How IT Companies Handle Project Deadlines and Client Expectations?

Meeting project deadlines and client expectations is a balancing act that all software companies have to get good at. The sad part is most of them do it poorly. One of the major reasons most (if not all) projects often struggle to meet timelines and fail to live up to client expectations is that teams seldom identify or address the real issues.

Are the Project Deadlines Really Deadly?

Both clients and vendors often use deadlines as negotiation tactics. ‘It had to complete yesterday‘ is a favorite phrase of the clients when discussing a project. The sales teams promises the moon to complete their targets without consideration to the unrealistic timelines, insufficient resources, or ambiguous requirements.

Why do deadlines often slip?

1. Overpromising During Sales: The sales teams, have to hit their targets, earn their commissions, or sometimes unaware of what their teams can handle, and often commit to unrealistic timelines without fully understanding the complexity of the project.
2. Ambiguous Requirements: Clients often provide half-baked requirements, leading to scope creep during development and subsequently the delays.
3. Resource Constraints: Teams seldom receive the necessary manpower, infrastructure, and other resources in a timely manner to execute projects. Multiple projects often share same team members thus causing bandwidth issues.
4. Poor Risk Management: Companies often ignore the potential (and obvious) risks like technical challenges, dependencies,etc. Even a proper risk mitigation plan is not put in place or action due to the stringent ‘deadlines‘. And several of the known risks materialize making the deadlines more deadlier.

Client Expectations: Expect the Unexpected

IT companies are often caught between the need to please clients and the reality of delivery constraints. Clients often demand quality deliverables under stringent and often unrealistic timelines. The companies want to secure business and would say “Yes” to everything despite knowing the challenges.

Why do expectations often don’t meet?

1. Unrealistic Expectations: Clients often come with unrealistic expectations and expect magic. And almost always the preparation to kick-off the project is never there.
   • They always want it yesterday but aren’t clear about ‘what they want’ until the end of the project.
2. Cultural Factors: The Indian culture’s inclination to avoid saying “No” despite the obvious challenges. This often backfires when the client expectations are unmet.
3. Lack of Communication: Expectation management isn’t a one time job. It has to be done throughout the project. Often companies fail to do proper communication and delays come as a surprise for the clients.
4. Micromanagement & Additional Expectations: Clients sometimes manages team’s work and flow at a micro level. Additional expectations, such as reporting, meetings, and explorations, are often added, which can derail the original project goals.

Usual Ways of (Mis)Handling Deadlines

• Crash It!: Throw more hours, stretch working hours without compensation and more people at the problem. This is the most prevalent and one of the worst ways to handle the deadline issue. It gives rise to many other dangerous issues.
• Jugaad: Rushed verification, half-baked fixes, bypassed processes are common ways to handle deadlines. Off course it may compromise the quality of the end product.
• Blame It: When deadlines are missed, both sides sometimes start pointing fingers instead of identifying root causes. More meetings, dissection sessions happen to understand the delays, thus causing further delays.

Solutions for Better & Timely Project Delivery

1. The Right Start – Realistic Timelines

• • Involve SMEs, technical leads, on ground team members during the sales phase to evaluate, assess, do feasibility analysis and provide more accurate estimates.
  • Account for buffer time to manage unforeseen challenges. Factors such as project complexity, client preparedness, requirements ambiguity, dependencies, and anticipated uncertainties based on past experience should determine this, rather than a flat percentage.

2. Clear and Continuous Communication

• • Start the project with a clear communication plan enlisting communication channels, artifacts, frequency, etc. E.g. a weekly progress reports or milestone-based reviews.
  • Educate clients about the implications of scope changes on timelines and budgets. Also, clearly document it as part of the contract clause.

3. Better Risk Management

• • Conduct thorough risk assessments at the start of the project and throughout the life of the project. Conduct risk review meetings, and regularly publish the active risks to all stakeholders.
  • Have contingency plans in place for critical dependencies.

4. Promote a Culture of Honesty & Transparency

• • Be honest with clients about potential delays and the reasons behind them. Seek their support to curb the delays. The project belongs to both the teams.
  • Clearly call out the areas where client actions or inaction (like delayed response) might impact timelines or where support is required to meet deadlines.

5. Empower Teams

• • Provide adequate and timely resources and avoid overburdening teams with multiple projects or tasks.
  • Let the teams commit what they are comfortable with instead of committing on their behalf.
  • Encourage a work-life balance to maintain productivity and morale.

6. Invest in Automation and Tools

• • Use project management tools to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and keep stakeholders informed. Similarly invest in productivity tools that can help team deliver better or faster.
  • Automate repetitive tasks to free up time for critical development activities.

Conclusion

While managing deadlines and client expectations is undoubtedly challenging, it is not insurmountable. IT companies must take a balanced approach that prioritizes team well being, customer priorities, and along with their business compulsions. This can be achieved through transparency, realistic planning, client education, and enhanced communication. By practicing these traits companies can not only meet deadlines more consistently but also build trust and long-term relationships with their clients and happy team members.

Things will Always Go Wrong What To Do?

Improvement and Optimization is a continuous effort. Despite you trying your best you may find your project going into deep red. If you find yourself in that situation then you can try rescuing it with ways suggested in the following posts:

Turning Red Projects to Green: Draw The Starting Line

Turning Red Projects to Green: Optimize the Project Processes