CRM Failure: When Steering Committees Stop Steering

This article is Part 5 of the 10-Part CRM Horror Stories series.

Previous chapter: When Tight Timelines and Budget Cuts Turn a CRM Project Into a Disaster

Next chapter: How Scope Creep Quietly Blew Up the CRM Budget

Summary

When a steering committee stops steering, a CRM project drifts like a boat with no captain. This story shows how silence, slow decisions, and “we’ll get to it next week” thinking quietly sank an entire implementation.

If denial were an Olympic sport, this steering committee would have taken home the gold.

Six months into their Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales implementation, the team expected to see real progress. They hoped for streamlined processes, better visibility, and a healthier sales pipeline.

Instead, progress had stalled. Deadlines were slipping. Risks were multiplying. Red flags were practically waving on their own.

When the executive steering committee finally met, the enthusiasm from kickoff had faded and so had the momentum. Instead of addressing real issues, the meeting turned into a lesson in polite avoidance.

The key players were not exactly in steering mode:

• Michael, the owner, dialed in from his car and caught only parts of the conversation.

  
  

• Valerie, the VP of Sales, focused more on email than the project she was supposed to help guide.

  
  

• Monica, the project manager, was the only person fully present and the only one who understood how far off track the project had drifted.

The meeting ended without debate, without hard questions, and without a clear understanding of the trouble ahead. The project was veering off course, and the people responsible for steering it barely noticed.

That is the problem. A steering committee is supposed to steer.

It should catch risks early, make strategic decisions, and ensure the project stays aligned with the business. This group had quietly set the project on corporate cruise control and hoped for the best.

Welcome to Blog 5 in the CRM Horror Stories series, featuring a family-owned business that learned the hard way what happens when leadership assumes a CRM will guide itself.

Why Steering Committees Matter More Than You Think

A steering committee is not just a box to check.

It is the force that guides a CRM implementation, keeps it aligned with business goals, and intervenes before risks get out of hand. When that leadership presence fades, a project can drift into chaos before anyone realizes what happened.

In Michael and Valerie’s case, the committee was present in name only. And when a committee disengages, predictable patterns emerge:

• Critical risks go unnoticed. Small problems compound until they become major roadblocks.

  
  

• Decisions get delayed or avoided. With no one taking ownership, issues linger far longer than they should.

  
  

• The project loses direction. Teams spend their time on the wrong priorities because no one is steering the ship.

Silence may look like neutrality, but in this context it was a form of neglect. And the longer the committee coasted, the harder it became to correct the project’s trajectory.

Even with a strong platform like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, success depends on leadership engagement. Without it, even the best CRM can become an expensive tool that no one fully adopts.

So how do you fix a steering committee that’s asleep at the wheel?

A False Sense of Progress

Monica knew the project was already two months behind schedule.

Saying that out loud felt risky, though. She convinced herself that everyone in the steering committee understood the situation. They attended the meetings. They saw the reports.

They must know the truth … right?

Instead of raising more red flags, she softened the message. She described the delays as minor setbacks and pointed to burn-down charts that looked promising on paper. She reassured the committee that everything was “still on track” and suggested adding another CRM resource to help recover lost time.

Anyone paying attention would have caught the contradiction. If the project was truly on track, why would they need extra help? Monica, eager to avoid confrontation, left out a few critical details: the extra cost, the growing scope, and the uncomfortable reality that adding people to a delayed project rarely speeds anything up.

Michael offered the occasional “uh-huh” while weaving through traffic. Valerie skimmed emails with barely a glance at the project dashboard. No one asked a single question.

The meeting ended with polite nods and vague agreement. No debate. No real discussion. No sense of how serious the situation had become.

They had one job: Ask a single tough question. Instead, they chose comfortable oblivion.

What none of them realized was that the cheerful “green” project status presented by Monica was actually flashing red.

The true cost of ignoring that truth was growing by the day — a price tag so large she was afraid to bring it up at all.

The Hidden Risks No One Saw Coming

On paper, everything still looked fine.

The steering committee left the meeting confident that the delays were minor and under control. Beneath the surface, though, those “minor” issues were quietly collecting interest.

Budget risks: Monica’s suggestion to add a “catch-up resource” was approved with no discussion. No one asked where the extra 125,000 dollars per year would come from or what would need to be cut to afford it.

Scope creep: With no pushback from leadership, small changes were approved to keep the project moving. Each one seemed harmless, but together they quietly expanded the workload and stretched the timeline.

Lack of accountability: With the steering committee disengaged, Monica was left making decisions alone. Temporary workarounds became permanent solutions, and no one was checking whether those choices aligned with the original plan.

By the time leadership understood the full picture, the damage was too extensive to fix with a few additional resources.

A steering committee that avoids tough questions or fails to demand clarity is not neutral. It makes the project weaker, blinds the team to obvious risks, and allows problems to grow until they are impossible to ignore.

Warning Signs Everyone Missed

The warning signs were there from the start. Small hints. Quiet signals. Subtle shifts that suggested the project was drifting. But no one was paying close enough attention to see what they meant.

