Introduction:-

Resource requirements (for example, people and tools) can be translated into cost estimates. Initial estimation of effort, schedule, and cost is an iterative activity that should be negotiated and revised among affected stakeholders until consensus is reached on resources and time available for project completion.

In project planning, a slippage is the act of missing a deadline. It can be an arbitrary milestone put in place to help track progress.

To avoid slippage, one must plan his or her projects (especially research) carefully to avoid delays in schedule. Using Gantt charts and timeline diagrams can help.

With global and competitive market, it is very important to launch a product or service in the market on time and ahead of competitors. A timely launch definitely depends on on-time-completion of the product development projects. Project planning has lots of challenges to overcome in order to finish the project on time – right from

Schedule predictability

Envisioning future/possible risks and

Coming up with mitigation plans.

This article talks about some of the challenges often faced in the Software Product Development industry that cause schedule slippage.

Schedule slippage::-

Delay in the project completion from its initial estimated date of completion.

Each project plan will have a planned completion date (NRA, RA), and a bounding box or upper limit in the schedule. Nowadays, it is common practice to have three dates associated with any project plan:

Non-Risk Adjusted (NRA) Date:- Project completion date assuming no hurdles – Ideal conditions.

Risk Adjusted (RA) Date:- Project completion date assuming some risks will come on the way and we will need extra time to attend to them.

Bounding Box (BB) or Upper Limit: The upper limit on the project plan before which the project has to be finished under any circumstances – Generally decided by top management based on product/services roadmap and launch in the market.