Give me my stuff!

As a producer and former project manager, I may find myself in the situation where a project is delayed not because of production issues or concerns over content, but simply because a client hasn’t delivered something vital which is needed to move the project closer to completion.  It may be a item needed for inclusion into a project or it might be a piece of information required to push the project forward.  But for whatever reason, it gets held up by the client.

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation?  What did you do to work toward resolution so that the project reaches a satisfactory end?  What might be done earlier in the process so that this situation might be avoided?