Why do projects miss deadlines?

Every project including IT project has its plan before starting, but not all projects can follow the timeline. If there is a delay in a project, it can create various issues follow this delay in the project management. Overbudget, missing the launching time, damaging the developer team’s performance are some of many issues caused by delaying deadlines.

To avoid missed deadlines in IT project management, you should know the reasons causing the delay of a project, Adamo Software will show you the top five common reasons cause delays in an IT project.

1.    Mistakes in Planning Process

Planning before starting an IT project is the must-have part, which allows team members smoothly communicating with each other, as well as team leader and owner follow the process. A perfect plan should include:

·      Details technical requirements of the projects with the specific POC and timeline

·      Designing a process to work well with the coding process

·      Specific notes to make sure every member understand their responsibility in the whole software development process

A proper plan will work with the strictly following of the manager or team leader, who has the ability to quickly make final decision and guide team member the solutions. To avoid the co-working becomes messy because of the lack of good planning, software investor and the project manager should work closely with each other to ensure they understand the requirements and how to do it. 

2.    Mistakes in Estimation

Overbudget – a big worry of all project managers, which is caused by lack of experience in planning, so the manager will fail to control the timeline and important milestones. 

When the detailed requirements are clearly mentioned, the project manager can follow and create the masterplan with budget prediction. These steps are the basic one before starting any outsourcing software development processwhich requires PM focus on the estimation. The estimation will show to the investors how long one task or function may take to be finished, who will be the person in charge, the rate for this step, and how the whole process is linked up with each other. To avoid the mistakes in the wrong estimation, the PM should have enough experience in previous similar projects, and the developer team also know how to finish the task in the most efficient way. 

In case of the new project that the whole team didn’t have any experience before, the PM should break down all functions as detailed as possible and pay more attention to some special parts which may cause many risks during the development process.

3.    Uncommitted Stakeholder

The most difficult task in the whole process here should be working with the stakeholder. Because the stakeholder is the paymaster and also the idea creator, so if the PM didn’t clarify with the stakeholder about the whole project before starting, this means the PM doesn’t care about the biggest worry in each software development project. 

A key point that a PM has to remember is that creating a master plan – as detailed as possible- which a stakeholder can use to check the status of the development process.  Also, the PM should make sure that their strategy and the stakeholder’s software idea are on the same page, and avoid changing the application idea, design, functions or anything related to an IT project. 

4.    Worthless with Technology

Technology is updated day by day, that’s why the technology is put here as one of the big concerns for both software development team but also the manager. No one knows which smart phone’s brand name will win next year, which is the young trend nowadays?

Different devices, different platforms, and different version can play as the biggest challenges in a project. Therefore, the PM should count the learning period to train to our human resource and find the best solution for themselves.. 

5.    New requirements

It is quite normal if one day, the stakeholder has the new idea for the application, and require the team to update or change it. Then the delays will inevitably occur. The timelines from the starting point of the project are based on the first requirements, then after updating the new idea, the timeline will be changed too, even the budget for the whole process. 

There are some solutions in this situation, the famous one that many people know is building an MVP app. A minimum viable product will be the best choice which helps to minimize the resource, budget as well as test if the project has any potential opportunities or not while avoiding the effects of idea changing from customers.  

Another solution can be mention here is based on the PM’s experience to predict the risks and the unexpected update occur. Then the PM when building the timeline has to consider the changing idea from customers, predict the additional times for each part in the whole process, and with the immediately react from the dedicated software developer team, the problems may be solved. However, it is still very risky because no one can predict every issue and make sure it happens as their prediction. 

Finally, deadlines play an essential role in any project success, which does not only show the IT team performance, it also proves the ability of the software developer team and the project manager. To avoid the delays, both the team and PM have to carefully pay attention to planning; estimation; communication with stakeholder, team and the leader. Hope these tips can help you in the next project and reduce the risk of going out from the timeline.