How do you ensure that your project is on schedule to meet the deadline?

For a project to be successful the most important thing is to satisfy the client by completing the project within the promised time period. Not only completing the project in time but the project must be completed with all the requirements and needs of the client. Imagine the project without a deadline, it would be unfinished for ages. For a team to stay motivated, there should be some factor that pushes the limits of the team, where deadline or time period in which the project comes into the phrase. It not only motivates the team but also increases the seriousness in the project as they will be directed to a goal or a target within a targeted time. If there’s nothing like a deadline, the project will lead to failure or the rate of completion of the project will decrease or sometimes get ceased. Therefore, deadline is a concept that plays a vital role in the completion of a project.

The project should be done according to the schedule. When a project goes according to the schedule everything will go right otherwise the time spent, the money spent and the energy spent on it will go in vain. As a Business Analyst, the primary responsibility is to check on the project and ensure that the project is going on a track according to the schedule. If the team members are working according to the scheduled plan, then there will be no pressure in dealing with the deadlines. If the project doesn’t work according to the schedule, then the project will be in pressure or might fail to complete the project with all the requirements that was mentioned earlier by the client.

A schedule is nothing but planning the work of a project according to the time negotiated by the client and the Business Analyst. It describes about the work of every person of the project team in a day or week or month throughout the project. If every individual reaches his target within the given time period without fail, then there will be no pressure. If anyone is left behind his target then the work that he has to do will be piled up and he will be at pressure which also leads to pressure his co-workers or colleague. This might cause a failure in the project or reach the requirement of the client. Hence, it effects every person in the team and it also effects the project.

As a Business Analyst, we need to ensure that every member in the team is on track and completes this word as per the schedule.

Proper planning of tasks includes all the work that are to be assigned to the team members in a day or week for the entire project period. In proper planning, we need to keep a check on the capability of all the team members, so that there will be no lag or burden in the project. According to the capability of the team member, we can assign the work to all the members, so that the project is done within the time period without any pressure.

We also need to keep a check on how much work should be assigned to each member so that the working hours are utilized in a proper way without allowing more leisure hours and utilizing the working hours at most.

Weekly meetings:

• Conducting weekly team meeting helps in tracking on what’s going on in the project and to cross check whether every team member is doing work according to the schedule.
• This also helps in finding out if someone in the team is lagging in work, we can discuss the issues and preplan and help those in finishing the work on time.

Daily work reports:

• Providing daily work report to team members helps in keeping track on the project.
• In daily work report there will be the tasks assigned for that day and buffer time to complete the assigned task. Every member needs to finish the task within the buffer time and fill the report and submit it to the project lead. The project lead will verify and ensure the project is on schedule to meet deadlines.