I recently ran into a situation in the current field project that really set back my promoting of the event. Almost two and a half weeks ago, I reached out to the human resource department of my company to first confirm that I am allowed to advertise and promote the event and the charity. Secondly I wanted to see if I could generate donations by hosting a jeans day for those that donated. And lastly, I wanted to see if the organization would help sponsor and contribute or match the funds raised from the jeans day to help out the cause. At first a week went by so I decided to follow up with the HR person that I forwarded the request to, she confirmed that she had passed along the email to two different parties in the company, one to the HR personnel that helps to facilitate social events such as this, and the other to the secretary department of the company executives to gain approval. By the second week, I followed with my contact and was simply given the number to the HR personnel and I could sense that something was wrong. I contact the person in charge of social events and was told that the company would not be able to help support the cause due to potential liability reasons.
This was highly disappointing, but even worse was the all the time wasted in waiting for the organizations response. In order to pick up the pace and get back on track, I reached out to the internet to search for the best ways to recover the lost time and progress forward. I found many articles to have some really interesting tips, but also realized that not all strategies were feasible or applicable. I have listed a few that were on almost every list and that I consider to be the most helpful:
- WORK OVERTIME: It’s not the most ideal suggestion, but it is the most logical one, especially in a time crunch. If you work more hours, you can get more done. Just like any work detail or school assignment, when you are hard pressed for time, you typically work long hours non-stop to reach your mark.
- REDEFINE PRIORITIES: A strong project manager has to be aware and on top of everything that is going on. It is even better to be able to anticipate setbacks and mitigate risk. Once the project manager identifies that an output is not proceeding in a timely fashion, he/she should be able to go back to the drawing board and start considering what changes the can make to the scope or the critical path and still receive the end result originally desired.
- REALLOCATE RESOURCES: Once the project manager is aware of the deficiency in time, he/she must take a step back and re-prioritize the schedule. When done, the project manager can see if there are any available resources they can pool from the activities that are not on the critical path to help resolve the issue. These resources can be either tangible tools, software, funds, or human capital.
- REQUEST ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: If at all possible, it would be great if you can get more money or more time. One way to do so is to evaluate your budget and see if there is any wiggle room. If not, it could be worth a shot to bring your issues to the stakeholders, with properly detailed results, appropriate the problem, and devise a well-defined solution that can be solved with the resources you are requesting. The request has to be reasonable, and the problem should be dyer enough to gain the attention it deserves.
- COUNT YOUR LOSES: If all else fails, the project manager needs to be able to take the hit and count its losses. In certain situations, what’s done is done and there is no way you can extend the deadline. In those cases you just have to accept the time wasted, restructure the time you have left and make the most with what you have. If you are proactive and productive enough, you can make due and possibly get to s result without anyone even knowing about your hiccup.
I hope these suggestions are helpful. Please feel free to weigh in on your thoughts, techniques that have worked well for you, and even share the ones that have not.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-ways-to-get-a-slipping-project-back-on-track/
http://cobaltpm.com/5-ways-to-recover-from-a-project-setback/
Good points Tony! Numbers 1 and 3 hit home for me.
First, I agree about working overtime. It is not ideal especially if it affects the quality of the project. However it makes me wonder what is the right trigger for overtime and how soon can you prepare for extra work? I’m currently involved in a project that is in ‘launch’ mode. We’ve been working extra hours to get everything done within the next month. Unfortunately that means more stress on the team. Given better estimates I think we could have dealt with the pileup of work earlier. Either way I’d be eager to learn of other strategies instead of relying on overtime.
Second, I have not seen managers use critical paths to handle resources on the job. Most of the places I’ve worked cobble different documents together, either using bulleted lists or tables for assignment details, but nothing as formal as a project network with critical path(s). I think if the critical path was clearly communicated to my current team at work we could better prioritize our time as individual team members. I tend to be a visual person as well, so a diagram with key workflows would be a great way to help me focus efforts across the project.
I think your post is poignant and timely, given the field project that we are working on! My greatest fear is that something outside of my control would go wrong, as was the case for the “Dirty Girl Mud Run” event in recent news.
http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/UPDATE-Refunds-Denied-after-Cancellation-of-Dirty-Girl-Mud-Run-267950941.html
The event was cancelled and no refunds are being issued, leading to some to bring a class action lawsuit against the organizers. The original setback that caused the issue has been cited as lack of payment to a shuttle service, causing them to back out. When a project loses a major partner, especially one providing a key logistical service, getting back on track in time for an event with a firm date may be impossible.
The article you linked gives a 6th option to recover – bombing the schedule. This remedy states that “If cost is not as important as the deadline, crashing a set of activities can result in accelerating the schedule”. In the case of the Mud Run, paying a higher fee to get another shuttle service in place may have been a better way to go!
I can definitely relate to this topic! This happened to our group and we had to scramble to find another location for our event. It made it very stressful, and we almost ended up scrapping the event and starting over with a different plan. In this instance number 5 on your list was very much a possibility for our team. Sometimes you have to cut your losses or just try to brainstorm new solutions. At my work redefining priorities is often the last resort because it means that they will be asking for relief by the customer by changing the statement of work. So they have the same budget but won’t be able to deliver what they originally promised. Therefore, the most used suggestions that I see are to work overtime and to ask for additional resources. However, these can be tricky because they can affect the budget, so it is not always the best route either. I think project managers just have to look case by case and see what makes the most sense in their current situation.
