| The purpose of setting objectives that are tied to dates is to empower, motivate and to measure performance. Date is one of the easiest and achievable metric that we can set for measuring performance.
Which approach below will achieve on time deliverables?
- You set the date and time for each activities without checking availability of your resources during that period.
- You consult with the task/activity owner and compromise on the earliest date.
This seems like a common sense question but how many of us are at fault for determining the due date of deliverable without first consulting with the person who is actually doing the work. You must come to term that the resources in your organization have other roles and responsibilities to fulfill. I suggest a consultative approach for setting deadlines so that your project plan or operations will not be disrupted. Even if an external deadline is mandatory, internally, you are expected to derive the earliest and latest finish date, followed by finalizing on the due date that is mutually acceptable by the resource owner or activity owner and yourself.
Always plan in advance by identifying the activities (as complete as possible), sequencing them in the order that they should be executed, define activity resources(owners) and estimating how much time is needed for each activity. As much as possible, ad-hoc requests for same day delivery should be avoided. Sometimes, I get requests from project managers asking me to deliver by “end of business day”. They have the habit of doing that so often until eventually no one responded at all. No doubt there will be time when certain things need to be done immediately but you have to explain clearly why it is is so important that they have to be done as soon as possible.
If you ask for something to be completed on a certain date/time, make sure your actions reinforce the importance of the deadline. For example, if the vendor provides you the quotations on time, you must acknowledge it and inform them of the next actions you will be taking. Another typical example is weekly reports. If you want your staff to deliver reports on time, you must acknowledge every single reports by giving feedback. People are going to deliver late the next time if they know you are not going to act on their input in a timely manner.
Now, delivering on time does not mean quality delivery. It is therefore important to communicate with your resources to estimate and eventually commit on due dates that are achievable. Do not attempt to impose due dates without knowing the impact and your resources availability. Start today by building a culture of punctuality in your team and gain the respect as someone who deliver on time in the organization. I have done a great deal of work in this area with successful wins in transforming team culture. If you have similar experience, I would like to hear from you. For the rest with problems on time management and getting people to respect deadlines, you are welcome to drop a comment on this blog and we can explore solutions together that will help you in your environment.
More often than not, deadlines are set without proper consideration of underlying issues.
The aspect of ‘ deliver by Close of Business today’ has become so common and must be used not as way of putting pressure on delivery, but as a way to indicate a REAL urgency for a deliverable.
Dynamism in strategy and the ever changing technological environment has meant that some projects have ‘ moving deadlines’, as the timing in deployment of a project becomes crucial.
A well managed projects will not have moving deadlines. All changes must be controlled and approved before it can be allowed to be a new baseline for the project.
A frequent moving deadline could also mean that the project is out of control or that the project management foundation (maturity level) is weak in the organization. We tend to give all kinds of excuses to justify why the dates need to be moved. In a dynamic environment, the more that the project must be completed in time.
What do you think?
I completely agree with tschew.
Effective Change Management is the key to handle deadlines.
However, when unrealastic or unachievable deadlines are imposed – it even results into “negative float” during network analysis.
Here is when deadlines become a problem:
- Impossible target dates are imposed
Delayed progress prevents one or more tasks being finished by their latest permissible finish dates
- Tasks have to be delayed beyond their latest permissible dates because resources are inadequate
Tasks with Negative Float have become hypercritical. Prompt management action is essential in attempting to expedite and rescue the project
Looks like we are merging several roles here and we are also ignore the fact that tools and systems have made our collaboration very easy.
To check the resource availability we must have resource utilization tables showing the utiziled, booked, proposed booked and available time, taking into consideration the resource calendar as well.
Activity duration estimation must take into consideration the complexity and the magnitude of the effort, the skill and maturity level of the resource and the feedback from the resource as well. Consultation is important but not “The most important!” Sometimes we aviod consulting some resources deliberately. We may actually plan more output for a pessimist than what he would say and vice versa. Generally, we assign a responsibility that is slightly greater than what a person can comfortably do. We calculate the probable standard deviation, project standard deviation and finally the project buffer. We manage the project buffer in such a way to keep project on track absorbing all the variations.
The confidence level of the schedule must be agreed upon in the very begining and the schedule must be planned around that.
Basically what fails this is not these unwanted requests but the loss of focus, dedication, interest level and passion.
The moment somebody asks for an unscheduled task to be done, tell him straight away how that would impact the project. Somebody will decide which one of the two is more important at that moment. And if it is this seemingly not so important task, then we are mistaken, and we better correct ourselves.
Hi Qazi,
Without consulting the resources for a date that they are comfortable with for delivery, the risk of not meeting the dates are high. And that means your schedule will lose credibility and authority. If the project manager do not agree to the proposed date by the resource, “negotiation” kicks in. However, at the end of the negotiation, the PM makes the final decision and the resource must agree to it.
From this perspective, I do not agree that dates should be set without any consultation.
Even if it is a mandatory date, the resource must also be agreeable to it. Else, the PM should find another resource who can achieve the date.
Dear Vince
There is a difference between “Sometimes we avoid consulting some resources deliberately” and “Without consulting the resources.” Please note the two words “sometimes” and “some.” My point is that it is not necessary that we have to every time consult everybody. Certain circumstances make it irrelevant, unimportant or even counter-productive to consult. I would like to repeat, only some special circumstances. The simplest example would be a crisis situation where you do not care much who is busy with what or who is present. The highest and the only priority is to get out of the crisis. Under such circumstances if it is really not possible for somebody to do what is expected of him and when it is expected of him, the only way forward is to move ahead without that person. The project could even be removing the survivors under the debris of a collapsed building. We won’t call a meeting with our key resources next Monday to check their availability. Will we?
Hi Narendra,
Interesting that you brought up “Negative floats”. I have never come across this before in my line of work.
I reckon that if there are tasks with negative floats, I would have to rebuild the schedule and establish a more stable baseline.
Tell us more of negative floats in your work.
Thanks