Working with start-ups & SMEs are always fun. Good Reasons, Its all about creating something new or work on innovation, not really a boring job for most of the hackers like us. But the fun comes with a challenge component too. But for the projects with defined target be worked upon with a goal, some of these work could very well be delayed. The preparatory phases are bit different than the traditional software life cycle management.
It is obvious that anyone would want to deliver the project to their clients right on time. No one wishes to take excuses and delay the project, which would lead to many troubles, to say right from getting their reputation affected to get their final financial settlements. Therefore, no one would want to delay their project to their clients, rather strive to deliver as committed within the stipulated timeline.
Perhaps, there are still many advantages and good reasons in starting project late and delaying it to your clients. You can get astonished hearing this, but this is certainly a fact.
How?

Here are some valid good reasons to why you should delay starting the project:

1) Your customer may need training:

This becomes of prior importance, especially when you are going to work at the customer location and your customer lacks on essential knowledge on the solution. This may make your task to connect the business process with the real requirements of your client. Therefore, the customer should essentially have some understanding of the proposed solution and technology to be integrated. Its worth to make customer understand how you are helping him with your solution in this process.

2) Become clear about the Requirements

The requirement of the project should be clearly understood. Without which you cannot start the designing and developing solutions. Besides, testing would also become a challenging task, as the customer will not be able to do user acceptance testing. Unclear requirement means, poor project scope, therefore, delaying your project can definitely resolve many complex issues, while enabling you to get a detailed requirement. Agile is a cool word, but most of the users misunderstood the definition. So be firm up on the execution methodology and fix up the requirements.

3) What is the exact Budget?

If you are going to start the project without a clear idea about what would be real budget, then there is no wonder to delay starting the project. It is certainly better to delay until everything is signed and made clear, especially with the funding and budget of the big project, if you do not want to end up with a loss. This includes the hardware cost too. If client wants a million user hit-up on the product, make client understand its not only software but includes hardware.

4) Undefined Goal/Real Project:

If the real project is not defined to you clearly by the client, then never hesitate to delay starting the project. Without knowing the real project, you will not know the real need. But, if you attempt to proceed with, you may end up with a huge loss, therefore, make it very clear with your client about what the real project and the requirement is. Client may think on having all the things beneath the sky be available in their Innovation. Work with them to define things for an amicable win-win situation. If your client has not defined the goals clearly to you, then the end target may be misguided. This may also require more planning. Therefore, discuss about the actual goal before you start.

5) Get a Team assigned:

Any project would require a proper and experienced team to take it in a right way. Therefore, until you are assembled with an appropriate team of professionals, don’t start the project. Remember, your client should not get frustrated, especially when it comes to maintaining the confidentiality of the project, for which a reliable team is essential.
Conclusion:
In addition to these factors & good reasons to take into your consideration to delay starting the project, there are also a few more to think about such as, when there is no proper kickoff is scheduled, when the project leadership is not defined properly and your clients contact is unavailable, especially when you are in need to get some information or make decision in the mid of the project. But make sure the road-map is clear with all the above said items are taken care to increase the Winning probability of the project.
Share your feedback on this topic. Good Reasons….Happy Reading…..:)