One thing that I've found is that the more people there are at a company the more people there are that feel a need to justify their job or themselves (never un

One thing that I've found is that the more people there are at a company the more people there are that feel a need to justify their job or themselves (never underestimate ego), so they feel the need to put their finger in every pie, even when they're not needed. What I've seen happen is that a small group will try to get something done quickly (with the CEO or COO's or whomevers blessing) but then other people will get wind of it and say hey, I'm the XXX of Marketing, you can't do that without me, or I'm the XXX of Project Management, you have to follow these procedures, or I'm the XXXX of IT, why do you think you can just buy that $99 component yourself and get reimbursed instead of doing this and this and this? None of those people are NEEDED to do the project, but they'll all be offended if they're not included or, worse, the processes they've created aren't followed when doing the project aren't followed. This also tends to manifests at meetings -- meetings with more than, say, 7 people can de-escalate from let's talk about only what needs to be said for this project to let me say what I need to say so that I can show that I know what I'm talking about or that I look good for my boss or my department isn't irrelevant or one of 100 other things that genuinely have nothing at all to do with actually improving or helping the project itself. There are ways to get around this -- meet with the individual stakeholder groups individually, don't allow large meetings to happen if at all possible, get the highest buy in you can from the beginning, forge key relationships in each department so that you have go-to people for getting stuff done, but honestly I'd rather just work in a small company because I can just do stuff and get it done extremely quickly (and small companies have these same problems too, they're just much easier to get around if you have the right backing -- you're trying to get around a department of 2 that's trying to roadblock you instead of a department of 50).