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As a project manager, the project timeline is one of the most critical artifacts at your disposal. It acts as a roadmap, guiding you from the starting point up to the finish line. Without it, it’s impossible to gauge your progress toward your goal. However, despite the countless hours spent on estimating and preparing a project timeline, there’s a high likelihood that your project will still end up delayed. It begs the question, why are we seemingly incapable of creating a realistic project timeline?
We Underestimate and Too Optimistic
First proposed by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979, the Planning Fallacy is a phenomenon in which predictions about the time needed to complete a task display an optimism bias and underestimate the time required.
It’s vital to be aware of the Planning Fallacy and its potential impact on our project timelines. Unfortunately, as human beings, we tend to be overconfident and aggressive, often underestimating the time needed to complete a task.
Consider this: when was the last time you planned to complete a task? Now, think about how long it took you to finish it. Despite our past experiences and knowledge, we often provide optimistic estimates for future undertakings.
Planning Fallacy in Project Management
The planning fallacy is a common pitfall that affects everyone, regardless of their experience or expertise. When creating a plan, it’s easy to forget past lessons and believe everything will go smoothly simply because we already know what needs to be done.
One of the most common examples is when we’re too optimistic about the time needed for unit testing and UAT phases. We believe we’ll only encounter minor problems, so we don’t allocate sufficient time to fixing errors. This leads to an ideal project timeline that doesn’t accurately reflect the reality of the situation.
Adding to the challenge are project stakeholders who also suffer from the planning fallacy. They may push back if they believe the duration is too long, as their priority is to complete the project as quickly as possible. It can put pressure on the project manager, who wants to get immediate approval and satisfy client demands.
In this situation, the project manager may be forced to optimize the project timeline, increasing the risk of not delivering the project on schedule and putting the team under unnecessary stress. However, it’s important to remember that if a project timeline is unrealistic, it’s not a project timeline at all. You don’t need a project timeline.
How to Make a Realistic Project Timeline?
Overcoming the planning fallacy requires a comprehensive approach, including a realistic understanding of capabilities and limitations, consideration of past lessons, and readiness to adapt to unforeseen challenges.
Stop Pretending You Know the Future
The COVID-19 pandemic was a surprise to everyone, including our team, when we were preparing our project timeline. Furthermore, the extent of the pandemic’s impact and the need to adapt to the new normal was unimaginable. Despite our best efforts, there is no way to ensure that future events align with our plans.
In reality, the world is far from perfect and unforeseen circumstances often arise. For example, computers may crash, clients may not respond promptly, internet connections may slow down, the cloud may become gray and unreachable, and unexpected meetings may divert your team’s attention and priority.
Therefore, it’s crucial to keep this in mind and avoid becoming blindly optimistic. To that end, incorporating reasonable contingencies into your project timelines is critical. This will help you better prepare for any challenges that come your way.
Seek Outside Help
Seeking outside help is a wise decision when embarking on a project. Consult with your colleagues, particularly those with no vested interest in the project and who have experience with similar projects in terms of nature and scope. You might be surprised at the valuable insights and ideas that an outside perspective can bring. Additionally, there’s no shame in asking for the help or opinion of other project managers. It’s always a wise decision to have someone peer-review your work.
Start From the Bottom
When estimating, it’s crucial to start at the task and activity level. Breaking down larger tasks into smaller, manageable pieces leads to more realistic estimates.
However, it’s important to note that this approach may result in a project timeline that exceeds your client’s expectations. They may tell you that the duration is too long, the target completion date is set and cannot be adjusted, and ask you to work backward.
This approach is problematic because this doesn’t make sense to create a project timeline when you already have a deadline. When forced to work backward, you’re practically allocating time to complete tasks to fit the predefined duration rather than creating an accurate estimate.
It’s crucial to have an open and honest conversation with your client about their assumptions and to agree on a realistic timeline based on the limitations and challenges of the project. Remember, clients, are often willing to compromise when they understand the complexities of the project. Be prepared to defend your estimates and push back on unrealistic deadlines.
Plan for Success
As a project manager, it’s your responsibility to break the cycle of flawed practices in estimating and creating project timelines. You must aim to build a plan that sets your project up for success, not failure.
It’s vital to recognize that many external factors can impact the progress of your project, and some of these events may not be predictable. While you can’t anticipate every possibility, it’s essential to be prepared and adaptable to navigate uncertainties. Your plan should include room for maneuvering in case of unforeseen events.
Ultimately, the key to success is to accept that some things will be out of your control and learn to work with uncertainty. Being prepared and adaptable is the best approach in the face of the unknown.
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