Your digital project is behind schedule due to unforeseen challenges. How can you still meet expectations?
Falling behind on a digital project can be stressful, but with the right approach, you can still deliver. Here's how to manage unforeseen challenges:
What strategies have worked for you when managing project delays?
Your digital project is behind schedule due to unforeseen challenges. How can you still meet expectations?
Falling behind on a digital project can be stressful, but with the right approach, you can still deliver. Here's how to manage unforeseen challenges:
What strategies have worked for you when managing project delays?
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I always refresh the stakeholder impact assessment, listen to the perspectives of pods, product groups and leadership and concisely craft the impact statement transparently in full detail and for executive consumption. It’s important to avoid creating valueless conflict or blame. As a delivery leader taking ownership is key at this point and leaning in on resolution next steps is critical. In summary, understanding the problem, owning it and communicating the path forward as a team is the key.
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Transparency is key: Communicate challenges early and present a clear plan with new milestones to build trust. From my experience: In a project with unexpected technical hurdles, we prioritized the most critical features, adopted a "Minimal Viable Product" approach, and successfully met the most important expectations. 🚀
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Falling behind on a digital project is a challenge many face, but it doesn’t have to derail your success. Start by reassessing your plan and prioritising tasks that directly impact your objectives. Communicate openly with stakeholders, explaining the delay, its causes, and your action plan with realistic timelines. Leverage resources—whether reallocating team members, using automation tools, or bringing in external support. Staying adaptable and focused can turn setbacks into opportunities to deliver value and reinforce trust.
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Clearly outline the risk or impediment to key stakeholders as soon as you see it emerging. Detail out the issues , including your team’s plans to resolve. If deadlines will be missed, outline the financial impact. If scope can be reduced to meet commitments, this is a preferred path. Best course is to stand tall and own the risk, be transparent about what has gone wrong and how you plan to address it. Don’t be hard on yourself either, the work is complex and risks do arise often. How you manage and communicate it calmly matters most.
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One task we were doing had some delays, so we temporarily changed our priorities and worked on the most important deliverables. Being so close to the desert and the nature preserve has actually been an advantage, because we have met expectations set by clients, despite setbacks. And when it comes to my experience, transparent communication really does a long way. We explained the challenge and offered a crystal clear recovery plan to accomplish client understanding and support. What I have been benefitting from is tapping into more resources. They might mean reallocating team members, or attempting to use some new tools to speed progress and reduce delays.
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