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The author, Douglas Adams once said … “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

According to a 2018 PMI (Project Management Institute) report, roughly 48% of projects don’t finish on schedule.  

Imagine, nearly half of all project deadlines are missed, resulting in increased costs, unhappy customers and ruins reputations and careers.  

What to do?

Here are three reasons deadlines are missed and what you can do to keep things or track:

1. Optimistic Planning Creates Unachievable Timelines

It is very human to be overly optimistic about how long it will take to complete a task.

This is called “planning fallacy.” (A theory developed in 1977 by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky)

Imagine your last project took 16 months to complete. It’s natural to assume you can do it in less time, because now you have more knowledge and experience.

But that optimism can quickly lead to missed deadlines.

Other causes of optimistic timelines are:

• • • Assuming the project will go as planned, with no issues.
    • Not understanding how long it’s taken to complete similar projects.
    • Failure to realize constraints on resource.

How to Create Realistic Timelines

The key to a more realistic schedule is to rely on analysis and data.

If you’ve completed similar projects in the past, use that data as the basis for realistic estimates. The more data you have, the more confident you can be in your estimates.

If you don’t have enough past project data to guide you, then you can use the following methods:

Method 1: Use a multi-point estimation technique

Take multiple estimates and combine them to arrive at a more realistic timeline. For example, average:

1. 1. 1. The most optimistic amount of time you think it will take.
      2. The most pessimistic amount of time you think it will take.
      3. The amount of time you believe it’s most likely to take.

Method 2: Engage your team to create ‘bottom-up’ estimates

A bottom-up approach to estimating requires that you build your timeline by having team members estimating each individual task and then combining them to arrive at an overall project estimate.

This ensures tasks they may understand but you may not be aware of are not over-looked.

And, you increase employee buy-in and confidence in the schedule.

Method 3: Build in Contingencies

By building contingencies into your schedule, you can help account for known and unknown risks, which will result in a more achievable timeline. It’s typically a flat 5–10% of the project cost and/or timeline added to the schedule baseline in case something unforeseen occurs.

2. Unclear Expectations Result in Missed Deadlines

If your team is unclear on when a deadline is, how can they meet it?

Communication problems can lead to you thinking your team understood their deadline when they didn’t.

Imagine the following conversation:

You: “Can you get this back to me by Thursday, at the latest?”

Team member: “Well, I don’t know. There are may be defects, if I have to correct errors, then I doubt I’ll be able to complete this before Monday.”

You: “Look, unless they’re critical, just leave the bugs and focus on this. I really need it no later than Friday.”

Team member: “Alright, I’ll try my best.”

Based on this conversation, the boss expects the task to be completed Thursday unless there are critical defects.

The team member believes they have till Friday, unless there are critical bugs, then Monday is the drop-dead deadline.

How to Communicate Expectations Clearly

Here are three ways you can ensure your team understands their deadlines.

Method 1: Use your project management systems

If you assign work informally or inconsistently, it can be easily misunderstood, forgotten, or considered unimportant.

When you hand out assignments verbally, people can easily forget about what was discussed or misconstrue your words. For instance, if you say, “I’d like to see this by the end of the week,” a team member may see that as a request and not a hard deadline.

When their name is assigned to a task in project the end date in the system allows for no question as to when their deadline is.

Method 2: Implement feedback loops

A feedback loop, or communication loop, is a simple process for ensuring what you’ve communicated has been heard and understood.

You ask them to repeat back to you what their deadlines are. In our hypothetical conversation, imagine if the team member was asked what the agreed-upon deadline was and replied: “Friday, unless there are critical defects, then Monday.”

You would have the opportunity to clarify expectations before missed deadlines.

Method 3: Conduct check-ins

The last thing you want is to discover after the deadline was missed that there was a misunderstanding as to when it was.

By incorporating periodic check-ins into your schedule, you’re achieving three things:

1. 1. Creating opportunities to remind employees of a deadline.
   2. Re-communicating the importance of that deadline.
   3. Creating opportunities for team members to give you feedback to so you better understand what is going on and identify potential problems and warning signs, without having to micromanage your team.

