How To Negotiate For Timelines And Schedule Of A Project

Project Management / By

Negotiation is necessary part in almost every area of the project, from defining scope to time required to accomplish the tasks, from resource allocation to cost and budget. This can involve one-on-one negotiation or with a group of people. It is important for a project manager to learn this art and to set realistic expectations regarding project risk and time required in both best and worst case scenarios.

Do your homework

Project managers is the best judge of the time required to complete different phases of the project with a given budget and resources. So it is his responsibility to ensure that clients, sponsors, and other stakeholders understand the realities of project estimating.

List down the following

  • Possible trade-offs among cost, scope, time, and quality with impact of change in one constraint over other.
  • Possible risks and extra budget required for risk response strategy.
  • If you are a technical project manager, try to take a better insight of the project by having a meeting with the relevant stakeholder or any subject matter expert.
  • You must be updated with the latest design and technology required for you project. Also does it support the requirements?  What is the current user base, can it increase with time, if yes how would it affect the project (example low speed due to increase in load).
  • Understand your limitations and control. Are regulatory restrictions involved and external permits if any, taken as per the process?  Clearly outline the realistic waiting time along with the possibility of delays, not in your control.
  • Assess the level of complexity of the project complexity. So that you can negotiate for time and effort required for managing that complexity.

Some tips for negotiation

  • Do not focus on theories given by others, concentrate on your current project and take decision based on facts and figures.
  • Don’t get persuaded by influential stakeholders, and take decision in excitement. Explore the potential impacts of unmet expectations as end of the day it is you who would be answerable to him.
  • Explore all the possibility of changes later on, so please be very careful while outlining the scope. make sure that the scope of the work is well defined and that there is sufficient budget
  • Also check for your change approval process and how strong change control board is.
  •  Try to prioritize the tasks in time effective manner, check the impact of using techniques like crashing and fast tracking, so as to reduce the total time to great extent.
  • Document all the possible risk, also check if the risk understood and acceptable? Is the client willing to be accountable for potential impacts?
  • Go through the lessons learned documents of past similar projects, and compare the changes with respect to technology and organizational maturity, in the duration between the two projects.
  • Put your suggestion like, it is better to deliver a quality product with extra time than to deliver a poor quality product on time.
  • Do outline all the external dependencies and their impact on your project.

And finally, take a realistic decision to the best of your knowledge. Don’t forget, the goal of the negotiation is a plan that is highly likely to be actualized to satisfy realistic expectations. Every negotiation needs a well-articulated plan with all the supporting documents to justify the project schedule in the stipulated cost and budget.

About Aditi Malhotra

Aditi Malhotra is the Content Marketing Manager at Whizlabs. Having a Master in Journalism and Mass Communication, she helps businesses stop playing around with Content Marketing and start seeing tangible ROI. A writer by day and a reader by night, she is a fine blend of both reality and fantasy. Apart from her professional commitments, she is also endearing to publish a book authored by her very soon.

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