{"id":1892,"date":"2011-06-10T14:41:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T19:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/?p=1892"},"modified":"2011-06-13T14:01:56","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T19:01:56","slug":"meeting-immovable-deadlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/meeting-immovable-deadlines\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting immovable deadlines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name=\"20110610\"><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-728\" title=\"SaveTime\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/SaveTime.jpg\" alt=\"Save Time\" width=\"76\" height=\"100\" \/>Depending on which research firm you believe, anywhere from 50-90% of IT projects are completed late.  While I could rattle off any number of reasons for this, I think that (much of the time) it boils down to one problem: Being late is an option.  The deadline is viewed merely as a suggestion&#8230;it\u2019s not the end of the world if it\u2019s missed.  We\u2019ll just inform management that the project is running behind schedule and then set a new deadline.<\/p>\n<p>But, what if being late wasn\u2019t an option?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>What if you were working on a project with a very specific, and unmovable deadline?  Obviously, you\u2019d have to find a way to meet that deadline.  I have a great example of an IT staff in this very situation.<\/p>\n<p>The Boone County IT department needed to create an ePollbook application in time for an upcoming election.  For those unaware, an ePollbook is used in place of paper-based pollbooks and lets voting officials review and\/or process voter information electronically during an election. It simplifies the voter check-in process and eliminates long wait times.<\/p>\n<p>However, Boone County\u2019s IT department faced a couple problems: They weren\u2019t sure how they were going to create it, and they had a very strict deadline.  You can\u2019t just move an election back because a project is behind schedule.<\/p>\n<p>What did they do?  They managed to create the application in time for the election, using their current skills and staff.  <a onclick=\"javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('\/blog\/Click\/B110614_HowToMeetUnmovableDeadlines');\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/customers\/Boone.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: red; font-weight: bold;\">Read the whole story<\/span><\/a> to find out how they did it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Depending on which research firm you believe, anywhere from 50-90% of IT projects are completed late. While I could rattle off any number of reasons for this, I think that (much of the time) it boils down to one problem: Being late is an option. The deadline is viewed merely as a suggestion&#8230;it\u2019s not the &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/meeting-immovable-deadlines\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Meeting immovable deadlines<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","slim_seo":{"title":"Meeting immovable deadlines - mrc&#039;s Cup of Joe Blog","description":"Depending on which research firm you believe, anywhere from 50-90% of IT projects are completed late. While I could rattle off any number of reasons for this, I"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-1892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-save-time","tag-productivity-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1892"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1926,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892\/revisions\/1926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrc-productivity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}