“Are we there yet?”
Yes, that was one of my kids from the back seat asking if we were at our destination. But I heard this differently. I heard my boss — and he was loud and clear. “When’s that project ever going to be done?!”
Kids are motivated by immediate gratification. Bosses by performance, notably completed work. Managers always want to know when a project is going to finish. “When will this be done?” is a close equivalent to “Are we there yet?” Altogether too often, Project Managers aren’t prepared with a good answer. The closest-to-the-truth consulting answer of “It Depends” doesn’t get very far. It might even get one “the door.”
Many managers think they can influence a projected completion date by simply declaring when they think the project should be done. I know one Vice President who was particularly notorious for choosing holidays as completion dates as they were easier for him to remember. “I need this by Labor Day. First week in September, right? Yes, get it done by Labor Day. I’ll remember this one as the “Labor Day Project.” Do you know anybody like that?
I appreciate the importance of goal-setting, but most anyone with project experience realizes that setting the end date without knowledge and context will do little to get the project done any faster. In fact, this practice is likely to start stressing out the very people you need at high productivity – your project team! Permit me to return to our kids in the back seat of a car ride metaphor. The equivalence to an executive/manager making up a project end date is our kids yelling forward, “We need to be there in 20 minutes or some parents’ heads will roll!”
However, the manager’s question is completely valid! Projects cannot go on forever. The decision process to approve starting a project must include a project timeline even though scope and resource details are at their most nebulous. The decision to approve the project is likely dependent on the project’s duration! We need to have a way to talk project duration in a sensible and helpful manner.
Perhaps the direction of a solution can be found in this analogy. To give a more helpful answer to my kids then “not yet and I’ll tell you when we get there,” I now have my GPS calculate each remaining leg of the trip, adjust for traffic and predict the estimated arrival time. If only project timelines could work that way!
They can. They should!
The answer to “how to do this” lies in creating a high-level network to represent the work required to complete the project. We don’t need details here (yet), but this must me something more informed than holiday milestones! You can get started on any project by considering the 15-25 main tasks (and dependencies) that comprise the scope of the project. Those summary tasks will be used a little later when we’re creating the more detailed (ahem, “complete”) plan.
Once you’ve attached duration estimates to those tasks, add them up. You’ll need true project management software (GPS) for this given the multiple dependency paths in your high-level network. But immediately after entering the data you’ll shout: Voila! The software provides the longest path and defines your target date. Yes, that’s known as the “Critical Path.” It’s amazing how many projects are managed without knowing the true Critical Path, but it is indeed… critical.
We’re not home-free yet. It’s quite possible that the executive/manager may not LIKE that date. If this is the case, it’s time to have a conversation about the planned work and those task duration estimates. We glossed duration estimates in the above instructions, and we really need talk about these because they are a key ingredient in the “secret sauce” of project success. We’ll want to spend a little time on this, so kindly check out this blog . . . The Surprising Solution to Task Durations..
