Missing the development project deadline is nothing less than havoc. The idea of not being able to complete the project within stipulated time creates a higher stress level and disturbance in the development process.
This limits your level of innovation and reflects a low level of professionalism – making clients believe that you might not be the best option, thus putting your career at stake.
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This creates an urge to look into different ways to complete the development project within the pre-decided timeline and thus, reap higher benefits – something on which we will focus upon in this article.
But before we dive into how to deliver the project on time, let’s see the factors that prevent you from completing the project by the deadline date.
The Real Culprits of Missed Project Deadlines
- Unrealistic Timeline
In the surge to get a prospective client converted, many development companies quote the lowest timeline for project delivery. They do not even go through the ‘Scope of Work’ document to see what the app project is all about, what challenges they might face and what timeline is suitable to share. As a result, they get the deal but struggle later to hand over the project on time.
- No Clear Goals
Many times, the development team starts a project without having a comprehensive knowledge of what the client wants and ensuring that everyone is on the same page. Every team member works with the amount of information they received or understood., and invest time into proving that the information they received is apt. Because of this, they often end up working in contradictory directions, resulting in a less-to-no possibility of project completion by the time of the deadline.
- Unavailability of Resources
Many software and mobile app development companies share their resources for working on different projects. They do not have a dedicated resource for every individual project. An outcome of this is that they have to wait for the availability of resources more often, which delays the project completion stage.
- Endless Changes in Development
Thanks to changing market trends and lack of proper research done prior to the development process, many projects suffer from multiple changes every now and then. Because of this, the overall speed of the project development gets hampered, eventually shifting the project delivery date forward.
So, here were some of the reasons why we often slip delivering a project on the predetermined date. Keeping the gained insights into consideration, let’s look forward to determining different ways one can complete a project within time smoothly and effectively, besides setting a realistic deadline:-
Factors that Accelerates the Project Development Speed (And Ensures On-Time Delivery)
- Have an Internal Project Deadline
The very first thing you can do is to introduce an internal project deadline in addition to the one shared with the client such that both the deadlines have a significant time gap. On doing so, you get ample of benefits in both the scenarios, i.e, when you hit the project on internal deadline and when not, which ultimately gives you an escape from the fear of missing the deadline.
Let me explain how.
Suppose, you asked a client for 45 days to develop an app and set an internal deadline of 39 days for the same project. Now, if you get the project ready by the 39th day, you have enough time to test the app and make it go viral. Whereas, on the flip side, you still have 6 days in hand to build your app project, which means delivering the app by the 45th day.
- Avoid the Concept of Multitasking
Multitasking might seem a cool concept, but brings an adverse impact on the development project timeline. The approach keeps developers busy in multiple tasks, resulting in an increase in the project complexity, time blockage, and a decrease in productivity. This further leads to the project deadline extension.
So, it is profitable to focus on one task at a time instead of worrying about million of tasks on the list and end up accomplishing nothing.
- Employ a Project Management Tool
A project management tool aids you to organize and manage your tasks effectively – right from planning to collaboration, documentation and evaluation. It empowers you to have a bird view of the project progress and prepare for better outcomes, in case the project is lagging behind the desired timeline.
When talking about using a tool for handling your development work, there are various popular project management tools in the market, a few of which are shared in the image below.
- Keep Higher Load in the Front days
While most of the development teams prefer dividing the tasks equally for all the days, completing 70% of the process in the first half of the timeline is a worthwhile act. It avails you with more time and flexibility to enhance your project at the end and taste success in the market, rather than struggling to make a balance between working on the existing plan and the upcoming changes.
So, plan with a 70/30 approach to make it certain that your development project does not miss the deadline.
- Embrace Agile Scrum Methodology
Another method that can accelerate your project development speed without compromising on the quality factor is Agile Scrum.
The approach, as per the reputed software and app development agencies, focuses on dividing the project into submodules such that each one of them can be treated as an independent mini-project. That implies individual teams are assigned to each module who perform all the tasks – from market research to designing, development, and testing – and then, club all the parts together.
This way, it aids to ensure that the project is developed at a faster pace, with lesser dependency on each other, and by performing the maximum number of tests, which eventually result into getting a project delivered to the clients even before the stipulated timeline and that too with higher success ratio.
- Practice Maintaining Daily/Weekly Reports
Maintaining a daily/weekly record of the milestones touched is also a powerful method to get clarity of whether the project will be done by the time of delivery or not. Besides, it can let you look into what are the areas where the resources or efforts are underused or overused. This information further makes it easier for the development team to revamp their plans and strategies and relish exceptional outcomes.
- Communicate Regularly
Last but not least, communicating with your team and clients is also beneficial in completing the project on time.
The practice of open communication and transparency in the work with your team and client helps you to gain more insights about what can be improved in the project, what update is must for better outcomes, what should be excluded from the functionalities of the developed software, etc. This, on the long run, let you deliver an application/software that the clients need at the deadline time, instead of sharing the software and receiving it back later for changes.
Missing a project development deadline can leave a negative impression on your clientele and adversely affect your market position and future plans. So, do not overlook the situation. Look forward to focusing on the factors shared in this article while working on a project and thus, prevent missing a deadline.
Contributor Bio: Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Technology and 2 years of work experience in a mobile app development company, Bhupinder has worked closely with developers and has gained knowledge of development lifecycle. When not interacting with app experts, you will find her spreading her knowledge and sipping coffee.