I had a situation recently where a client stated that despite his people working as fast and seemingly efficiently as they could, he was seeing next to no progress reflected in his performance reporting, his end date was pushing out, his efficiency was down, people were asking questions.
These are words of desperation, a client or senior manager who's got his back to the wall.
I was faced with this exact situation on a consulting job a few weeks back, the business owner, facing heavy penalties for late delivery was desperate for answers and didn't know a better way to react.
Unfortunately, what he hoped were a matter of weeks to completion, in my mind were more like months to completion! Surely he could see that?