We all know managing deadlines is crucial to project success. Without deadlines, there would not be a sense of urgency, direction, or motivation to get things done. That is why scheduling due dates for tasks and deliverables is a must in projects. Unfortunately, projects suffer delays and missed deadlines these factors can slow projects down or even cause them to fails. I see the responses of having a leader and conducting check-ins however, we have to be considerate when these deadlines are missed, in large projects this can be very costly.
Although, some things beyond your control that may hinder you or the team from meeting project deadlines. When this happens, the best thing to do is accept the mistake and learn from the experience. This would include communicating with stakeholders and offering solutions for lost time. What suggestions would you recommend to move forward in good faith with leaders and stakeholders to show you and the team genuinely care about the project’s success?
@tiavance23 I agree communication is very important when working with difficult people. Trying to find out what the problem is can be a good idea. However, if the person is difficult and not willing to communicate properly email is the best form of communication. I would also add the project manager to all emails to show the attempt to get work completed in a timely manner and without any additional difficulties. If the person is so difficult that work is not being completed and timelines are not being met, the project manager will have to handle the situation.
@tiavance23 Project deadlines are important to meet and should have an initial plan on how each deadline will be met. There should be an outline of work that needs to be completed and weekly check-ins to check for progress or blockers. If there is a blocker, the issue should be discussed and a course of action should be made clear to remove the blocker. If information is communicated properly the extension of a deadline to remove a blocker can still keep the overall project on track.
Deadline management is a process where project managers organize, prioritize, and plan their workload within a limited timeframe. Ensuring quality in a product or service for clients means juggling competing priorities, monitoring the consistency of project activities, and efficiently managing your available resources. The PM must share with the team projected deadlines and also be knowledgeable about the project itself. During the planning stage, it's also essential to set realistic deadlines.
While I do agree that you need to set reasonable deadlines to make sure that individuals can meet them without rushing or overworking themselves, sometimes that isn't very possible. Within my field of regenerative medicine, I have seen where engineers and researchers are rushed to finish their testing and results so that their product is able to move towards the clinical trials. I have even had to deal with clients that weren't fully ready for clinical or pre-clinical trials but because their company has set a deadline, they had to push forward even when they weren't 100% sure of the possibility of success. I think to ensure deadlines are met, project managers and team leads should have a general understanding of the work involved with the task and if there are any dependencies on other tasks that a required for the project to be successful. Also, you definitely need to have an understanding of the individuals working on the project, while also providing all of them the possibility of asking for assistance if needed. I also believe that good communication can help reduce the amount of late or missed deadlines since communication between individuals and the lead or manager can help provide some guidance or even allow for mitigation of some tasks to other employees that have less of a workload and are also capable of helping with the tasks that need to be completed.
I think as a PM it is extremely important to accurately assess project deadlines and execute on project deliverables in a timely manner. Projects can still be successful if deadlines aren’t met, but it is the PMs responsibility to understand how not hitting deadlines may impact project success and how to adjust accordingly. For example, missing a deadline for the submission of an insignificant internal report might not affect the project success. However, missing a deadline for an FDA submission or missing a deadline for validating a manufacturing process could have rippling affects which could cost a company millions in revenue from delays to bringing a product to market. To ensure deadlines are met I’ve seen teams use shared ghant charts on google projects or other team organization tools. I try to keep a running to do list where I break my assigned project deliverables into action items with deadlines to make it easier to track progress.
From the beginning of a project deadlines should be set and presented to the group so that everyone understands the plan and goals that are needed to be reached. Project managers should also host check ins throughout the project to unsure that group members are completing tasks within a timely manner. Reaching deadlines in a timely manner is important to ensure the overall project is completed within a certain and to keep the customer happy. Although this is important, quality projects are important as well. If a project is projected to fall behind schedule communication is key amongst all group members and customers.
Meeting project deadlines is a must that we should all have everywhere. Succeed under pressure is a quality that is very appreciated in the workplace. Deadlines keep us focused on what it needs to be done. Meeting deadlines just shows how well organized are you and how your productivity is used to achieve the ultimate goal. As a military personal, we have to meet deadlines daily on everything we do, even if we are getting trained or if we are deployed. It is just an important value in the individual because your life or somebody’s life is at risk if we don’t achieve it in the appropriate time. In the industry that I work for, we have big clients that we make business with. By not meeting the deadline they need, we lose business with them and many jobs are going to be lost since there is not much revenue for the company and cannot longer manage to hire and keep their employees. So for me, the importance of meeting deadlines is huge because if it is not done, your reputation can be very damaged and harm your career for the long run.
