Delivering a project on time and quality is crucial because it helps project managers to increase the chances of the project’s success, develop the organization’s reputation, prevent stress, and build client trust. Therefore, in this article, we’ll discuss 11 tips to deliver a project on time and quality.
Table of Contents
How to Deliver a Project on Time and Quality
To deliver a successful project on time and quality, you must manage project triple constraints effectively and efficiently. Furthermore, as a project manager, you can use project management tools and techniques to ensure project success. However, if you can deliver the project on time and quality, it may positively impact the project budget, scope, deliverables, or the organization’s reputation. Therefore, you can use the following tips and tricks to deliver a project on time and quality.
Create a Realistic Project Schedule
By creating a realistic and detailed project schedule, it will be able to deliver your projects on time and quality. Therefore, when creating a project schedule, you should outline your project’s activities, tasks, dependencies, milestones, and resources. As a project manager, you can use a work breakdown structure to break down the project deliverables into smaller steps and assign durations, costs, and responsibilities to each task. Read more: Schedule baseline in project management
You can also use a Gantt chart or network diagram to visualize the sequence and dependencies of each task and identify the critical path, which determines the project completion date. Simply put, a project schedule is a vital tool that helps project managers plan, monitor, and control the project performance and progress.
Monitor and Control Project Schedule
As mentioned above, a project schedule is a tool that helps you monitor and control your project effectively and efficiently. This step involves comparing, measuring, and reporting the actual progress and performance of the project against the planned baseline.
Therefore, project managers should monitor and control the project throughout the project life cycle. Furthermore, they can use tools and techniques to evaluate the project status and health. For example,
- Earned value analysis
- Variance analysis
- Schedule forecast
- Schedule performance index
Moreover, project managers can also take corrective or preventive actions to identify any issues or problems affecting the project schedule and help them ensure that the project deliverables are delivered on time and quality.
Define Project Scope and Deliverables
Defining project scope and deliverables is another vital step to delivering a project on time and quality. Therefore, as a project manager, you should clearly define the following areas of your project.
- What are you expected to produce?
- What are the assumptions of your project?
- What are the boundaries of your project?
Clearly defining these areas of your project will help you avoid scope creep that may occur when the project requirements change or expand during the execution phase. Therefore, when creating the project scope and deliverables, you should involve your sponsors, team members, and key stakeholders and document them in a project charter or a scope statement. On the other hand, you can ensure that the entire project team has access to it. So this will help you deliver your project on time and quality.
Setting Project Objectives with Stakeholders
Before starting the project, project managers should set clear project objectives. Furthermore, they should clearly understand the intended outcome of their project. So, define project deliverables or results like an increase in productivity. Moreover, as a project manager, you should know who your primary and secondary stakeholders are. As well as what their interests are.
Read More: Stakeholder management in project management
Furthermore, the project objectives should be SMART to be trackable and meaningful. Each project objective can serve as a guide. Then, project managers can always check any of your actions against them. So, make agreed objectives together and put them into writing. Moreover, you can use project management tools to set and share objectives with all stakeholders. This will help you deliver a project on time and quality.
Create a Project Plan and Change It as Necessary
The project plan is vital in any project because it describes the processes of project execution and control. So, this is not the project’s timeline. However, the project plan will help you deliver a project on time and quality because you are prepared for any difficult situation that can arise, and you will know that you have enough project resources.
When creating the plan, project managers should collaborate with relevant team members to get their in-depth knowledge. Typically, this can include scope, objectives, stakeholders and then define time, quality, change, risk, and cost management. Once you set up the project plan, share it with relevant team members and be ready to adapt it to ongoing and internal and external changes.
Read more: Project planning in project management
As a project manager, you can use project management tools such as Asana and Microsoft Project to create the project plan. However, A well-structured project plan will help you deliver a project on time and quality because you have enough details about your project.
Visualize Project Progress
Visualizing project progress is a great way to determine if you’re on schedule to deliver a project on time and quality. Therefore, you can use project management tools to visualize your project’s progress effectively and efficiently. So, the following are some benefits of sharing your project progress with your team members. Read more: Project management tools
- Team members can see the overall project progress in real-time
- Provides accountability
- Motivation your team members
Communicate and Coordinate the Project Schedule Regularly
As a project manager, you must communicate and update the project schedule regularly with your primary and secondary stakeholders because it will help you identify the project’s ups and downs. So, coordinate regular meetings with everybody, and it will help you check in about the project. Furthermore, these meetings can be brief and allow team members to share updates about their progress. Read more: How to become an effective project manager
On the other hand, communication is another vital aspect of keeping everyone informed, aligned, and engaged in the project. Therefore, project managers should establish a communication plan to share project schedule information, such as progress meetings and status reports. Moreover, they should update the project schedule frequently to identify any changes or risks that may affect the project timeline. Accordingly, you should adjust the project tasks, resources, or priorities.
Constantly Tracks Project Progress
Tracking project progress is another vital step in delivering a project on time and quality. As such, you should always stay with your project’s status and progress to identify any issues or risks because it will help you take action if anything goes wrong and comes back on track.
Manage Project Risks and Changes as Necessary
Managing project risks and changes is another vital step in delivering a project on time and quality because it will help you stay within the project’s triple constraints. Risks are unknown events or conditions that may impact the project schedule negatively or positively. As well as changes are modifications or requests to the project deliverables, scope, or requirements. Read more: Risk management in project management
Therefore, you should identify, analyze, prioritize, and respond to the project risks and changes when necessary. So, you can use project management tools such as risk register or change log. Moreover, you should implement contingency plans to deal with unexpected situations.
Understand Each Team Member’s Role
Understanding each team member’s role will help you promote and encourage open communication throughout the project. Furthermore, it allows people to ask one another for updates on internal deadlines. It also allows asking for assistance on deliverables when necessary. So this will help you deliver a project on time and quality.
Read More: RACI chart in project management
Motivate and Empower Team Members
Motivating and empowering team members will help you to deliver the project on time and quality because the team is the most valuable asset in any project. As such, your team members’ performance and satisfaction can make or break the project’s success. Therefore, as a project manager, you should provide them with clear roles, feedback, expectations, and decisions in a proper way.
Don’t forget to recognize and reward your team members’ achievements, celebrate milestones, and foster a positive and collaborative work environment because these things will help you increase the chances of the project’s success and deliver the project on time and quality.
Read More: 6 importance of team building in project management
Conclusion
Project management can be a complex process in any kind of project. As such, delivering a project on time and quality is vital because it may increase the chances of the project’s success and enhance the organization’s reputation. Therefore, project managers can use some steps, such as creating a realistic project schedule, defining project scope and deliverables, setting project objectives with stakeholders, visualizing project progress, understanding each team member’s role, and motivating and empowering team members to deliver a project on time and quality.
