There is a paradox in IT projects that feels very familiar.
When the timeline is already too tight from the beginning, the team is pushed to move fast before the requirements are truly mature. As a result, the project often becomes slower, needs more revisions, and ends up drifting even further away from the original deadline.
The cycle usually goes like this:
- A project is given an unrealistic timeline.
- Requirement gathering is done too quickly because everyone is rushing.
- Delivery takes longer because the rushed requirements were never clear enough.
- Once the project is delivered, many features turn out to be different from what the users actually wanted, so a lot of revisions follow.
- The project slips and no longer matches the original timeline.
- The timeline gets revised.
- Repeat.
That is the paradox: the more a project is forced to move fast at the beginning, the more likely it is to slow down in the middle and at the end.