Before you say yes: how to know a project fits

A client asks for a date. Somebody looks at the calendar, sees a few free afternoons and says yes. Three weeks later two other promises slip, and nobody can say when the decision was made that they would.

It was made at the yes. The free afternoons were never free: they were the time the rest of the work was going to use.

The three questions behind every yes

• When would it really be ready, with everything else still in the week?
• What would have to move to make that date, and who owns it?
• Which promise to another client would slip because of it?

A calendar cannot answer them, because a calendar shows meetings, not the work waiting for the gaps between them. The plan can.

Ask the plan, not the calendar

In Schedule Operator you tell the planner the work, the hours and who would do it. It runs your real week with the new work in it and answers in seconds: the ready date, every task that would move, and every promise that would slip. Nothing is saved until you press yes, so you can ask as many times as you like – with a different date, a different person or half the scope.

It also gives you the second answer every good project lead wants: the date it would be ready if nothing else moved. That is usually the date to offer.

What to tell the client

• If it fits without moving anything: the date, and that it is safe.
• If it fits only by moving others: the date, after you have decided who waits.
• If it does not fit: the earliest date it would, and why that one is honest.

When the answer is yes, one press makes the project and the tasks, the hours split between the people you chose, and Autopilot plans them – so that the yes you gave is already in the week.