Where does your sponsor sit?

Yet another excellent article from Johanna Rothman,
Respect Your Project -- or Leave It:

The Big Guy is causing this project to fail. He doesn't realize the project has already started, and that with his lack of people assignment or decision-making, he's creating a project no one will want to work on. The Big Guy is a good person, but doesn't realize what his waffling is doing to the rest of the potential project staff. He's telling the potential project team that he doesn't have the hour or two to start the project right, it's ok for him to delay it. The inference is that the project is useless.

Johanna is reporting "active ignorance" as the strategy the Big Guy is employing in this project. I've always understood that people give time to the things that are important to them. While there are certainly caveats to this rule, the fact that the Big Guy is stalling on the project suggests that it is not important to him at some level. Just like not responding to a telephone call suggests lack of interest, so does this.

Where is your sponsor?