Managing Project Delays: 10 Tips to Succeed

A project delay is a serious issue that can take you over budget, cause you to miss deadlines, and sometimes derail the whole project. How well you communicate delays to your customers and stakeholders can determine whether you manage the next project or not.

According to the report, over 90% of all projects finish late. How do you define the reasons for project delays and find ways to manage issues with schedules and deadlines? If this problem is on your agenda, this post is what you need.

What is a project delay?

A project delay is any unplanned or unexpected deferment of a project because of some event or occurrence. It usually impedes the project’s commencement or continuation.

The impact of delays

Project delays can take businesses over budget, cause them to miss deadlines, and sometimes derail projects. They can affect costs and timings, so project managers must pay special attention to their occurrence.

Delays can occur in any professional sphere, from IT to construction. By communicating them properly, project managers start to do their best for improvements and timely project completion.

What are the causes of project delays?

Project delays can happen for any reason. There are four common causes.

• Team members. There are people in any business who work on their tasks longer than required. There are also individuals who have less experience.
• Customers. Sometimes they change ideas and require some alterations. Besides, they can be unsatisfied with the project’s progress.
• Third-party factors. These individuals don’t know your plans and goals. They do not participate in team discussions.
• Unforeseen circumstances. Weather disruptions or natural disasters can also cause delays in your project.

Every project manager should understand why projects can be delayed before starting to deal with the delays.

Let’s define the most common reasons for delays.

What are the reasons for project delays?

Projects get off track and behind schedule because of different problems. Here is the list of the most common reasons for work delays.

Project complexity

Complex projects typically have a long implementation duration. It may lead to changes in price, exchange rates, and inflation rates. The tasks with a high degree of complexity require detailed plans, schedules, and estimations.

Changes in project scope

Possible changes in project scope or its poor definition can also cause delays. They can happen due to project funding issues, changes in the customers’ interests, miscalculations of inherent risks and uncertainties, etc.

Poor planning

Poor planning is another cause of a project delay. Therefore businesses must understand how to create a plan ​before executing activities.

Inaccurate estimates for project requirements

Even a single improper requirement can affect all project processes.

Unexpected risks

It is critical for any project manager to be able to identify all potential risks in advance. Unexpected risks can relate to running out of technical staff, new stakeholders’ demands, or the unavailability of tools to handle issues. These risks can cause significant damage to any business.

Unengaged stakeholders

Important documents can not be communicated to stakeholders on time. It deprives them of the right to review the activities of the project.

Inadequate/unavailable resources

When team members get sick or switch to another work, your project can quickly get behind. When your software system breaks down, your budget can also promptly get cut. That is why project managers should always know how to allocate resources to prevent delays.

Communication breakdowns

Project completion can involve many departments and stakeholders. Communication breakdowns cause setbacks in processing and hold-up execution. It usually results in delays in project completion.

Client changes

When your customer wants to alter the project scope by making any additions or deletions, the timeline will have to be reworked.

Fortunately, all these causes for work delays can be prevented or reduced. How? We have 10 tips to overcome project delays, so it’s high time to share them.

A project delay example

Let’s consider the example from the construction sphere.

It is rather frustrating and costly for contractors when projects are postponed. Some reasons for delays are beyond their control, but most construction project delays can be avoided.

By having online construction management software they can keep their teams on the same page by providing equipment, materials, status visibility, project progress, and timelines transparency — all in real-time. It helps them to complete their construction deliverables within budget and on time.

However, construction project delays can happen because of:

• Equipment failure.
• Labor shortage.
• Budget inaccuracies.
• Missing or incorrect data.
• Project mistake.
• Internal conflict.
• Lack of effective communication
• Poor weather.

10 tips to manage project delays

No matter what the problem is, you should be ready to prevent project delays before they happen. Here’s the list of recommendations you may follow to manage delays efficiently.

1. Work on your plan

By having a detailed plan in place, you will have a good chance to decrease risks and uncertainty.

Choose a robust online Gantt chart tool to enhance your planning activities. It will help you to create and manage tasks, track progress, visualize all steps and project details on a handy Gantt chart, diagnose potential challenges, add task dependencies and project milestones, and set deadlines.

GanttPRO is a great example of such a tool.

It offers some advanced features to meet deadlines on time and keep track of the project progress:

• Deadlines to make the work with end dates easier.
• Overdue tasks to help in recognizing how many days are overdue.
• Baseline to have a clear picture of what was planned. It allows comparing the current state of your project with a planned one.

2. Set realistic deadlines

Set project deadlines based on your previous experience or the data from similar projects.

3. Invite experts

The right experts will help you sidestep this pitfall and decrease the risk of project management delays.

4. Use accurate data

Try to gather the most comprehensive data possible on timing and task duration estimates. Ask questions instead of just filling in the blanks in a template. This will help you to develop a better strategy to address the scheduling problems in advance.

5. Ensure project control

Firm project control will help you alert your team to any timing issues that may appear. It will give them an opportunity to take action beforehand.

6. Set dependencies

Define task dependencies to give your team members a starting point. They will be able to resequence tasks and determine where it’s possible to change the schedule with the aim to prevent more delays.

7. Run regular meetings

Regular team meetings help everyone in a team to understand the role they play in project execution.

8. Measure progress

Measuring performance will give your team the info critical to meeting goals and staying in line with the entire plan.

9. Make improvements

Recognize the sources of delays by analyzing your past performance data. Assess all the reasons that prevented you from keeping your work on track and make improvements.

10. Find positives

Even short delays can allow you to realign yourself and improve the quality of project deliverables. However, they can prevent you from producing an inferior product.

Frame them in a positive sense, so your teammates think they are working on a project that can come out to benefit your customers.

Wrapping up

Unexpected delays lead to serious challenges. Remember about it and apply all the recommendations mentioned above. Be proactive, anticipate risks, and communicate more often.

Besides, do not hesitate to find proper project management software with reliable features. It will help to avoid delays and make your next project as effective as possible.

Feel free to read more info about project delays here: How to Manage Project Delays: 10 Really Working Tips for Efficient Managers https://blog.ganttpro.com/en/how-manage-project-delays/.