In my early days as Program Manager, I managed a project for one of our main customers. This project consisted in a touch screen device to control a Large format printer for HP. The 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 coordinate a cross-functional team to deliver the program on time, within budget, and in line with the scope agreed with our customer.
A: When I started to dive deep into the project and analyze the technical details, I realized that meeting the original delivery timeline was not feasible. So, I immediately met the core team to develop a new and realistic schedule to mitigate the issue. To ensure better alignment, I implemented daily opening and closing meetings with the team to monitor activities and prevent task duplication between cross-functional teams. Two key factors contributed to the milestone delay: a delay in component deliveries and one mistake on my part—I didn’t include in my schedule the LT for one of the Reliability tests required by Engineering before the Ok2ship milestone.
R: I highlighted the issue to my manager and shared with him the root cause of the problem and the new plan. Then, we reached the customer together to explain the situation and kept working together on the new committed schedule.
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.