• Leadership on autopilot: Steering committee members assumed everything was on track instead of verifying progress or challenging what they saw.

  
  

• Red flags dismissed as “normal”: Early hiccups were framed as routine project noise rather than evidence of deeper issues that needed immediate attention.

  
  

• No accountability for decisions: With no clear expectations for how the steering committee should lead, the group defaulted to passive observers instead of active problem-solvers.

By the time the true scope of the issues came into focus, reversing course required more money, more time, and more patience than anyone expected. Teams were frustrated. Leadership felt blindsided. And the project was already operating at a disadvantage.

Risks rarely disappear on their own. They stack up quietly beneath a thin layer of optimism until they finally break through and demand attention.

Hard Lessons from a CRM Failure Caused by Disengaged Leadership

A CRM system is only as effective as the leadership guiding it.

This implementation did not fail because of bad technology. It failed because the people responsible for making it successful stepped back when they needed to lean in.

Here is what this experience made painfully clear:

• Transparency is essential: A project marked as “green” is meaningless if real risks are being ignored. Leaders need a shared definition of what green, yellow, and red actually mean.

  
  

• Steering committees must steer: Attendance is not engagement. Leaders must ask questions, challenge assumptions, and confirm that the project aligns with business goals.

  
  

• Early intervention prevents bigger problems: Risks do not fade with time. They grow. Addressing issues early is far cheaper and far less disruptive than scrambling to recover later.

  
  

• Sugarcoating reality backfires: Softening the truth may avoid uncomfortable conversations, but it creates bigger conflict when the problems eventually surface.

A project derails when leadership operates on surface-level updates rather than the reality underneath. And the most frustrating part is that it is entirely avoidable.

A structured approach like the Smarter Systems Better Sales framework helps leadership teams stay aligned, engaged, and grounded in the realities of a CRM project so these failures never take root.

How to Avoid These Mistakes

These problems were not inevitable. They were the result of unchecked assumptions, absent leadership, and a collective decision to avoid uncomfortable conversations. The good news is that these issues are completely preventable with the right structure and leadership approach.

A steering committee must do more than receive updates. It needs to guide decisions, surface risks early, and hold teams accountable.

Here is how to ensure your CRM project does not become the next horror story.

Define and enforce clear governance

A steering committee must have real responsibilities and real authority. Sitting in a meeting while answering emails does not count.

• Set clear expectations

• Identify roadblocks

• Make timely decisions

Governance works only when leaders take ownership, get involved and follow through.

Hold leadership accountable for engagement

If executives show more interest in their coffee order than in the CRM initiative, the project is already in trouble.

• Commit to proactive leadership

• Course-correct early

• Remember that disengagement today becomes expensive damage control tomorrow

Engagement is not optional. It is the difference between clarity and chaos.

Insist on full transparency

If the project status is always green but no one can explain why, you do not have a CRM project. You have a house of cards.

• Ask direct questions

• Challenge assumptions

• Investigate further when something seems “too on track”

Transparency prevents the slow build-up of risks that eventually collapse the project.

Foster a culture where concerns are addressed

If project managers fear that raising red flags will damage their credibility, they will stay quiet and hope for the best.

That silence is dangerous.

Encourage open dialogue. An honest discussion today prevents costly surprises later and builds trust across the team.

The Bottom Line: Steering Committees Must Lead, Not Observe

CRM implementations rarely fail because of software. They fail because leadership avoids the hard conversations until those issues are impossible to ignore.

In this story, the technology did not fall short. Leadership did. The steering committee stopped steering, project updates were softened to keep meetings comfortable, and the real risks were left to grow beneath the surface. Everyone walked out of that first meeting feeling confident, but it was the kind of confidence that comes from not asking the questions that mattered.

A steering committee exists to make decisions, challenge assumptions, and guide the project through uncertainty. When those responsibilities are ignored, even the strongest CRM plan becomes unstable.

The lesson is straightforward.

Projects succeed when leadership stays transparent, engaged, and willing to confront reality early.

When leaders rely on filtered updates or assume that silence means success, small problems do not go away. They compound until they become expensive to fix and frustrating for the teams who depend on the system.

This is the cost of disengagement: not just delays or budget creep, but loss of trust, stalled momentum, and a CRM that never reaches its potential.

Technology still plays an important role. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales offers modern tools, better visibility, and stronger collaboration across teams. But even the strongest CRM depends on leadership that stays engaged and willing to address issues early.

If your project needs steadier guidance, Optrua can help you create the structure and momentum that lead to long-term success. Our team supports growing companies with practical planning, ongoing refinement, and partnership through the Optrua Care Plans.

Let’s build your CRM the right way.

Next in the series → How Scope Creep Quietly Blows Up the CRM Budget

About the Author

Ryan Redmond is the founder of Optrua, specializing in CRM and business process optimization. Ryan channeled his passion for efficiency from lessons learned in the Navy to his work today.

He helps businesses streamline technology to improve employee and customer experiences and empower teams to work smarter, not harder, without unnecessary overhead.

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn.