In the list of things a project manager dreads, missing the project deadline is there at the top. The delayed project delivery could result in lost sales. It could also give your competitors the chance to launch their product ahead of you, thereby gaining market advantage. Then, there is the matter of your company’s reputation being damaged.

Reasons for wrong estimations of the deadline

There are primarily two reasons for a wrong estimation.

One is that you underestimate just how complex a project is: there is a huge gulf between the estimated tasks that are required to pull off the project and the actual number of tasks.

This is largely caused by relying on previous projects as the basis for estimates.

While projects may share superficial similarities, the fact remains that each project is unique. Unless you can analyze a deeper set of data than what is obvious, you wouldn’t be able to accurately estimate the project completion date.

Traditional analytics tools just aren’t capable enough to process such complexities of data.

Instead, in software development projects, the common methods used for predicting project deadlines include counting the number of lines of code and story points. But these values could be qualitative in nature, specific to each team and project. This means it would be hard to estimate these values accurately before the project begins. This in turn leads to the wrong prediction for project delivery.

Thankfully, we now have technology which is literally super-human in its ability to capture and process the complexities of a given scenario

I’m Productive, for instance, uses an Artificial Intelligence(AI) tool which replicates human estimate skill and then amplifies it by multiple counts. In the process, the tool makes use of data which would not be easy to process by an ordinary piece of software. The end result is a highly accurate delivery date prediction.

Using this prediction tool is easy. You just click on the “AI Predict” button at any point in the project’s progress to find out if a project will be completed at the predicted time.

The second reason why project managers end up with a wrong prediction is that they overestimate the output of their team members. Once again, the root of the cause is basing your analysis on previous projects.

The assumption is that the same issues that confronted the previous projects could only befall the new project. It’s also assumed the core specifications would remain unchanged and that resources would always be available whenever there’s a need. But the ground reality is often different.

This is why I’m Productive helps you track your team’s productivity in real-time. It’s not just the overall team’s output that you can view in real-time but also that of individual members. This tracking is non-intrusive as practices like taking screenshots etc., which affect employee privacy are avoided. Also, arbitrary data like the time someone goes on break is not factored in the system will automatically pause the timer when they go on break and when they resume work, so would the timer.

This results in an accurate view of productivity, which in turn results in accurate prediction of project delivery.

So, no more lost revenue from delayed project delivery. Instead, enjoy a predictable revenue cycle by accurately predicting project delivery with just a few taps on the screen!