Blog Joe Kucharski, PMP, CSM

Successful Time Management Without Using a Time Machine

February 26, 2020

Photo: Joe Kucharski

Congratulations! Your agency won that big contract and you have been assigned the project. After the hands have been shaken, high-fives slapped, and celebratory lunch at Benihana digested, realization sets in; you have a full-on project to manage.

Hey, no worries, right? You are a PMI-certified project manager and you can list the PMBOK Knowledge Areas as smoothly as the chronological order of every James Bond movie; shaken, not stirred. The inputs, outputs, tools and techniques of Project Time Management are all effortlessly recited. But how easy is recital when dealing with the reality of a multi-million-dollar government project? Or the delivery of a data set for distribution between multiple, disparate teams? Or a twelve-page site redesign for a non-profit? All you need is time.

And unless you have access to a certain stylish DeLorean, time might be the one thing you don’t have.

Time Management could be viewed as solely one of the Knowledge Areas, but proper time management directly impacts the scope, cost, and quality of a project. Controlling the allotted time on a project clarifies the resources needed, human and procurement, and helps monitor the budget. The process of building a clear, strategic schedule provides a framework for developing a sequence of activities, risks, and resource estimations, and assists in determining how these individual elements fit together into the overall project management plan. Many projects rely on several different timelines and the calendars of multiple people—all of which must be considered when developing your project schedule. Everything must fit together, seamlessly if at all possible, into a complete project plan with a sharp eye on that delivery date.

Ready to jump in? Let’s not get too far yet. At least, not without a schedule. Time, after all, is not on your side.

Where Does All the Time Go?

Even more than being an esteemed project manager, sometimes the more important role to play is that of a guardian. In learning the cadence of your team. Some team members require a cushion for their deadlines. Others need a constant reminder. Some will unexpectedly take personal days. And, astonishingly, there are those resources who will not see your project as a priority. A few, if you’re lucky, will be overachievers.

Get to know your team and use that knowledge in your planning. Your access to the hottest designer on the block is fantastic when it comes to awards season, but lousy if their work is constantly three weeks late.

Don’t be afraid to push back on the responsibilities of the stakeholders or client, especially concerning deliverables. Late responses from the client or delays in resources will tremendously up end your delivery date unless you keep them accountable. Or, thinking ahead about these little-yet-oh-so-real distractions, you account for this lost time.

The first mistake many project managers make is looking at the requested project delivery date and thinking there is plenty of time. Sorry, wrong answer.

Want to know the right way? Planning to skim ahead in this article to the end? Here’s what you need for the easy A:

Do the work now. Develop a timeline and schedule first.

Even in a first draft, provide a buffer for things like unexpected roadblocks, misestimated timelines, and surprise risks. If you discover there is available time, don’t be afraid of delivering a project early.

How to Manage Time Properly

1. Schedule breathing room

Anticipate that the unexpected will most definitely arrive in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

Build in extra time organically according to milestone and resource. Don’t schedule QA to begin the day after the dev team promotes their code to GIT. Allow your developers to breathe. To review. To possibly devise a new, better understanding or solution. Working a schedule backwards from the delivery date helps in mathematically separating milestones into viewable nuggets but rarely accounts for the human factor.

Learn, and then control, the cadence of the project. Let it breathe in between those sprints.

2. Take advantage of technology

This is the second decade of the 21st Century. We might not have portable jetpacks and flying cars, but we do have iPhones and Chromebooks ready to be loaded with project management apps. Use these! Even if you are unsure if you can use monday on a Tuesday or from a Basecamp. Find what works within your established routine and comfort level. Don’t have the time to learn a new app? Use your calendar. Populate it with milestones, reminders, and notes. Turn on notifications for a week ahead and sync up across devices and platforms. I love hearing Alexa read out my daily schedule as I tie up my Docs and sip down that first cuppa. The waterfall solution need not be an uncontrollable cascade into an abyss.

Know what’s coming ahead and who is responsible for that delivery.

...Unless you want to spend Saturdays working alongside Lumbergh.

Mmmm.... Yeah.

3. Work with your team

Distribute workloads evenly across the team as much as possible. Let UX design and Front End develop and DBAs build. As they are working, work alongside and, most importantly, for them. Gather the responses for the QA team. Review the content edits with UX. Push the stakeholders and third-party vendors for the answers IT requires.

Working with the team builds an equal bond. Implore that this is everyone’s project and that all are equal participants. Yes, this means the content editor who worked for seven hours is as committed as the front-end developer who is seventy-seven hours deep. The project manager should not sit above in shadow witnessing all without interfering. Show the team your commitment every day. Don’t leave at four if QA plans to work until nine. You can DVR Jeopardy. You can’t make excuses if jeopardy hits your project while out bowling with the league. If a delay arises, you will hopefully be on-hand to mitigate before hitting the DEFCON 2 alarm.

4. Communicate!

Talk with your team, and not solely during the daily scrum. Ask to see their work and if there are any questions. Listen to what they say. Take a few of them across the street for pizza or coffee in order to clear your heads in a different environment while finding common ground. Your team is exactly that—a team.

