South Africa, Sept. 14 -- There is a particular kind of software promise that appeals to every agency owner who has watched a project stall between departments. Automate the handoffs. The design task fires the moment copy is marked complete, development kicks off when design is signed off, and work flows down the chain without anyone having to chase it. It sounds like the answer to a problem every agency knows well.

I invested in that thinking for a while, and I've come to believe it works against the one thing it is meant to protect, which is the deadline.

Here is the flaw. A trigger chain hands control of the timeline to whoever is doing the current step. The chain moves forward when they finish, and it waits patiently when they don't...