continual supervision, that delay may very well take place.
A small delay within a phase would not be a big problem if it could be isolated. But that delay is likely to
affect all of the remaining phases as well as the ability of the rest of the team to succeed. So remember these
points concerning delays:
1. Every delay affects scheduling for the remainder of the project. Some projects start out with chronic
delays. If you don’t begin phase 1 on the scheduled date, you will probably encounter problems all the
way through. Be sure to schedule realistically; then follow it carefully. Your ability to keep the project
on schedule is the real test of your project management skills.
2. To meet your deadline, the delay will have to be absorbed in a later phase. It’s always desirable to
build a little insurance into your schedule by allowing more time than you’ll really need to complete the
project. However, when a deadline is imposed, you don’t always have that luxury. Chances are, you
will have a difficult enough time meeting the imposed deadline, and there will be little, if any,
opportunity to let a phase deadline slide. If the delays occur in an early phase, your team will have to
execute later phases in a shorter amount of time than you planned.
3. It’s desirable always to meet the final project deadline, unless that means that the outcome will be
incomplete, inaccurate, or short of the desired result. To make up for a delay, you may need to work
your team at a faster pace, look for shortcuts in the original plan, or put in more hours than you
originally planned. Thus, the delay could translate into a budget overrun on your project. Your goal
should be to meet the deadline you have promised, unless that means having to cut quality corners.
Your project should end with an accurate and high-quality report, implemented procedures, or other
results—even if that means you have to ask for an extension.
4. Staying on schedule and meeting the deadline is the project manager’s job. If you miss your
deadline, you may be asked for an explanation. If that occurs, remember that delays are your
responsibility, regardless of the cause. Project managers are expected to monitor progress, anticipate
problems before they create delays, and take action to prevent missing the final deadline.
Your initial schedule can be expressed on a chart, which is a visual expression of the project’s goal. Reducing
the project schedule to visual form improves your team’s understanding of how the project will progress and
gives you the monitoring tool you need. The chart should report both the planned and actual outcomes of each
phase, and serves a number of purposes:
1. It is your primary tracking tool, at least in the initial scheduling phase.
2. It provides every team member with schedule guidance and goals.
3. It gives you and your team an ongoing means for spotting and overcoming emerging problems.
The schedule chart also helps you to montior your project methodically—a task that, without some form of
management and planning aid, is formidable. The overall scope of a project may be overwhelming, but the
chart enables you to isolate immediate problems and to solve them, while keeping the overall schedule. The
final deadline is met when you are able to meet a series of smaller phase deadlines—or to absorb scheduling
problems in one phase by making them up in another.
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