« Project Management Stages
Look for Project Warning Signs! »

Timeline Is Not Realistic - Project Management Mistake # 6

August 24, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Scheduling

Timeline Is Not Realistic - Project Management Mistake # 6 (#6 in the series 15 Deadly Project Management Mistakes Government Agencies Make Which Cost Them Revenue, Time & Efficiency)
By Keith Mathis - PM Expert Live

Creating a timeline for a project can be a battleground between the project team and the project sponsor. Each agency has its own policy as to who will calculate the timeline for the project. Sometimes timelines are calculated by the project sponsor, other times it is calculated by the project manager, and in many cases, there is a great deal of input from the project team.

There are strengths and weaknesses regardless of which manner an agency chooses to use in figuring time. However, there are three primary concerns which should be considered regardless of who calculates the timeline in a project. When these three areas are violated, it causes the timeline to be incorrect and not realistic for the project team. This may result in shoddy work, or, even worse, the timeline may not be taken seriously.

Planned by someone on best guess scenario

When a project is started, there are many circumstances in which timing is a guesstimate without the benefits of real life calculation. This is not that uncommon in the early stages of project development discussions. However, as a project continues to develop and evolve, the timeline should move farther away from a guess and more to a calculated destination.

The areas where this impacts the agency most is where the best guess method gets locked in as if it were a legitimate, calculated timeline. Due to embarrassment or lack of time, no one discusses this mistake and so the project plan has major errors. This error impacts performance, morale of the team, and expectations of the customer. Unless these areas are changed, we are reproducing an incompetent project process in the initiation phase of every project.

Planned short times to force team to work harder

Another incident which is very frustrating to project teams is the determination to shorten the timeline on purpose to force more work out of the project team. An example of this would be when a timeline has been calculated and a project sponsor changes the calculation, reducing its time by 10 to 30 percent to make sure all contingency time has been cut out of the project. The cutting of this time is due in part to demonstrate one’s position in power over the process. Does this mean that a project sponsor should never change the timeline? Of course not. There are times when we have noticed a project plan which has been calculated with an extreme amount of contingency time. During those incidents, the project sponsor bears the responsibility of discussing those findings with the project manager and possibly even the team, and the result will be to shorten the plan. This means we must be fair to our project team when calculating time if we expect them to work hard in meeting all desired deadlines and core objectives.

In closing, the best way for an agency to calculate time is to establish the basic time calculation model that can be used extensively by all project sponsors, project managers, and project teams. Establishing a model for calculating time is one of the most fundamental elements of training that can benefit an agency as well as reduce stress and conflict between the project team and sponsor.

Dr. Keith Mathis, founder and CEO of The Mathis Group, specializes in Project Management, Management Leadership, and Marketing training for private businesses and government agencies of all kinds. He offers 33 Project Management courses, is a Project Management Professional, is certified by the Project Management Institute and will customize every training session to your individual company’s needs. The Mathis Group also sponsors www.pmexpertlive.com, which is a powerful project management resource with free reports, podcasts, videos, and a monthly newsletter. He also offers customized management training and coaching on any subject with prolific communication and professionalism.

Share this article:
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb
  • blogmarks

Related Articles

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 and is filed under Scheduling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

No comments yet.

feel free to leave a comment

Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

All fields marked with " * " are required.

Project Management Categories