3. Poor Time Management

If you asked people how many hours a day they spend doing productive, project-related work, what answer would they give? Assuming an 8-hour work day, they may guess 7–8 hours.

But, research shows that this is a huge overestimate.

There are coffee breaks, bathroom breaks, smoke breaks and visiting.

In an average 8-hour work day, most people only accomplish 5 hours of productive work. Much of which is multi-tasking and constant interruptions.

In reality, your team is achieving less than 50% of their time doing uninterrupted productive work each week.

If you are assuming a 35–40-hour work week, but only achieving 12.5–25 hours of work, there is no wonder there are missed deadlines!

How to Improve Employee Time Management

Here are three ways you can help your team better manage their time and become more productive:

Method 1: Reduce time wasters

Have your employees record what and how they spent their time.

By tracking their own time for a few days, your team can discover time wasters and discover bottlenecks in the process, such as the time they’re forced to sit idle while waiting for reviews or approvals.

Or time spent in unproductive or unnecessary meetings. Consider giving your employees permission to attend only the meetings they are directly impacted by and allow them to excuse themselves from the unnecessary ones.  

Method 2: Eliminate distractions and interruptions

While being connected and accessible can boost collaboration and communication among the team, it can also detract from productivity.

Every time we’re interrupted, it destroys our focus, time that could otherwise be used to meet project deadlines.   

Here are three ways you can help your team eliminate distractions and interruptions:

1. 1. Encourage blocking time for specific tasks.
   2. Recommend employees only check email and messages at designated times.
   3. Provide a quiet, isolated space such as an empty office for employees working on anything complex or high-priority.  

Method 3: Avoid overloading your team

You may find that your team is still over-allocated, after all you can’t completely remove emails, meetings, and other interruptions.

Even if you can help your employees achieve 30 hours of productive work a week, you’re still overloading them by assuming a 35-40-hour work week in your schedule.

When people cannot get everything done in the time allotted to them deadlines will slip.

If your team members have too much on their plates, you will need to either increase the size of the team or push out the timelines.

If some of their workload is for another project or manager, ensure everyone is aligned on what is prioritized, and work together to agree to an attainable schedule.

Conclusion

Missed deadlines are all too common across all industries and businesses.

If your team is one of the nearly half of project teams with missed deadlines, it’s due to one of three problems: overly optimistic estimates, unclear deadline expectations, or poor time management.

Fortunately, all three of these are avoidable.

By following the advice above, you can ensure that your team doesn’t miss another deadline from here on out.

Do you have a million things to do that each seem as important as the next?  

These are called competing priorities, and they can get in the way of your success if they aren’t managed appropriately.

In a survey of my blog readers, competing priorities were identified as a leading cause of distraction.

There are cartloads of theories that explain how to develop, communicate, and make decisions based on priorities. 

But…

I have a very simple piece of advice for you.

If what you’re working on isn’t moving you towards your goals and objectives, why are you working on it at all?

Read more about goals and getting things done

Here’s another way of looking at it. Ask yourself this question every time something new comes up: “How does this project or opportunity get me closer to my goals?”

We’re often not making choices that bring us closer to achieving our goals. 

That’s why I’ve put together these three helpful tricks that can help you manage competing priorities and determine what you should focus your attention on.

1. Check in with your boss.

If you aren’t sure what your priorities are, you had better hustle down the hall and talk to your boss or your board. 

One of their first responsibilities is to help you understand what’s most important.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to your boss for help managing competing priorities. Chances are, they’ve been in the same boat and will have some great insight. 

Click here to read more about talking to your boss

2. Check in with others.

If your tasks involve other people, talk to them. 

Find out when they need your help or if they can lend a hand. In some cases, they may not need your deliverable right away. Other times, they might not be as busy as you are and they could help you out.

Utilize your coworkers and other people involved, and you never know how it could help you manage all of the tasks on your plate.

3. Manage expectations.

Once you’ve determined what you should tackle first, put it in writing and share it with everyone involved. 