Every project has a set of deadlines, some with more urgent ones and some with more leniency. When working in a group, what is an effective manner for holding individuals responsible for reaching deadlines and making sure everyone is thoroughly informed of these dates? How important is it to be reaching deadlines in a timely manner?
The best way to motivate people in my opinion is to give them a nagging personal responsibility and hold them accountable for that responsibility. Ideally, a project manager will assign each member a specific task with an actionable outcome. This way, each team member has a metric to measure themselves by & to be "judged" by. This sort of system can be implemented with tools as simple as a shared calendar, file system, and message board. These things alone will put project teams in a better position to get good work done & meet deadlines.
I would like to hold more group meetings when I am holding a group project or an assignment. Because most of the team works related to others, which leads to different deadlines within a group. The benefit of holding more meetings is that they can make each other remind and check the progress of the project and have more delicate blueprints in their mind. I think the importance of the deadline is to prevent the project from accidents. Therefore, I preferred to set up an earlier deadline than the real one to prevent the law of murphy if possible.
It is very important to meet project deadlines, even those that are more lenient. I would say that the best way to go about sticking to deadlines is to treat all as hard deadlines. That way, you focus on submitting your work in a timely manner and if an urgent project was tossed to you, you can focus on it without worrying much about the soft deadline project. Ideally, you would still submit the first project on time, but in the event that it doesn't have a hard deadline and that the project goes past the soft deadline, you could still complete it faster after it was due than if you hadn't treated it seriously beforehand. Soft deadlines get missed, it happens, but when you plan for it and take it seriously from the start, it should not impact you severely and you could still turn in the project in a timely manner.
Deadlines should always be taken seriously so a good attitude to have is to treat each deadline as a final deadline no matter how lenient it may be. This creates a sense of urgency for everyone to finish their task at or before the deadlines. Regardless this is a good practice not only in a team setting but in the industry. The stakes are much higher in the industry and some deadlines have impact not only to the company but even to a patient. To ensure everyone meet their deadlines in a team project setting, it is important to have a leader to delegate each member and to clearly define each deadlines. Also have regular meeting to have a status update on how each member is doing as the deadlines approach. This way, the team can always be aware of how each other is doing and give more confidence when a deadline approaches.
Similar to all other responses, I also think deadlines are extremely important to make sure that projects are completed on time. I agree that setting and understanding deadlines early on, ensuring communication between group members, and frequent check-in meetings are all effective methods for deadline management. However, I don’t think that simply setting deadlines early on is so easy without performing a few steps before. The planning phase of the project life cycle is one of the most important ones, particularly because most of the project brainstorming occurs during this phase. In order to set realistic deadlines, I think it’s important to begin with analyzing potential risks that may delay the project. Without understanding what may cause a delay in the project schedule, realistic deadlines will never be set. Therefore, prior to even creating a schedule, a brief risk analysis should be conducted. Once the schedule is defined, the project leader should then perform tasks mentioned in other responses, such as ensure that all team members understand their responsibilities and deadlines, schedule frequent (preferably weekly) check-in meetings, and hold team members accountable. I understand that risk analyses should also be conducted during other phases of the project life cycle. How in depth do you think this preliminary risk analysis should be?
Setting deadlines and sticking to deadlines are very important in project management. A PM should be able to accurately assess how long different phases of the project would take and plan accordingly. They should also plan their deadlines with room for mistakes to occur or for other sub-steps not reaching their deadlines. I think the strictness of whether or not a project would meet its deadline depends on type of project. When it is an unpredictable research project, where lets say you are attempting to create groundbreaking research, I don't think you can accurately set a deadline. You can try your hardest to obtain data but if you're trying to figure out a mechanism of action that isn't completely understood, you can't really give your scientist a hard deadline with results. However, if it is to change a design or create a product that is similar to what's on the market, hard deadlines may be more achievable.
I think that preliminary risk analysis should cover a lot of bases but should not get hung up on super specifics. This is because if you go too in depth, you risk delaying the start of your project a significant amount.
Project deadlines are crucial for any project because the deadline is not only for the team but as well as the customer so it needs to be accurate and met accordingly. It needs to be discussed toward the very beginning of the project what the possible deadlines are to be and their timeframe. Each group of the project needs to enter the project understanding the expectations and if it is not agreed upon then the first initial meeting should be used to sort it out. And to maintain this understanding there should be routine meetings on progress and any good or bad news pertaining to each group's part. From my experience, it was very helpful to use a messaging system like ‘Slack’. There will be situations where something needs to be discussed but may not need the entire team to know, so Slack would allow for group chats to be made and the members needed would be added. It allows for a more professional communication between each member without getting mixed up in the constant flux of emails.
