You're leading a chemical engineering research project. How can you ensure your team completes it on time?

I use the Steps In Six Sigma and Project Management 1. Define Clear Objectives and Scope 2. Develop a Detailed Project Plan 3. Set Up a Sprint System 4. Use Project Management Tools 5. Regular Meetings and Updates 6. Risk Management 7. Resource Management 8. Quality Control 9. Stakeholder Communication 10. Motivate and Support Your Team

- Initiate your goal and engage the team into understanding this goal. - Develop a milestones and objectives into achieving the targeted goal. - Engage your teams and understand their progress and challenges. - set a routine to monitor the progress and make your team come forward with their issues.

First thing first, you can make "Project Charter" to define your research, with explanation with current condition and objective that you need. This objective can finish directly or split became several stages. Also you need to capture some condition that to be considered within your research. After that you can make planning how long your research

Make sure: 1. The timeline is realistic, use benchmarks if possible to test it. 2. You spend time with the team to review the critical path. 3. Everyone in the team understand the timeline and the impacts/consequences of not delivering on time for the project and for the team members.

I sit with my team members and make a deep understanding for aims of the project, distribute roles between them as their skills, and put a time plan to achieve them.

Create a Detailed Project Plan: Develop a detailed project plan that outlines tasks, responsibilities, timelines, and dependencies. Use project management tools like Gantt charts or project management software to visualize and track progress.

Assigning the roles is a major entity when you evaluate your team based on their skill set. Group should be maximum of 4 people. Assigning the project is categorized based on problem statement, research articles, experimental work, derivation & calculation, costing & equipment design roles

Establish Clear Goals and Milestones: Define clear and specific project goals from the outset. Break down the project into smaller milestones with specific deadlines. This creates a roadmap that everyone on the team can follow.

In my experience, it's very critical choosing member for functional role. Individual had their most skillfull/experience field. This will affect project/research time. Also you need to understand how each individual work, sometimes there's a discuss in cross function

It is worth to asign some resources to the interface management, this can help organize linked activities, reduce rework and protect quality of the overall work.

Use a simplified dashboard to make progress visible for everyone. Sharing the progress information can help the team and project manager to reschedule activities, reassign resources or modify strategies to reach the milestones and keep the delivery promise.

??Progress Tracking: Use tools or software to track progress against the plan. ??Regular Updates: Hold frequent meetings to discuss progress and address issues. ??Adjustments: Be flexible to adjust plans based on real-time progress and challenges. ??Hard Work and Commitment:Dedication: Encourage a work ethic focused on quality and punctuality. ??Motivation: Keep the team motivated with positive reinforcement and recognition.

Always test the literacy of your team members as not everyone is responsive to the advanced tools of task management. Therefore, it is sometimes necessary to determine different ways for the team members to inform/alert about the task progress. Unfortunately, no tool fits all!

On projects that I’ve completed, I’ve seen that “over communicating” can actually be the best way to go. Keeping everyone on the same page every step of the way can be a huge factor in making sure that errors are mitigated quickly, double-work is limited, and rework is eliminated. Bringing key stakeholders in on all major project updates is also critical. Performing engineering work “in a vacuum” almost always leads to a product that fails to meet the needs of many parties that interact with that product.

Over communicating is good to make sure that everyone is on the same page. However, the wise leader will not make it tedious and boring, instead utilizing dead times is perfect. For instance: - Time spent in transportation - Time spent waiting for the order to be done in a restaurant The leader/team members can simply ask about these times and utilize it wisely.

Maintain a comprehensive overview of the challenges, acknowledge changes, and assess their impact on workstreams with a resilient mindset. Avoid ignoring reality.

Define a standard approach to review what went well and what went wrong, avoid judging people and focus on facts/causality. Encourage open discussions and reflection of team members.

Besides the point mentioned above, we can consider to conduct regular progress review to ensure that the project is on track and to make necessary adjustment. This can help to identify any issues early and take corrective actions. On the other side, don't forget to maintain documentation of the project as well. this can help to track progress, facilitate communication, and serve as a reference for the future projects.