This sets expectations for when you’ll get your work done. When expectations are sufficiently managed and communicated, you’ll be able to get a handle on the most critical  tasks you need to complete.

When it comes to managing competing priorities, we know that reaching out to our bosses and coworkers is a significant first step. Next, it’s up to you to manage expectations by putting these priorities in writing. 

Before you know it, you’ll be a pro at managing competing priorities and handling whatever life throws at you. 

If you’re interested in going deeper or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

Six Tips to Partner With Your Boss
3 Priorities To Plan For Your Business’ Survival
The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on May 31, 2018, and has been updated.

*Based on the average Canadian salary of $51,000

Intuitively we know that having a poor performer on your team will cost money in lower production, inter-personal conflict, extra supervision.

Shockingly, a poor performer who is enthusiastic and is personally likable stays employed on average 18-months longer than if they were not liked.

Imagine taking $76,500* and lighting it on fire just because you enjoy the enthusiastic warmth it gives off.

That is what you are doing by paying someone for 18-months just because you like them.

What do you do?

You can follow the Servant Leadership model or the Netflix model.

The Servant Leader Model

Recently Ken Blanchard of the Greenleaf Centre addressed the problems leaders face when employees “won’t do” what is expected of them.

Blanchard defines a “won’t do” problem as one when, despite being given the tools, the person doesn’t have the desire to change his or her behaviour and that there is a cost to your organization.

Read my thoughts on servant leadership

In the Servant Leader model, you give your poor performer every opportunity to improve, and when you know that they understand what you expect but still won’t do it, it may be time to “share them with the competition.”

The implications of the Servant Leader approach to the ‘won’t do’ employee means taking time to assess a person’s mindset and skill set correctly, develop performance management plans and manage the risk in letting someone go.

All of this cost money, time and the opportunity costs when you are focused on the poor performer when your time could be better spent with you higher potential employees.

The Netflix Model

When Netflix has someone who cannot or will not do their jobs as they expected, they choose to limit the cost quickly.

Like pulling a Band-Aid off.

In a recent podcast interview with Alex Blumberg and Patty McCord Netflix’s past Chief HR Officer she explained: Once they recognized there wasn’t a fit, they would knock on the door and say, “I think you’ve gotten kind of the vibe that I’m not particularly happy about the way things are going.”

If the employee disagrees or isn’t expecting the conversation, they say “Okay, so I haven’t been very clear about that. So here’s the team that I’m trying to build. And I need to have people that understand the technical people and understand what they’re. And unfortunately, you are not a fit.

Read about having tough conversations

The Netflix approach is to let you have three months of severance already in your pocket, instead of wasting that three months of time for you, the person and the rest of the team.

McCord recommends that instead of developing a 90-day performance improvement plan where once a week, she is going to sit down with the poor performer and prove that they are incompetent in writing. So not only is the employee and the supervisor miserable, because we both know it’s a farce. 

Conclusion

When dealing with poor performers, you need to do what is right for you and your organization.

And I understand that you may face HR policies or collective agreements that may trip you up.

Read about spending the right time in the right place

But do you want to waste your time, the employee’s life and all that money when you already know the right thing to do?

There was a great commercial out a few years back.

Picture a sepia hued scene set in Abraham and Mrs. Lincoln’s a parlour room. Mrs. Lincoln was showing off her new Sunday-Best dress when she says to ‘Honest Abe:’ “Does this dress make me look fat?” Honest Abe, stares at the floor nervously turning his stovepipe hat in his hands as he tries to decide what the right response might be.

Bosses are human beings like the rest of us and, unless you are a sociopath, who wants to hurt the ones we love, like and care for. So we are in good company when we tell white lies to avoid upsetting people.

But what do you say when an employee asks about a situation where your organization is involved with a sensitive negotiation? Or, they get wind of a layoff or some other decision that will impact their lives?

Read how not to Eff up talking to your people

The groundwork for situations like these must be laid well in advance. You must build trust by explaining every decision you make in an open and transparent manner. You do this so that when the time comes and you can’t be transparent, people will trust because you have proven yourself trustworthy.

