81–90 of 212 posts
Whatever you do, DO NOT ADD new team members to an already delayed project. It will delay it further. Break down the project into simpler tasks that can be assigned to a team member and be tracked. Attach strict responsibility of task to team member. And last and most important, talk to your Management about timelines. Make it very upfront that it will take X number of days and no lesser.
This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…
You do need to figure out for yourself a realistic, pretty safe time when you will be ready: an extra month? three months? never? You say the work is outside your team's comfort zone. This is potentially a much bigger red flag than being late. Will the team learn and deliver, or it just cannot execute at the speed requirements are changing or will soon be? Be brutally honest with yourself.
If you think you can safely deliver the product in, say, three extra months, then keep working but be ready with good estimates when the time comes to redo the schedule. When that discussion comes (usually suddenly), having a clear plan and realistic estimates that you can confidently present will likely give you (most of) what you ask for. IME really bad options are either agreeing to fix everything in a week (if you know it will take three months) or not having an estimate at all "we are burning midnight oil and I cannot tell you when we will be done". Either could lead to quick problems.
IME when "what do we do with this crap" time comes, senior management does not care why you are late (everyone is at least some of the time). They want to know if you have a plan and look ready to execute it. Just my 2c. Good luck!
A modernization project is only a modernization project if it is incremental by design and you have frequent releases (minimally monthly).
Throw out the flag onto the field and get the train stopped before you end up causing the entire group to be fired.
A company is a company, your manager is in your team, the product owner is in your team, the salesman is in your team, the CEO is in your team. Talk to your manager, and your manager will talk to the stake holders to see what to do about it. Delays happen all the time. No biggie. Just try and understand what went wrong (to make sure the next one doesn't suffer the same) and how much time it will be costing. They'll b…
If your manager decides to blame you, rather than defend you and your team, it's resume time.
Be ready to lose some weekends and burn additional hours - but people will appreciate your being on top of things.
People shoot the messenger - when the messenger is too late in delivering the warning when the rest of the business can't do anything to fix it. Even if management is anticipating delays - it will still look good on you that you are able to foresee problems, and your foresight will be rewarded later on.
People don't like hearing bad news - but if the bad news is delivered early and documented in such a way that it makes them responsible for not acting on warnings, they tend to work on it positively.
If you do the above and still get shot as the carrier of bad news - the work culture is toxic you are better off working elsewhere.
The key to surviving this is:
1) Informally let everyone who may look bad know the truth.
2) Gather data. (No metric is perfect but this takes it away from being about people)
3) When it comes time to present formally, list what you are doing about it and what everyone else needs to do. It should be worded as, “To hit this date, we need Jane QA to do X, Joe PM to pick the two most important features, bla bla...”
4) Document #3 in a plain-English follow-up email. List names not orgs.
5) Send weekly updates to number 4 in writing.
If people don’t give you the help you need, you’ve done your part. They also won’t be surprised.
In all of this, be specific, factual and unemotional.
This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…
I was really upset at this comment at first. After thinking about it some more I like that it questions fundamental assumptions about the original question namely, “What happens if the deadline slips?” If the project is late, does the company go out of business? Do people get fired? Is the overall deliverable unusable within the org? Is the deal lost? If the answer to these is a big “no” then totally agreed with OP t…
NB Based on one fairly large project I was involved in for a large company where there was a huge drive to get the system delivered on time then.... nothing. Nobody used it for months.
Eventually we found out about the real reason.
This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…
That’s just bull.
If your organization isn’t willing to get real and is blaming people instead of processes, it’s the wrong org to be.
Just say things as they are. I’d just raise this in my 1:1 with boss and boss’s boss. “It’s highly likely that we’ll miss X deadline, because of Y reasons. Here are some options we have. Either cut scope to meet deadline, pull in more resources for Z work, that can be parallelized, or push back the deadline.”.
This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…
I hate to agree with you. This honesty/positivity dilemma is something I'm struggling with.
1. Focus on something going well. 2. By the way, could you fix this little thing? 3. Return to positive stuff.
This formula can be applied to delivering honesty amid positivity. Ideally whoever you're communicating is mature enough to just take honest feedback straight, but if they aren't then this can be a safe(r) way to deliver it.
This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…
If you do this, follow it up with an email outlining everything you said so you have a paper trail that you brought it up with your boss.