Most delays in projects start before even the project initiates

It is true that, most of the time, the timescales that have been put together for project deliveries don't account for one crucial thing: the project manager. Essentially, the person with the most experience—the one who has lived through the project in its most intense, internal form, the one who dealt with ambiguity and unexpected events, and, more importantly, the one responsible for steering the ship from one side to the other—was not involved when the proposal was submitted to the client.

We might say that we capture lessons learned after the project, but we usually tend not to learn from our mistakes. Unfortunately, most project timelines are put together without the participation of the project manager. There are a couple of reasons for that:

First, people in general don't feel the urgency to act—especially when the responsibility will soon fall on someone else. We often delay things without any specific reason until we feel pressured to act. And this pressure is purely subjective. It depends on each person's appetite for responsibility. Unfortunately, many people procrastinate—a lot.

Second, we often try to satisfy unreasonable client requests in order to secure a contract, even if we know deep down that what we’re promising isn’t really achievable. Our tendency to say “yes” to almost everything and then figure it out later puts us in a position of overshooting and overpromising. But this becomes a trap for those on the front lines. Closing the deal is only the first step—maintaining a healthy relationship with the client is the last.

Third, the people involved in setting timescales often don’t have real project experience. Sales teams, for example, may throw together rough schedules—often without consulting the right people, just to stay on the safe side from their point of view. Their motivation may come from commissions or departmental targets. This urgency on their end often doesn’t reflect the reality of what needs to be done at the project level.

Last but not least, the planning fallacy. We’re all guilty of making inaccurate assumptions when it comes to schedules. Science has backed this up and even named it: the planning fallacy. It stems from our natural tendency to underestimate how long things will take—our cognitive bias towards optimism and our low appetite for risk when planning. Even if we failed miserably last time, we still make the same assumptions again. Our inability to learn from mistakes—or the painfully slow nature of the learning curve—is one of the main reasons we fail to meet deadlines.

So, the answer to how we can make things right is simple: involve project-related people earlier in the proposal stage. Don’t just bring them in once the timescale has already been decided. Consult the right people—not only to align with our clients but to make sure we build healthy relationships and deliver projects that last the right amount of time without compromising key elements like budget, scope, or quality just to hit a deadline.