Would you please comment on this discussion and add your thought in 3 to 4 sentences?

In my opinion, scheduling issues are fairly prevalent for any type of project. I was involved in a medical device product development project in one of my previous companies with the ultimate goal of obtaining regulatory approvals and commercializing the products in Japan. Given the industry's highly regulated nature, there were many hurdles to clear, including conducting clinical trials and non-clinical tests, aligning with government authorities on the clinical trial designs and development strategies, and securing good reimbursement pricing. One of the primary reasons for the project delay was a conflict over the product safety validation test methods between the government authorities and the overseas manufacturer. The method used was approved by the FDA but did not have precedence in Japan. The Japanese authorities were hesitant to accept the data. Conversely, the manufacturer was very confident about their data and was firmly against conducting additional tests suggested by the Japanese authorities due to cost and time. To negotiate a compromise and reach a consensus, we had to conduct multiple additional consultations with the authorities and produce comparison data. The conflict extended the project timeline by over a year and put a heavy strain on our relationship with the manufacturer.

Scheduling issues often cause the most conflicts because not only would it affect the time and scope constraints of projects but also delay in project completion is often accompanied by opportunity costs. Companies often compete for first-to-market advantages, and failing to launch before competitors could require drastic changes in marketing strategies, or at worst, make the product obsolete. If the scope of the project is to address an existing problem, schedule delay could result in severe reputational damage to the company or loss of customers. Therefore, stakeholder management would become very challenging, and the opposition to the project could increase.

Even if the scheduling issues are less serious, they would still impact staffing and procurements. Highly specialized tasks are dependent on securing the people with the needed expertise, so projects might have to be delayed even further to accommodate for the new staff availability. If the staffing is already secured for the long-term after completing your project based on the original timeline, you would need to negotiate their staffing with the other project managers/sponsors or obtain a budget to hire external talents. The timing for the supplies is also impacted, and lack of storage spaces or short expiry periods could require changes in production and delivery schedule. The feasibility of the changes would have to be negotiated with the third-party vendors and might incur contractual penalties.

References

1.Schwalbe, K., Information Technology Project Management. 8th ed (2017). Cengage Learning, Boston, MA.

2.A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK Guide 6th Edition. 2017. Project Management, Inc. Pennsylvania, USA.