From the course: Project Management Simplified

When to re-adjust the plan

From the course: Project Management Simplified

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When to re-adjust the plan

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- [Instructor] At some point in your project you'll need to take stock of both the time remaining and the money remaining and adjust your plan for the remainder of the project. Unless it's going exactly to plan with no lateness, no overspending, no changes to the scope at all. And I've never, ever seen that. Of course you're monitoring your project all the time right from the start, so you know you're running a bit late or a bit over budget or both. But at what point do you admit that you need more money or admit that you're not going to finish on the promised date? Surely there's always hope, albeit a gradually diminishing hope that you can still save the project maybe with some luck or amazingly creative ideas and get it back on track. My personal opinion is that you need to consider re-planning during the muddle third of the project. So if it's a nine month project, that would be during months four, five, and six. If you reschedule in the first third, months one two or three, that looks as if you're giving up too easily. You can't ask for more money and more time when you've only just started. That would mean that your plan wasn't good enough. And by the way, I'm not talking about cases where the customer asks you for extra specification. In those cases you should ask for extra time and money as soon as the changes are requested and get them agreed in writing straight away. I'm talking about when it's your fault that things are running late. So if you're running late after task number one, the objective is to catch back up during task number two or three and then the task later in the line and the customer at the end don't need to be disturbed. I also think the final third in a nine month project, that's months seven, eight, and nine, is not a good time to ask for more time or money. It's starting to get a bit late and customers don't like surprises. I know you're still hoping for a miracle but really you've left it too late. The time to confess and to readjust your plan is during the middle third. Certainly by the end of month six in my example of a nine-month project. Apart from anything else, if you're in month six of nine and the project is running late, you have to own up because the people involved in the final three months need to redo their diaries and you need to agree this with them. And if you leave it till the last minute, the customer will blame you for not telling them sooner, even if most of the delay was really the customer's fault as it often is. So, have an honest, upfront discussion with the customer about halfway through. Certainly not later than 70% of the way through. Otherwise it's too late to fix the problem and you'll get the blame.

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