When the inevitable question comes up that you are not able to answer, here are the 2 responses you need to know:

• I don’t know,

or

• I can’t say.

If you don’t know, say so. People know BS when they hear it, so don’t BS. Simply respond that you don’t know the answer, but you will find the answer. Give them a date when you will get back to them and then meet that commitment even if you can only report that you are still working on it.

Sometimes you can’t say. The issue may well be confidential, so say these words: ‘I can’t say’ and add a brief explanation. For example, when asked about lay off rumours that you know are based in fact, respond by saying: ‘I can’t say. The company is making plans to deal with the economic downturn and when they are finalized we will be making an announcement. But there will be no changes before Oct 31.’

Read how to communicate in tough times

These answers are seldom fully satisfactory, but they are the truth, and you will be respected for the answer.

But for heavens sake, don’t get caught staring at the ground fiddling with your hat and trying to get out of trouble.

Do Any Of These Statements Sound Like Your Workplace?

“40% of our middle managers DO NOT have the leadership competencies required for our company to be successful.”	“The executive team are not showing up as leaders.”
“We have a culture that says, ‘You should be lucky to work here.”	“People are disconnected from why we exist and where we are going.”
“We promote people who are great at their job, but do not have the competencies or maybe even character to lead.”	“I am blown away by the people issues that get in the way of moving forward.”
“We don’t lead people; we herd them.”	“We need to stop trying to hire a team and start developing our people.”

 

I have partnered with organizations ranging in size from 15 to 150, to 1,500, to 15,000 employees.

All have scaled from high-impact teams into enterprises.

All struggle when the ties and tendons that once held everyone focused became stretched by the growth.

Stretched to the point where the organization’s efforts to meet its goals and objectives were frustrated because employees:

• They lacked trust and confidence in leadership and
• They were disconnected from the organization’s mission and strategic objectives.

Read about connecting employees to strategy

And they faced these very issues while undergoing a considerable expansion.

 

Imagine the most significant project your company has ever taken on.

A new project that would grow your company’s size by 30-50%.

Your company’s leadership is 90%  sure they will be on time, on budget and successful.

BUT: Employees are 75% sure this will fail.

The Problem

When I reported what I saw to the client, the CEO asked angrily, “Why is this a problem? I Am The CEO, if I want it fixed, I’ll say so!”

 

Why can’t the CEO fix it?

The CEO, though respected, is an emotional vacuum.

Read more about Emotional Intelligence.

He would move through the floors of his office complex by the stairwell and skirt around work areas. He purposely avoided talking to his employees.

He was a visionary but could not explain the strategy or the tactics humanly.

He needed to accept responsibility for how the company’s story was disseminated through the company.

My work with employees identified concerns about leadership competencies, the poor culture of leadership and the leadership skills of managers & supervisors.

Read about Steve’s organizational consulting.

Yet the CEO wanted it fixed by fiat.

Research and experience show that investing in the following key leadership competencies are most critical for success:

• Inspirational Leadership & Execution
• Strategic Direction & Influence
• Building Talent

Leaders who are influential in these competencies have the strength to lead the organization for years.

Organizations whose leaders struggle in these areas are doomed to remain irrelevant and ineffective.

 

The Solution?

The gap between the current organization’s leadership bench strength and what its future leadership demands is as severe a liability as failing to manage any other risk.

I recommended that my client take both a strategic and a tactical approach to align the development of managers with organizational objectives.

Strategically, they must invest in developing leadership competencies development programs and hiring tools and processes.

Tactically, they must develop mentoring and coaching support to close the skill gaps in each critical leadership competency.

 

The Single Most Important Thing To Do?

There is a Japanese term called Gemba (現場), meaning “the actual place.”… In business, Gemba refers to where value is created; in manufacturing, the Gemba is the factory floor.

The CEO needs to see and be seen where value is created—the gas plant, the control room and, yes, even the accounting and IT departments.

Read about leadership presence.

He needs to ask good questions to hear and see what is going on and ensure his messages are communicated throughout his company.

He needs to paint the picture of his vision so everyone can see it.