Project Schedule Planning and Client Expectations

Marian Haus of PMI notes ten common pitfalls which can befall a project when performing schedule planning. Here are a couple that caught my eye.

4. Overly ambitious schedule: Everyone wants to please the customer, but an aggressive schedule can have the opposite effect if unrealistic deadlines are continually missed. Instead, aim to exceed expectations by delivering the project in a realistic timeframe, with solid execution. If you inherit an overly ambitious schedule, you could “fast-track” (i.e., make work parallel) or “crash” the schedule by assigning more resources to reduce task duration.

It’s important to set realistic expectations of the schedule for a project at the outset. This can be difficult when your sales personnel won the deal by promising what turns out to be an overly ambitious schedule without consulting those who will be managing the project or doing the actual work itself.

The flip side is when a client is sold on a project without the proper expectation of the resources they will have to devote in order get the project completed. In Healthcare, projects are often a huge collaboration between us and the client. The client has to devote adequate technical and non-technical resources in order to pull off a project’s objectives. Even when the client’s project leadership teams understand the scope of the work and the effort needed to accomplish the project’s objectives according to the schedule, they must work internally to get those resources sufficiently freed up to do the work.

7. Confusing tasks efforts with schedule time: Don’t just ask team members: “When can you complete this task?” Instead, ask for the estimated effort to complete the task in labor hours or days. Then, transform the effort into work periods (the work days the team member can carry out the task) and map this to the project calendar (considering business days, holidays and vacation periods).

Given the collaborative nature of Healthcare projects, this applies both ways. You may have a strong client project management counterpart or you may not. Yes, you need to be able to get accurate estimates of your team members’ tasks. But you will need to understand the task and dependencies that the client needs to complete in order for your team members to go about their business.

For example, if your project requires setting up a VPN or SFTP connection between you and the client in order to transmit files, you will need to understand the time required on the client side as well. Will they be able to do it as quickly as they often intimate? Or is their paperwork and documentation that must be filled out and then approved before they can build out the connection? If so, how long will it take to get approval?

9. Depending on overall buffers: Avoid relying on sweeping buffers, like the classic “20 percent.” When assigning buffers, consider the project-specific risks (for example, unfamiliar technologies), the experience of the project team and non-project related factors, such as resources allocated to parallel projects or team members’ involvement in non-project activities.

This is especially important when dealing with third party vendors. When working on repeatable projects and processes, organizational knowledge of how your third party vendors have operated historically will help in doing your schedule planning and setting expectations with your end users/clients.