Suppose you face a delay in your first milestone - how will you deal with this?

Question

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

First and foremost I would ensure to keep relevant stakeholders engaged with
constant communication on the reason why I failed to reach the milestone. I
would also apologize for the same and communicate a timeline when I would be
able to deliver the same. Secondly, I would do a root cause analysis on why I
failed to deliver the milestone and based on the issue, I would get the relevant
resources to address the problem. If it is out of my team's control, I would
communicate with the relevant team to see to it that we work across the two
functional teams to solve the problem.

Anonymous · Answer

I think the most probable thing to do is to find out the Root cause of the
delay. To check which area of work did not turn out to be well . Once we know
the root cause, the next step being what suitable measures, we could think of to
make sure we take the preventive steps to avoid any such delay in future, One
such scenario I could think about in my project  is,  client coming up with a
feature change at a very later stage of sprint end. At this moment of time ,
when we are close to the sprint release,  possible measures , we thought of
 discussing on the action items with the engineers and come up with suitable
time line or if we could take the feature as an intermediate hotfix after the
current release, so that the current release is not blocked.

Anonymous · Answer

As a program manager it is important that I perform my due diligence in
understanding the root cause of the delay and evaluate how delay will be induced
in original plan. I will also assess the nature of root cause whether it is a
temporary cause which can cause short term impact or a problem that needs to be
fixed to ensure sanctity to rest of the program. Long Term Causes could be
Testing delays, API unstability, integration failures whereas temporary delays
term could be users testing delayed due to business event. Based on this
assessment I will create my action plan and communication strategy to all
stakeholders. I will revise the program plan and milestones, show variance in
plan and record the root cause for same. I set up governance cadence with all
stakeholder to update on the impact, analysis and action plan strategy and send
a formal communication to bring everyone on board with the situation.

Anonymous · Answer

S: In my early days as Program Manager, I managed a project for one of our main
customers. This project had a very tight schedule and I promised to deliver the
first EVT units in a certain date.
T: As PM, it was my responsibility to ensure that everything was completed on
time, within budget, and in line with the quality standardsdefined at the
program kick-off.
A: Unfortunately, when I started to deep dive into the project and analyze the
technical details, I realized that meeting the original delivery timeline was
not feasible. So, I immediately took action by developing a new, realistic
schedule to mitigate the issue. To ensure better alignment, I implemented daily
opening and closing meetings with the core team to closely monitor activities
and prevent task duplication across teams. Two key factors contributed to the
milestone delay: a delay in component deliveries and one mistake on my part—I
had skipped one of the Reliability testsdefined by Engineering before product
delivery.
R: I highlighted the issue to my manager and shared my revised plan, including a
new feasible timeline. After explaining the situation, we worked together to
align on a new delivery date and informed our customer.
This experience taught me valuable lessons. Now, I always build buffer time into
my project schedules and work more closely with core team members to anticipate
potential risks. However, the most important lesson I learned was the value of
honesty and proactive communication—raising concerns early is crucial to
success.

Anonymous · Answer

First key action is it identify what is delayed, how is this delayed, what is
the overall status, red or yellow, summarize these, ensure to identify the steps
to address the delay, Communicate with Stakeholders by Keeping them informed
about the delay, overall status, and the path to green.
I would like to share an example of a delay in API review due to Primary
Software Development Engineer (SDE's) lack of experience in API reviews,
Challenges included difficulty in compiling key documents and summarizing them
for the review, resulting in a 1-week delay.
Secured additional partial SDE support to assist the Primary SDE in compiling
and summarizing the required documents where I also contributed to these.
Additionally it is only very limited window where reviewers are available, I had
to work with the Application Program Interface (API) reviewer manager to secure
API reviewer and collaborate with the team where I used meetings, slack and
emails and was eventually able to absorb the 1 week delay without impacting the
overall committed timeline.
Key Takeaways:
· Proactive identification of delays and their root causes is critical.
· Collaboration and communication with stakeholders are essential to managing
delays effectively.
· Providing additional support and resources can help mitigate delays and
maintain project timelines.
Additionally I ensured that the key resources are able to identify the key need
by dates for each task, know what they need to be able to complete the task, ask
where support is needed also have clear communication on the delays in task that
will help manage the program to create success for everyone.

Anonymous · Answer

I will document the delay as a risk and look for mitigations as soon as I find
out the delay. Using the documented risk I will communicate with stakeholders to
keep them informed and ensure alignment in the mitigating steps. As this is the
first milestone I would ensure that milestones that depend on it won’t be
impacted.
I faced a similar challenge when managing the Flutter security program where
everything depended on the implementation of secure infrastructure. The way I
managed delays on some of the milestones was with a detailed risk and dependency
management. Ensuring there were multiple tasks that could be worked on when one
of the work streams got blocked. This way I managed to make consistent progress
with efficient use of resources. Updating the program plans, running frequent
risks assessments and effective communication were the key tools to keep the
program execution timelines and any deviations from the program approved and
evaluated by stakeholders.

Anonymous · Answer

The primary aspect would be to keep the transparency with the stakeholders.
Analyze the reason for the delay - whether it is a delay due to technical issues
or any 3rd party - communicate this to the customers. Along with it share the
next planned release date for the first milestone.

Anonymous · Answer

The first thing I would do is communicate with Stakeholder.  Announce the delay
and outline of action plan to address the solution, just so I can maintain
transparency and trust.   In the mean time, I would try to figure the root of
issue.   Once found, I would re-culculate the timeline, re-prioritize the hight
impact task, and implement solution.

Suppose you face a delay in your first milestone - how will you deal with this?

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