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Submitted 27 Oct 2005
Dear Q&A,
I have a very capable and intelligent person working for me in IT. He is pleasant and has enough enthusiasm for two people. He takes care of the routine work well enough, but when he takes on more complex jobs he misses schedule deadlines and convinces me that the slips are unavoidable. This has become a very predictable trend and although it all makes sense when he’s explaining it to me I still need the work to be done. What can I do?
“Buying the explanations” in Toronto
Dear Buying,
Often capable and intelligent people have the ability to put more into a complex job than is immediately visible. As the job progresses so does their understanding and insight. This naturally leads them to expand the scope of the problem and its solution, AND they are quite adept and providing compelling reasons to support their case – that’s why it all “makes sense” to you as the schedule slips. They are driven more to demonstrate their technical competence than to bring closure to the ever expanding task.
As part of their tasking ask them to provide you with a schedule that breaks down the larger job into smaller manageable tasks and includes consideration for schedule, scope and resources. In this way you are honouring their need to demonstrate their competence while arriving at a schedule that you both buy in to. Be sure that sufficient review checkpoints are built in so that you can monitor progress and be involved in any decisions to expand or limit scope. In some cases you may choose to defer valuable scope increases to future projects.