The project that is waiting for approval
Work that is ninety percent complete and awaiting sign-off is not nearly finished. It is stalled, unbillable, and quietly expensive.
Every studio has them: projects that stopped weeks ago, not because of any difficulty, but because a decision has not been made. They occupy mental space, they cannot be invoiced, and they take longer to restart each week they sit.
Name the approver before you start
A great many approval delays are structural: the person giving feedback cannot actually sign off, and the person who can has not seen it. For background on what collaboration tools may record about activity, read more adds useful context.
Establish at kickoff who approves each deliverable, by name. Where the answer is a committee, that is a scheduling constraint that has to be in the timeline rather than discovered at the first review.
The single most useful question at kickoff. It surfaces the stakeholder who appears at review stage with different expectations, while there is still time to include them.
Put a deemed-acceptance clause in the scope
A stated period after which a deliverable is treated as accepted — commonly five or ten working days — converts an indefinite wait into a defined one. For a broader framework, PMI's overview of project management summarises the standard concepts behind planning and delivery.
It is rarely invoked and its value is not enforcement. It is that it makes the deadline real, gives you a reason to follow up that is not nagging, and lets you invoice work that was delivered and never reviewed.
Invoice on delivery, not on approval
Tying payment to approval hands the client an unlimited extension on paying, usually without anyone intending it.
Milestone invoicing on delivery of the work, with approval handled separately, is standard and defensible. Where a client insists on payment against approval, the deemed-acceptance clause becomes essential rather than optional.
Chase with a consequence, not a reminder
The third polite reminder is ignored like the first two. What moves an approval is a stated effect: the team is allocated elsewhere from Monday, so a decision this week keeps the current timeline; after that the next slot is in three weeks.
This is not a threat. It is how a studio with several clients actually works, and stating it plainly usually produces a decision within a day.
Close stalled projects deliberately
A project waiting six weeks for approval should be formally paused: work invoiced to date, resources released, a written note of what is outstanding and what restarting will involve.
This is better for both parties than an indefinite half-open state. It gets you paid, it makes the situation visible to the client, and it prevents the awkward conversation in which someone expects work to resume instantly after two months.