A focus on schedule can significantly impact your project success, especially in mission-driven organizations, and concrete deadlines can help us set concrete expectations for our stakeholders and our teams. We can also use our project schedules to encourage engagement:

Ask your team and key stakeholders for feedback on a draft schedule. As a project manager, you can estimate how long tasks and activities will take and set deadlines and milestones based on project needs, but your team and stakeholders are often better positioned to point out possible delays or conflicts with your draft schedule. Especially in mission-driven organizations where projects typically involve diverse groups of stakeholders who likely aren't able to devote themselves to the project full time, it's critical to get input on a draft schedule.

Share your schedule broadly. Share the finalized schedule broadly so that your team members understand how a delay in their tasks might impact the entire project. A collaborative approach to managing your project schedule, one that goes beyond merely assigning a project completion date or tasks deadlines, can support engagement throughout a project, connecting your stakeholders to the evolving story of your project along a timeline and helping team members understand their own contributions to your project success.

Use milestones as opportunities to check in and celebrate success. We can use milestones as progress check-in points for our tasks and activities, engaging with our team to see how things are progressing with a particular task. We can also use milestones as opportunities within the project's timeline to acknowledge effort and accomplishments. Instead of waiting until the end of a project, when your teams are exhausted, your stakeholders are focused on implementation, and most everyone has already moved on to the next project or initiative or gone back to their regular role, celebrating successes throughout a project can encourage continued engagement and effort.

Learn more about project schedules in our Project Schedule Microtraining.

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