Thinking back on your school days, do you remember how you responded when your instructors assigned you a term paper? They gave you all the requirements well in advance, including how many sources to use, how many footnotes you needed at minimum, how many pages it should be, etc.

Upon receiving the assignment, you and your fellow students probably fell into one of two categories:

• You planned accordingly, paced out the work, and got it done according to a plan. No stress, no mess.
• You crammed all the work into the last week (or day?) when you knew that you couldn’t procrastinate any longer lest you bear the wrath of your instructor.

You were probably consistent with your approach, too. Every term paper, every group project, every exam, you were either a planner or a crammer. I did not know any students who shifted regularly between the two; maybe you did.

Not surprisingly, the preferred approach follows people into their careers.

The Impact of Cramming

Fast forward to the current day. What is the state of your current project? Do you have a plan? Is everyone on board with that plan? Do you have crammers who wait for the last minute to complete their tasks, not knowing how starting at the last minute might impact the project or their teammates? (But they’ll tell you, “Don’t worry, I’ll get it done on time.” And sometimes, they are right.) Are you regularly adjusting schedules or discussing workarounds with your stakeholders to make up for crammers not completing their tasks on time or with the right quality?

Or are you the crammer? Maybe it’s a distrust of following someone else’s plan. Or you do your best thinking on your feet, in the moment. Or you just can’t explain why it works for you, but it does (followed by the requisite shrug, smile, and giggle).

Have you ever been wrong? Does “instructor wrath” ever get replaced with project concern by the project manager or sponsor?

What if you have more than one crammer on your team? What kind of stress does that bring to the project sponsor? The project manager? You? Your team? How does it impact morale and performance? How do you minimize or remove that risk?

The Anti-Cramming Approach

Most likely, it is not your job to get a leopard to change its spots; so much for getting your crammers to be planners!

Project schedules are comprised of tasks, and the effort and duration required of each. Estimating how long activities will take can be difficult enough. Add in a teammate’s normal operational responsibilities and those daily, unexpected firefights, and a tightly formulated schedule can unwind quickly. It affects the planners trying to meet their tight deadlines, too.

Your project manager has schedule management tools in their PM toolbox to help prepare for and address these issues. From conservative estimating, to strategic use of lead and lag time (a personal favorite), to aspirational milestone planning, your project manager will learn your team and assess the best ways to mitigate a good bit of that test cramming.

Changing people is difficult; planning for how people operate is not. To see how EPMS can position your team of planners and crammers for project success, contact us at inquiry@essentialpmservices.com.