Meeting deadlines and timeframes

under promise, over deliver

I too, would hear the 4 weeks. Yep, 6 weeks would be OK, but 7 weeks could piss me off.
Now if you called me at say 2 of 3 weeks and said 4 weeks was not gonna happen... then IF continued updates were made, that would be better.

you never know, the delivery date might be really important for some obscure (to you) reason...

Agree with under promise, over deliver. "I'll get that to you early next week". Send it out Friday. ...

My old boss constantly over promised and under delivered. Needless to say we had a parade of angry clients who wouldn't be using us again. Big part of why I moved on.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

Wh

Peter Ehlert, post: 364330, member: 60 wrote: under promise, over deliver

I too, would hear the 4 weeks. Yep, 6 weeks would be OK, but 7 weeks could piss me off.
Now if you called me at say 2 of 3 weeks and said 4 weeks was not gonna happen... then IF continued updates were made, that would be better.

you never know, the delivery date might be really important for some obscure (to you) reason...

While I agree somewhat for me the key word is approximate. It was impossible for me to give an exact time frame therefore an approximate was more appropriate.

Our contracts state a time frame and most of the year state that adverse weather can affect our delivery date.

Depends on circumstances. Those with pre-established deadlines of their own tend to get priority. If it's a project they have intended to get around to for months or years I don't get overly concerned. Those who will pay upon delivery get highest priority. Being paid at closing usually sucks. Ninety percent or more of my clients are individuals. That makes a difference.

Peter Ehlert, post: 364330, member: 60 wrote: under promise, over deliver

Exactly! If I think I can do it in 2 weeks, I'll put "approximately 3 to 4 weeks" in the contract. Occasionally you will lose a job this way, but if so, they probably had unrealistic expectations and you didn't want the job anyway.

I give a "Target time for completion: approximately XX weeks after receipt of signed Agreement and deposit" or some other event.

I also don't specify an exact date of completion. If I were to say the project will be completed by April 4, that would guarantee they would hire me on April 3!

As mentioned above, I also include the possibility of delays by weather, design changes, approval delays, etc.

If a client says they really want it sooner, and if I think I might be able to do it, I'll tell them something like "I'll do it as fast as I can, but I cannot promise to have it by that date." I have one current client who wanted me to commit to a February 3 date for submission to the local NRC for an addition in the wetland buffer zone. I told him no, that was less than a week away, we hadn't even started AND I didn't even have the addition plans yet (he's an architect, designing his own addition). It's now the end of March, and I still don't have addition plans from him. I don't think I'm going to make that February 3 date!

In my early career, I used to have the opinion that the only thing that matters is doing the work correctly and well. I mean, after 10 years go by, who's going to remember that it was a week late? But I have found that clients value getting the work done when they expect almost as much (or maybe even more sometimes) than they care about the price. If they have unrealistic expectations, it's up to you to change that. The only way to be sure of delivering on time is to under promise/deliver early or work yourself to death!

"I love deadlines. I love the whoosing noise they make as they go by." -Douglas Adams

I always try to work with the potential client during the proposal phase so that I can learn what their expectations are as far as timing and possibly get the reasoning behind it. For most clients, they just want it done as soon as possible. But sometimes they have a reason for that ASAP. They might have a projected closing date on the property or something like that. Sometimes the survey work is for a development project and so there are other pieces the client is working on that need to "mesh" with the survey work. So if I can get that information, I will know how to best focus my efforts (and contract for appropriately) to achieve the needs of the client.

For internal work, however, I've often found that the design teams just want whatever survey work they need to be done "right now" as a "top priority". Obviously, with multiple design projects but only one survey department, that doesn't happen. So there is sometimes that "power struggle" as the project managers vie for that coveted "top priority" spot. It doesn't happen nearly as much now that I'm with a smaller company. But at one point, I had about a dozen project managers all having to work with me as I scheduled and executed their survey work with my field crews and office team.

I would often run into the issue of a project manager completely failing to consider the survey work they needed done and then they would somehow expect me to treat their particular project as the top priority solely because they failed to plan appropriately on their end. I remember one example of a PM coming to me to ask how long it would take to get the final map recorded. I told him that typical turn around time was 4 months. He said, "What? The client needs the map done next month!" I told the project manager that he should have asked me about the map 3 months ago, then. Of course he tried to "go over my head" and have the boss tell me to put it on top priority and work on nothing else but that map. He didn't realize that the estimated time was based upon the fact that the map had to be submitted to the local agency for review and the majority of the time I estimated was based upon the typical turnaround time for the local agency review, not my own time in the office.