Tony, great topic! I am beginning to see in project management it is a frequent occurrence that events, even though well planned, often fall through. We even saw this in our field project where we had selected a charity and event location, put the wheels in motion, then had to switch charities suddenly because another party did not give approval. It seems in both cases there was a lack of communication or understanding on the other parties end. That’s why I like the idea of “request additional resources”. In the case of our field project, we were able to ask the people who did not approve of the chosen charity directly who they did approve of, and move on from there. This avoided having the same problem again, as well as decreased the amount of time we would have spent seeking out and gathering information about other potential charities that may have not even been approved.
This is great and makes sense. I like the last statement because it is as true in work as it is in class. There have been times when I was purely exhausted from work and studying. I had to determine the cost benefit of studying for more hours versus the grade I would receive. More often than not I studied and was very pleased with the outcome. On the instances when I took the time from not studing I accepted the loss in my grade percentage. However I re-piroritzed my remaining assignments in that course and focused more on getting those points. It is interesting to see the other posts reflecting the vitures in the posts, and how they have adapted it to their situation, especially with the overtime option which is the least favorite but most often employeed.
Thank you for posting, great tips!
I think that most people tend to just work overtime when needed to make up for lost time, but a strong project manager will look to the resources that they have available, which are highlighted in your article. Sometime these resources can also be strained or delayed if they are deployed to work on other catch-up items but I find that prioritizing is most helpful in these situations. Altough all aspects of a project are important, there are the needs and the nice to haves, and I feel this is one area that is underappreciated.
I agree with most of the comments that overtime work is needed but at the right times and for the right projects. There always needs to be a cost/benefit analysis done on weather or not there are other options then to work the added time and ways to work smarter not longer/harder. There will always be give and take in all projects both in work and life and there needs to be ones that are prioritized over others and ones that may just not end up getting done.
Thanks for the post, Tony. I can relate because something similar happened when I was trying to raise funds for our charitable event (asked for a sponsorship and asked if I could solicit donations from my co-workers). Fortunately, the organization I work for is a little flatter, so I was able to contact the decision-maker directly. It took only two business days for me to discover that they were not willing to pitch in. However, they never addressed my second question about soliciting donations from my coworkers, so I took that to mean they were silently consenting to that. On this particular venture, I followed point five and counted my losses. I’d rather refocus elsewhere than pour more resources into something I’ve verified has a slim chance of ocuring. In another situation, I may have no choice but to add more resources if the project is critical.
These are very interesting points to keep in mind. Especially, “Counting your losses”. We all want to succeed so badly that we always hope for the best even though the time & cost might be against us. In these types of situation I would completely agree with counting your losses. Its better to meet most of the objective of a project rather than miss them all because you were aiming for everything given constrained schedule. In certain, project you many not be able to count your losses because they might be all or nothing projects. Even with these types of projects, the earlier you realize your losses the sooner you will be able to stop the work and salvage remaining time and budget to be used on other project.
Would have there been anyway to approach your HR department directly in person? I always find that if you want a quick answer, sometimes its easiest just to go there in person and ask. Of course, I understand that I don’t understand your company’s culture or even whether you are in the same building as the HR department, but it might have solved your problem from the beginning.
In terms of the article, the last note really hit home with me. I do not like to spend too much time thinking about what has gone wrong prior to this moment except to analyze it and see how we can improve. I like the idea of making a special effort to not dwell on the mistakes of the past.
This is important because a lot of individuals can relate to recovering for lost time. We do not live in a perfect world were everything goes accordingly to plan, unexpected issues do happen. This post is great for those individuals who are having this situation and is trying to look for solutions. Tony, you also hit on two key points that i believe are very important when dealing with a project, they are work overtime and redefine priorities. I believe working overtime is important because it gives you more motivation to finish the project and builds more determination for future projects. Redefining priorities is important because if tasks are not going good the project manager has to be the one to make changes in order to finish on time. Every point that was made in this post is very helpful and made me think about my future projects and how they will be completed.
Time is of the essence for most projects! Tony, you make some great points on working overtime and re-prioritizing tasks when the amount of time is in question. I feel like asking the right questions is also one of the most important parts of keeping your project on track. Your pt #4 is very important, most people would be afraid to their superiors for help or voice their concerns. I believe they are your biggest advocates for succeeding and should ask for “help” because most of the time they will have more experience in dealing with issues and would know how to better overcome the situation.
Thanks for your post Tony! While reading your post I couldn’t help but to relate to a lot of it. “Redefine priorities” at my work we often find ourselves having to re-define priorities but it isn’t until we are failing that we choose to do so. We’ve all had to overtime at some point in our life, either it be at work or at school. Your article helped me to reevaluate what steps I need to take into consideration when trying to regain lost time. This post will definitely come in handy in the future !
Great post!
After having read this post, I am actually kind of surprised that all of the 5 points mentioned are things that I do whenever I realize that I’m losing time on a project, homework assignment, or even running late for a hangout. I especially like step 2, reevaluating priorities. I think a lot of people get so caught up in the fact that they still have left a lot left to complete rather than assess what needs to be done and tackling it. I see this type of scenario a lot when things don’t go according to plan at work. A lot of the time my PMs are more focused on the fact that a certain task may not be completed because they lost some time, rather than focusing on what they can do to make up for that lost time. This will be another strategy that I intend to take back to my PM team.