Hello cem34, 

I think if there is an issue taking much longer than expected, it is important to communicate that with your team members in order to put your heads together and solve the issue a little more readily. Things definitely do not go according to plan, but this is also why schedules cannot be too strict. They must account for complications in times like these to decrease pressure on the team members, therefore giving them and yourself a more level head to combat this problem. 

If for some reason, your team members are unsure of how to solve the issue, I would not be afraid to ask someone outside of your team who may have encountered a similar issue. A wise person learns from their mistakes, and a wiser person learns from someone else's. 

Delays are unfortunate, but I'm sure they happen often especially now during a pandemic. Transparent communication and not being afraid to ask questions are probably the best ways to deal with this. 

To accommodate for a delayed step or missing a milestone, I found that working on multiple steps simultaneously could make up for the lost time.
As it was mentioned in the lecture of " Project Management 101," a Gantt Chart shows the relationship between tasks which task is critical to the project, and what is non-critical; working on another step might help with overcoming the delay. Another solution is to always have a backup plan, for example, multiple vendors for the same material that the project needs can help prevent delaying the project. Sharing resources such as personnel and equipment between projects can help in case of personnel emergence and /or technical issues. Finally, a good initiation and planning phase could also prevent delays by estimating the duration of the task and giving enough task and project slack. For instance, accounting for environmental or personnel emergencies such as storms or personnel calling out sick.

One lesson that I have learned from using Gantt charts to structure a project is leaving buffer time in as many places as possible. I would initially look into the range of time each step takes and make my baseline Gantt chart. I would then go back and see how much extra time I have from when my expected completion date is to the due date of the project. I would then fill in extra time to different tasks along the project that may have tendencies of taking longer than expected. I would also do my best to plan to complete the project with plenty of time to spare at the end in case any problems arise.

If all of the spare time gets used and it seems like the entire project will be delayed, it is best to take another look at the schedule to see what tasks can be done simultaneously rather than have multiple tasks planned "finish-start". Another option for getting back on schedule would be to look at the tasks that must have a finish to start relationship and use the time working on the initial task to look for any possible complications of the following task. There are plenty of projects where one small error causing many tasks to be altered and taking that into consideration will help get the later tasks done faster.

When using a Gantt Chart to assist in planning and scheduling my capstone project last year, one thing I learned was that when dealing with an issue that has potential to delay the project's timeline, it is crucial to continuously reassess and reevaluate the project's critical path. The critical path consists of all the tasks that have zero slack or float, meaning any delay in these tasks will directly affect the project's timeline. Since any delay in the critical path tasks can impact the project’s finish date, regularly assessing it helps to identify any potential risks early on. As a team, if we were to run into any unexpected issues, each of us knew where to focus recovery efforts and how to adjust other aspects of the project in case our critical tasks were affected. On the other hand, if an issue did not hinder the critical path, then we knew we could continue on with the timeline while still looking into solutions for the issue.

These scenarios occurred many times throughout the execution phase of my capstone project because a lot of it involved 3D printing. Within our Gantt Chart we did not account for the amount of time it would take for our 3D printed pieces to be completed. Whether this involved adjusting the measurements, changing the material, or even just the time it took to print, we did not think thoroughly enough. However, knowing that the completion of the 3D printed parts weren't truly a part of our critical path, we were able to continue on with the timeline while we waited for the parts. Therefore, reassessing and reevaluating the critical path allows teams to maintain control over the schedule and handle uncertainties efficiently.

Hello cem34,
I recently discovered what Gantt chart was in the last year. I had a course where we were developing a medical device and a part of this process was creating a Gantt chart for all of our project milestones. In this process we ran into a lot of delays and issues and had to adjust accordingly. Even though we gave our team longer deadlines than what we expected there was one milestone which we were very delayed on. In this case we went back and adjusted our chart to accommodate for our delay however it meant that everything else had to be adjusted also. I really do enjoy using Gannt charts as I think they are an excellent tool to plan and scope out a project. I have begin to use them in my personal projects and have found that it keeps me more disciplined to deadlines.

When working on my senior capstone project, I had a similar experience where things didn’t go according to plan, and honestly, I think that’s where Gantt charts really show their value. They don’t just map out the “ideal” timeline, they also make it easier to visualize how one delay impacts the rest of the project. As mentioned before, once one milestone slips, everything else has to be adjusted, and seeing that cascade effect laid out helps the team quickly figure out solutions on how to work more efficiently so more time isn’t wasted.

When working on my capstone project with my team, we had an “ideal” timeline of about 2 weeks to get the parts we needed for our device 3D printed. However, at the end of that time period we realized that was not going to be possible. We quickly realized that our outlined time did not take into account the fact that our print might fail and need to be redone, or that the part we wanted printed had geometries that could be difficult for the printer to follow and therefore needed to be simplified, or the fact that other capstone teams were also looking to print their parts and that we would have to wait until the BME 3D lab had available printers to get our request done. From this, I learned that it's easy to plan your own progress but it's difficult to plan for deliverables that rely on others. 

In situations where a step is taking longer than expected, my capstone team and I employed these two strategies: 

1. Working on tasks that can overlap without creating dependency issues: Sometimes certain parts of the project can move forward in parallel, even if one piece is behind.
2. Temporarily shifting our resources: If one part of the team is waiting on the delayed milestone, then they can jump in to help close the gap for another ongoing component.

Now that I’ve started working on my masters thesis, I’ve been using Gantt charts to help me visualize my timeline and be realistic about how long things actually take.