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The 80/20 Trap And Project Time Management 
By: Michael Adams
I normally write about Time Management, but another topic "Project Management" involves a large amount of time management across a set of project tasks or team members.
Beyond simply being the guy in charge, a good project manager helps team members develop their own time management and scheduling skills. Another part of the job is reviewing the work done on the project and evaluating whether the project will be delivered on time.
One of the biggest traps I've seen individuals fall into is what I call the "80/20 trap".
My work involved managing software developers and what I will cover is my experience at that task. This "80/20 Trap" is something that can be applied, with a certain amount of experience, across a wide variety of projects.
A common application of the 80/20 rule in software is described in these terms: "For any software task, the last 20% of the work takes up to 80% of the total time for the task".
It's a separate discussion whether the 80/20 rule I just described is truly the Pareto Principle, but suffice to say, I've seen it hold true more often than not during software development. The main reason it holds true is that as a feature is completed, there is usually a period of polish work and usability testing that must happen. This extra time can often take up to 3x or 4x the time it took to create the feature in the first place.
With practice, smart project managers will usually create a separate task and schedule for the polish and usability testing time for each feature, but some don't. No matter whether they do or not, the programmer usually has to spend extra time doing debugging or clean up on his code just to get the feature ready for polish or usability testing.
Knowing what you know now, consider the situation for a moment.
When a software developer comes to me and tells me that he is 80% done with a feature and on track with his schedule, because he has only spent 80% of the scheduled time so far, I now that he's late and doesn't even realize it. I also know that the team member is very unlikely to finish his feature within the scheduled 5 days.
As a former programmer, I know coding can be a difficult job. Scheduling is hard enough already, but when neither the programmer or the project manager understand the 80/20 rule, predicting the delivery date for the software is nearly impossible and it's near certain that the project will be late.
It's not actually that hard to fall into the "80/20 Trap". I've even seen it happen to experienced people. The best thing to do when you see it is to address it right away, in a calm cool and professional manner.
In the situations where no one called out the "80/20 Trap", quality issues and problems just pile up on themselves each day that passes, making it even harder on everyone involved. Suffice to say, it's always best to address the issues as early as possible.
Beyond software, I think the idea of the "80/20 Trap" is useful to understand for all types of projects and can easily be adopted to them. Project and team size doesn't matter, the principle scales, even if it's just you managing your own time and a personal project.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
For additional strategies on time management, make sure you check out author Michael Adams' excellent free report on tips for managing your time and multi-million dollar projects. Learn more at www.smart-time-management.com.
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