Cut the Politics and Get Serious
The early stages of a project often bring into focus internal and external politics that can cause project failure. You need to cut through the politics to get the job done right. Challenge inertia and self-interest. If you want to maintain your integrity, this is better than playing politics. But it's just as unsafe. Cutting through politics requires a project manager with guts-preferably one who is financially secure!
Most projects will have some requirements that are relatively simple and don't require great user involvement to achieve. These are ideal deliverables for the early stages of a project. The team is able to demonstrate what it can achieve. The challenge is then to get the right level of user commitment to ensure the same productivity when a high level of user involvement is needed.
To achieve technical objectives, you might have to bypass IT procedures and common practice. You can often circumvent the system like this when you do it on a limited scale. To deliver major projects, however, such practices and procedures might need to be changed.