How Do We Do It?

Reducing project timelines while maintaining original scope and resources seems . . . INCREDIBLE.  Below, we share the project management levers we emphasize that provide this dramatic benefit.

WARNING:  the following may seem “wonkish” for some readers.

“How does GPS shorten projects?  This simple rule:  Work priorities until STUCK OR DONE!.”

Work Correct Priorities, until STUCK OR DONE

The top lever for shortening project timelines is getting the task sequence prioritized correctly, then working them until STUCK OR DONE.  While workers will certainly be busy, most of the tasks in play will be “non-Critical.”   True Critical tasks — those select few that directly impact the project endpoint — are typically unknown.  Someone will declare a task as “critical,” but too often they’re just picking something important based on experience, or gut.  GPS uses a computer model of your project which re-calculates the critical tasks with every update.

Focused Troubleshooting

If focusing on the true priority tasks is most important, this lever will be a close correlary.  When the inevitable surprises happen, where do you deploy your troubleshooters?  Are THEY focused on the priority tasks?   These are leaders / experts / “A Players” who get the call to “help those folks out over there, eh?”   They are essential to keeping a project on track, but not if they are focused on NON-critical tasks.

Future-Looking Bias

“So why did we miss THAT date?”  Is this scenario eerily familiar?  Many project environments exert a disproportionate amount of energy on what happened in the past.  It’s quite natural — we know more about the past than the future.   Our priority is to first look ahead to ANTICIPATE and dodge the surprise hurdles is a much more productive use of team energy.  We’ll have time for lessons learned later.

A Quantitative Base for "What-if" Evaluations

What if I added a contract resource?  What if I shifted the “A Player” from Project A to Project C?  What if I add a tech writer to decrease the documentation burden on the team?  There are countless opportunities to reduce project timeline throughout a project.  However there is rarely a quantitative model available to evaluate these “mini-investments.”   GPS’s project modeling system will provide you the data you need to make better timeline-saving decisions.

Intrigued by what you've seen?

Take the Next Step!