Imagine you are managing a major project with an approved baseline schedule and a contractual completion date.
Your analysis indicates that the deadline is no longer realistically achievable. Several critical dependencies remain unresolved, productivity assumptions are proving optimistic, and the time required for testing and commissioning has been underestimated.
You present your assessment to senior management.
The response is clear: "The date has already been committed to the client. We cannot change it. Find a way to deliver."
You now face a difficult choice.
Do you continue working towards the original deadline, knowing that the probability of success is low? Or do you formally challenge the commitment, potentially creating conflict with senior management and exposing yourself to criticism for being insufficiently results oriented?
There is another complication: pushing the team to meet an unrealistic deadline may increase costs, encourage excessive overtime, compromise quality, and create safety risks. Yet abandoning the target too early could also undermine the team's motivation and eliminate opportunities for recovery.
Is it the project manager's responsibility to deliver against the committed date, or to ensure that management understands the realistic probability of achieving it?
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