the contact changes

24+ is healthy; 15–23, close the gaps next phase; below 15, one turnover costs 8–15%.

How ScriptWalker works, and who we are wrong for

Three engagement models:

Project: the log and requirement IDs are standard deliverables; one two-hour re-onboarding when the contact changes.
Retainer: monthly reports legible without narration, plus a rolling current-state document.
Advisory: in-house developers but no process discipline — we install the process, development stays internal.

We are the wrong fit when:

The client refuses any written confirmation
Nobody will put a name on a decision, so disputes land on the vendor
The budget covers development hours only — protection gets cut, time gets spent

Kickoff and handover playbook

Month 1: week one, the decision log and ID convention; week two, primary and backup contacts plus the approval matrix; week four, the one-page current state.
Turnover week (days 0–7): pause new requirements, send the log and the one-pager, hold a two-hour walkthrough — goals, ten key decisions, progress, open items.
Days 8–21: reopening is allowed, but only through a change order with cost and schedule impact.
Days 22–30: re-confirm acceptance criteria and sign a current-state agreement.
Day 90 review: put the delay and added hours into the retrospective and the next quote.

Decision checklist

☐ Project longer than four months?
☐ Only one point of contact?
☐ Contact is a contractor or consultant?
☐ Major decisions escalate?
☐ Ever had a "we agreed not to" dispute?
☐ Do minutes record why?
☐ Estimates traceable to decision IDs?
☐ Documents reachable by the client?
☐ A second person on each side?
☐ Contract addresses contact changes?
☐ Current-state doc readable in half a day?
☐ New requirements via written change orders?
☐ Communication buffer in the quote?

Eight or more checks: build the log at the next meeting. Two hours to set up; one turnover costs 8–15% of project value.

FAQ

How is a decision log different from meeting minutes?

Minutes are chronological and record process; a log is indexed by ID and records only conclusions and reasons. If a reader still asks "why," the minutes are not enough.

What if the client will not help maintain documents?

The vendor writes, the client confirms. Send a decision summary within 24 hours; no objection within three business days is confirmation.

Should we charge when a new contact reopens a decision?

If they never knew the reason, re-explaining is free. If they know it and still change direction, that is a requirements change: change order, priced.

What about turnover on the vendor's side?

Same logic in reverse: a second engineer picks the project up in half a day, with build instructions that run and environment variable templates.

Do small projects need all this?

Not the full apparatus. Under three months and NT$200,000, one shared document recording "decision plus reason," ten minutes a week.

Next step

If your contact just changed mid-project, we will spend 30 minutes sorting which decisions have no recorded reason, which deserve re-discussion, and which should be met by citing the original agreement. No fee.