Likewise, communicating regularly with project stakeholders and executives builds their trust in you. The occasional email update outside of usual project reports will ensure the execs have a handle on the project at hand and will learn that you do as well. Your commitment and awareness will be noticed. Hold on to their early goodwill and platitudes and don’t be afraid to cash in when a hitch impedes your giddy up.

Benefits of Proper Time Management

Any PM can plug in dates on Smartsheet and then annoy the team into submission over every mini-milestone. Don’t be that PM.

PMI rightly calls for the development of a framework that provides a sequence of activities and activity durations as required for the overall project plan. This remains important to the process. Estimate resources, equally human and technological, and the times required to onboard both. Then, consider the impact on the lives—professionally and personally—of everyone involved and the possible impact of this project on their careers. You are the gatekeeper of the project and are responsible for the entirety of its management. You are also the guardian of the team and must contemplate their valued needs within the project plan and project timeline.

The primary benefit of proper time management is to allow the teams to deliver effectively and for stakeholders to review properly, bringing about a successful, timely project launch.

Additional benefits of successful time management include:

Less stress
Increased productivity
Fewer mistakes
Improved proficiency
Meeting the budget
Achieving project goals

Time Management in Practice

Do yourself a favor and go watch the 2019 documentary Apollo 11. The film beautifully edits together archival footage of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon into a single, gorgeous narrative. The events span from the preparation of launch to the lunar landing to splashdown back on Earth. The movie also shows how a successful project is managed. Think about it. The project scope was fairly simple. President Kennedy, the project stakeholder, approached his project team, NASA, with his project scope. He wanted a man to land on the moon and then safely return home. The deadline was set for the end of the decade. At the time when the speech was given, September 1962, the project team had a little over seven years.

They succeeded with their plan in July 1969.

How? To make this incredibly herculean task sound absurdly simple, the larger task—getting a man to the moon – was broken down into smaller goals, each assigned to the proper team full of dedicated experts. These “smaller” teams dealt with individual, prioritized goals concerning rocket construction, working in a vacuum, space suit design, EVA controls, orbiting calculations, weather, capsule landing and retrieval, communications, and on, and on.

Again, how? Through detailed scope, time, cost, quality, resource, communication, risk, procurement, and stakeholder management. Sound familiar?

Your project may not be as deep or complex as sending a man to the moon but it might feel that way.

Here are a few ideas to manage the time in your project:

KISS

Keep it simple, Sam. Don’t overcomplicate tasks. Take a step back and evaluate why something is needed or requested. Look at the most effective means to accomplish the project goal.

Analyze time expenditures

Constantly review the time allocation of all resources and budgets. Ensure that the team is on track and on time with their deadlines. This goes back to project tracking. Get everything set in both the project calendar and your personal one.

Don’t waste valuable energy on worrying

There is too much going on with your project to waste time and energy on worrying. Instead of stressing about the unknown, act on the known. Ask your team SME for their insight. Research a solution. Request an extension from your stakeholder by presenting them with data and a revised plan. This is your project. You’ve got this!

Break down large goals into smaller steps

This worked for NASA, it will work for you. Take that WBS you created and concentrate on tackling those smaller tasks one at a time. Believe it or not, you will feel a sense of satisfaction every time you cross a deliverable off that list.

Set reachable goals

Create monthly, weekly, and daily goals for you and your team to hit. Yes, the entire project has a due date but instead focus on what to do now with attention on what to do next. Commit these goals into your preferred PM app or calendar to ensure you know what is next on your hit list.

Take short breaks

In other words, breathe. Take the occasional step back to renew and refresh. A properly-managed project should not include a ten-hour jam session on Sunday night.

Work when you have the most energy

In other words, gauge you and your team’s productivity. Is that carb-heavy lunch sapping away your team’s mid-afternoon speed? Schedule pre-lunch deliverables or review scrums. If not, you always have coffee.

Celebrate!

Whether it’s muffins and donuts from Dunkin’ or an open (albeit responsible!) tab at a Happy Hour, make time for the team to relax as a group. Show them you appreciate their work. Feel free to make this a goal; a prize to win.

One Final Example

Steve Martin plays a movie director in Lawrence Kasdan’s 1991 film Grand Canyon. During a key scene, he sums up a friend’s problems simply stating that he hasn’t seen enough movies. “All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies,” Martin correctly philosophizes.

Movie directors, you see, are project managers too. They take their producers’ plan, the scope, then work to conjure up some of that ole Hollywood magic in order to have a final product ready for its release date. To be successful, the director must wrangle a chaotic herd including the cast, construction crews, F/X artists, craft services, the writer’s guild, locations, marketing teams, editors, agents, and overbearing studios. Sometimes, if that directing PM knows their craft, that magic becomes art. Other times, the product is forgettable. The time you put into a project—any project—is too valuable to become forgettable. Call for Action forcefully and positively. Watch your teams perform on a stage of their making. Call Cut at the end of the day.

Don’t forget, especially during all the chaos a project can bring, that you have power. You are that conjurer and your magic is strong.

Stick to your plan.

Do the work.

Create some art.

After all, you have nothing but time, McFly.