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Picture credit: kevin (iapetus)
How often are we surprised when a task, or entire project, slips unexpectedly because key staff have outrageously (sic) taken a holiday at a critical point in the schedule?
And, of course, the pattern of holiday absences is compounded by the number and variety of roles involved, which can make project management a nightmare from May through to the end of August.
The Anglo-Saxon work ethic often seems to drive our project planning towards the edge of the cliff of sensibility; with many projects faltering or failing during the Summer months, due to the absence of key players. I have seen far too many project resource plans that don’t recognise a simple fact: people like to holiday in Summer.It’s fairly obvious to me that a resource plan is fundamentally flawed if it does not incorporate the holiday plans of the people assigned to the project.
Not everyone is willing to trade their Summer sunshine for a project so our well-laid plans might be doomed to inexorable slippage caused by the frequent and random absences of key players at critical points, which is what all too often happens with projects scheduled to run through the Summer months.
Maybe we should adopt the simple approach of making sure that the critical paths of major projects are properly planned for the Summer “silly season” and look very, very closely at the resource plans for any activities scheduled when there isn’t an R in the month.
Just think, we might end up with better productivity and performance, a bit of much-needed sun on our backs and far fewer disappointed customers.
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Good to see you took one of my room 101 issues on board Colin!
Poor planning and accident or real life does interfere when human beings are involved and there is never enough reality checking done when trying to follow prescriptive methodologies – with resulting delays and failures. Challenge the contingency plans too, I’d say.
Diane
A good reminder – it always amazes me how many project plans do not incorporate known absences into their workings and just hope good luck will somehow cover it. This is a sort of negative contingency which is not to be recommended!
Colin
so…its just not me then? The amount of project plans I have seen over the years that have non-working time not added into them amaze me!
( Wossat? Tools, “Change Working Time”, select day/date, select non working option)
An esteemed large expensive consultancy supplied me a robust IT migration plan Gantt Chart which met our delivery timescales on the dot!
As it ran over Christmas and New Year, and some Bank Holidays, I checked as per usual (cos no one does it and no – its not OCD) for non working time of these happy days of merriment. Well quelle surprise, these were working days in the plan??
Once I had added this non working time into the project plan the Gantt chart delivery had slipped by two months!!. (Dependency and critical path played a part)
I had to then tell the project board of my revised view of the scheduled go live. Was I popular, not.
So next time you get a project plan, lets not just check for holiday inclusion of those project workers but those non working days are also set.
Oh and also the resources are usually set for 100% of that person, and we know that only happens in fairytales:-).
So make it 50% and you may be some way to avoiding embarrassment of looking an idiot.
By
Graham Rae Project Management Implementation Consultant
thanks to all who have responded, some call me cynical but I prefer to be considered pragmatic. Your feedback raises a few more nuances of project planning so I will return to the topic very soon, projects are a rich seam for improvement.
I have long held the belief that most project plans are routinely ‘tinkered with’ (i.e. fudged) to achieve an aspirational timescale, regardless of common sense.