One thing that you never want to happen on your project is delays, because it is a primary responsibility of a project manager to end the project on time.
Whatever you do to make your project successful, you need to plan every step of the project. There is only one thing that comes as a certain component in a project, and that is, meeting its deadlines.
So while you are planning for other things and hoping for them to happen in time, you already know that the deadline of that project and moving it further isn’t a wise step.
The truth is that you will need to focus almost all the areas for this project to finish on time. Some areas would be more important than the others and giving more attention to these could easily make your project a success.
How To Avoid Delays In Your Project?
The responsibility of avoiding delays goes directly on the shoulders of the project manager and if he/she can take care of the following factors, he can manage the project on time.
-
- First thing that a project manager should do is to collect information about all the components of the project. It includes everything and everyone. You must know the clients you will be working with, you must know the requirements of the client who has given you the project, and you must always get the terms and conditions that apply to the project signed by the people who are sponsoring or supporting the project.
- Next, you want to plot all of these things in an order where you can read everything clearly to see what resources you have available. From there, you can arrange the components of this project to continue without interruptions. There are different types of techniques for plotting charts and schedules, so you have to have the information about all these things in one place and in a comprehensible form.
- Whether you are working with a critical path method schedule or PERT, you must have a constant eye on it. You must know how your resources are performing and that none of its components is lacking behind. You must know the activities that have other activities dependent on it and devise a plan that doesn’t delay these activities. If these activities delay, all the dependent ones will delay too and you don’t want that.
- Never plan and work on a project with an ideal condition in mind. In other words, always have an alternative plan ready for conditions if ever your first plan isn’t working well. Always have a plan B.
- Don’t be too easy with your schedules and charts. Always strictly stick to the plans you have made. Sticking on the plan is the best strategy.
In addition to the points mentioned above, you can always employ modern technology software or applications to take care of your project. You can now take advantage of the new technology’s to know your project’s status, at any time, without even updating it manually.
Project scope creep can attribute to project delays… here is more information on dealing with Project Scope.
The Project Management Institute offers a great article on reducing project delays..