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How to avoid headaches when meeting deadlines

Erratic and poorly estimated timelines, scope creep, unexpected staff illnesses, and supplier failures are just a few of the things that could (and probably will) go wrong with your project. And because time is today, the most common metric to measure efficiency, the schedule delays caused by these events can end up costing you a fair amount of money (in addition to a possible damaged reputation). Here are some tips to help you plan your next project and ensure that it comes in on time, under budget, and at a high quality level.

First, let’s look at some of the reasons for project delays:

1. Over-ambitious estimates and incorrect task assessment
Often, project teams are unable to correctly estimate the time and effort required to complete given tasks, leading to overly-optimistic schedules. Customer pressure may also force teams to attempt to complete too many tasks in a compressed timeframe, a self-defeating strategy that ultimately risks the quality of the end-product.

2. Unreasonable project scope
Often, some projects are too big for the time that’s been assigned to them. Management (or customers) can be irrational at times, trying to squeeze in as many features and as much development work as possible per release, without practically analyzing if it is even doable.

3. Lack of task clarity
Sometimes, no clear breakdown of tasks and team roles exists, leading to misunderstandings between team members.

4. Lack of risk management systems
Some teams seem to live in a make-believe world, believing that they can rescue a project at the last minute and that all crises can be tabled to the next meeting. This isn’t an appropriate response. All projects have problems; any one problem could destroy the plan and throw the project out of whack. If these problems are not identified and proactively resolved on an ongoing basis, things will only get worse.

5. Lack of resources
“This project needs five developers. But we only have four. Never mind, we’ll manage”. Sound familiar? If so, know that it’s not going to work; a project that needs five members isn’t going to meet its deadline with only four. A variant of this problem, is when a project starts out with the appropriate number of members, but then “loses” some of them to other projects along the way (usually because someone higher up decided they knew more about resource allocation than the project manager).

6. Missing or damaged infrastructure
Projects are often delayed because the infrastructure; hardware, software, tools, documents; required to complete the project successfully are either unavailable or non-functional just when they’re most urgently needed.

Here are some steps to take to ensure that your project stands the greatest possible chance of meeting it’s deadlines:

1. Analyze the requirements in detail
Understand exactly what the project involves, down to the smallest details. Ask questions to clarify ambiguous areas. Finally, hire professionals to clearly document the business requirements, the functional specification, and the design requirements. Watch out for scope creep; it can single-handedly destroy all the work you’ve done. If the need arises, take aggressive steps to reduce the scope of the project or to avoid adding unplanned new features that require significant integration time.

2. Map available resources
Map available resources with requirements to ensure that there are enough personnel on site to complete the job. Identify all relevant infrastructure - hardware, software, human resources, tools, documents - required to execute the project well before the project development starts.

3. Perform training and knowledge transfer
Include training, if any, as part of the project timeline. Don’t treat training as something team members do on their own time, but account for it in the project schedule and budget.

4. Identify risks
Identify the potential risks and create contingency plans to deal with them. Develop a backup plan to meet the project deadline in case of unexpected process or personnel failures. This “plan B” acts as your support system when things don’t go as expected.

5. Estimate and allocate
Assign roles and responsibilities to team members and ensure that each task has a clear owner. Use project management tools and Gantt charts to record who does what and identify start and end dates for each activity. Failure to assign clear responsibilities for each task can lead to overlapping responsibilities, duplication of efforts, excessive time spent on activities, and inferior product quality.

6. Modularize work
Break down main activities into sub-activities, until each activity is complete on its own and independent of other activities. Arrange them in logical order and then start executing the smallest activity in the order of occurrence.

7. Avoid too many meetings
Only plan meetings to discuss the status of the project, or on an as-needed basis to address immediate problems. Long, unending meetings with no clear agenda and hence no clear outcome only waste time.

8. Write things down
Document the failures and successes of the project. This is important; it acts as historical information for similar activities in other projects. Use a project dashboard to obtain a visual, high-level overview of the project and to measure the progress of project activities. Take stock of the project at each milestone and update the project dashboard each time.

9. Beware of follow-the-sun development
If there is a follow-the-sun development model (a continuous engineering environment with development happening 24/7 across the globe), ensure clear communications to avoid misunderstanding between co-located or cross-country-located team members. Coordinate well and regularly so that nothing falls through the cracks.

10. Escalate issues
Escalate issues to management as they occur and brainstorm on solutions to problems. Trying to remedy problems after they’ve deteriorated beyond recovery is the last thing you need.

Meeting deadlines is a fundamental part of any contract project, incorporating effective planning, communication and review processes throughout the life cycle of your project, will significantly increase the ability to meet deadlines.

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