The Van Halen Test: Why the Question No One Asked Saved a Dying Project

Van Halen had a peculiar clause in their concert rider.

M&M candies backstage. All the brown ones removed.

If they saw brown M&Ms, they knew the promoter hadn't read the contract carefully. Which meant other things - critical safety requirements - were likely ignored too.

Small detail. Big signal.

I had my own Van Halen moment on a project that was dying.

Over time. Over budget. Many times over.

The client was frustrated. Thinking of cancelling. Our reputation was on the line.

I was brought in to fix it.

Everyone had tried the obvious solutions.

New frameworks. New governance mechanisms. Change in leadership.

All the operational fixes that should have worked.

But the project was still struggling.

Then I noticed my own brown M&M.

Something so obvious it was invisible.

No one had asked the client what they actually needed.

Not once. In months of frameworks and governance and leadership changes.

No one had simply asked: "What do you need from us?"

So I did.

The answer changed everything.

The client didn't just want us to deliver what we'd promised. She wanted us to work with her to solve the overall project challenges.

She admitted they might not have specified things correctly either.

What she needed was a partner, not just a vendor.

Small detail. Big impact.

We shifted approach completely.

Instead of fixing our delivery, we started solving their problem.

The project came back on track. Our customer satisfaction ratings rose 10x. The client became a supporter instead of a potential cancellation.

All because we asked one question.

Here's what I learned:

The small stuff is never small.

Everyone was focused on the big, obvious problems. Delivery timelines. Budget overruns. Governance structures.

But the real problem was smaller. More human.

We'd forgotten to listen.

Most struggling projects—and struggling businesses—suffer from the same thing.

We get so focused on fixing our systems that we forget to understand what the other person actually needs.

The question no one asks is often the most important question.

I now usually start every assessment the same way.

Not with frameworks or processes or strategic reviews.

• With questions:

• What do you actually need?

• What would success look like for you?

• What's not working that we haven't talked about?

The answers always surprise me.

Sometimes the client doesn't need perfect delivery. They need a thought partner.

Sometimes the customer doesn't need more features. They need simpler instructions.

Sometimes the team doesn't need better processes. They need clearer purpose.

Small detail. Big impact.

When systems fail, we instinctively add more systems.

More governance. More frameworks. More controls.

But often, the fix is simpler.

Ask the question no one else is asking.

Listen to the answer no one else is hearing.

Then build your system around that.

The most elegant solutions start with the smallest questions.