A project schedule might look fine on the surface, but that doesn’t mean it’s truly reliable. Here are ten warning signs your schedule might not be as solid as it looks — and what to do about them.
1. You can’t explain the critical path without checking the software
Do you know what tasks are on the critical path for the project? If you don’t know what is driving the delivery dates, you can’t manage the risk.
How to fix: Make sure everyone has clarity on what activities sit on the critical path. The team should know what key tasks are driving the end date so they can make better decisions and protect those activities.
2. Milestones don’t align with deliverables or approval gates
You’ve put milestones on the plan, but they don’t align with contracted deliverable dates or phase approvals. You can have standalone milestones on the project schedule, but you should also have some that are linked to your major governance points and external validation or client sign off. These are the ones that you can highlight at steering meetings or on client reviews.
Without clear sight of the external and governance milestones, it can be hard to track real progress or get your earned value metrics to line up.
How to fix: Identify what additional milestones it would be worth having and add them to the plan.
3. Most tasks have start or finish constraints
If you’ve manually added start or finish constraints into your scheduling tool for tasks, then you’re missing an opportunity. Too many constraints override logic-driven scheduling and make it more likely that you miss something in the planning.
How to fix: Use dependencies instead where possible. Then you can lean into logic-driven scheduling and use your software to the best of its abilities.
4. There’s no buffer or contingency in the timeline
Have you put some contingency time in your schedule? Often, we find that even if the project team wanted to give themselves that buffer, management strips out the allocation. The trouble with that is your schedule becomes brittle under any pressure – and there’s plenty of pressure in projects! Even if it’s a project you’ve done many times with an experienced team, you might hit challenges that make it hard to maintain the original project schedule.
It’s always better to come in early than to have to ask the client for more time.
How to fix: Introduce buffer tasks or contingency allocations at the level of tasks, phases or even the project overall if it makes sense to do so. We tend to default to risk-based contingency – the higher the risk, the more contingency you need – but if you don’t have the data for that, a flat 10% will do.
You could also apply schedule risk analysis to highlight areas where it would be worth spending a little more time.
5. Activities are too long or too vague
Scan through your schedule and look for tasks that span multiple weeks with generic names like ‘development’ or ‘testing’. Hmm, a testing phase that’s taking four weeks? It would be better to break that down.
In this example with testing, you’d split it out into unit testing, smoke testing, system testing, integration testing, user acceptance testing, regression testing, or whatever process your organization uses. Use milestones to mark moving between testing stages. There. Your schedule looks better already!
How to fix: Break down longer tasks into shorter, measurable components for better forecasting and tracking.
6. No one updates progress consistently
When was the last time the schedule was updated? If you’re anything like me, you’re in your plan every day tweaking and updating, making sure the work is happening in line with what was expected.
But sometimes work runs away with you and you don’t have time to do the updates. Schedule updates turn sporadic or worse, politically motivated with only the good news reported. Earned value metrics become useless if EV isn’t current, so you need to make sure that the schedule is maintained appropriately.
How to fix: Find time to update the schedule regularly, or create a culture where everyone updates their own activities. If you have a dedicated scheduler on the team, that can be much easier to do, but if the updates fall to you, do your best to block out time each week to make the changes.
7. Resource allocations don’t reflect reality
There’s a risk with schedules that don’t manage resource allocations effectively: you can end up with the same person working 100% on three tasks in parallel. Because that’s not possible, however efficient your staff member is!
Don’t risk delays, burnout, and inaccurate EV baselines.
How to fix: Make sure resource allocations reflect people’s availability. Talk through the plans with resource managers and keep them updated when work patterns change.
8. Dependencies are missing or incomplete
Similar to the issue with date constraints above, missing dependencies make it hard for you to manage the work and understand the flow of activity through the project. Watch out for a flat-looking Gantt chart with no logic ties.
How to fix: Build a network-driven plan to make forecasting meaningful. Identify the dependencies between tasks (your subject matter experts will help identify these) and then link tasks through your enterprise project management software.
9. There’s no link between the schedule and cost baseline
When there’s no connection between the project schedule and the cost baseline, your EVM data becomes unreliable.
How to fix: You could integrate cost-loaded schedules or map activities to control accounts. These are both advanced scheduling techniques, so if those ideas don’t feel achievable to you, maybe simply log the problem as a potential risk for transparency of data and turn to the people who are earned value management experts on the team for support.
10. Stakeholders treat it like ‘the planner’s problem’
Do people consider the project schedule as a technical tool, not a shared working document? That’s a problem as it should be everyone’s go to document for what’s happening when.
How to fix: Embed schedule ownership into team rituals and reporting. Make it everyone’s responsibility to keep tasks updated. In organizations where you have a dedicated expert scheduler (or a restriction on the number of people with enterprise project management licences like Primavera P6), keep the channels of communication open and find ways to share delivery information so the schedule remains updated.
A project schedule can look finished but still be fundamentally weak. Spotting these clues early gives you time to put them right before the real work starts to go off track. Did these warning signs sound familiar to you? It might be time for a schedule health check and a second pair of eyes to look over your plans to see where you can improve your scheduling and in turn improve your project’s chances of hitting its dates.