Bob Is Not Willing to Work Saturdays

1. Do you think the project manager Jim is correct in accepting the extra work from the customer knowing that he has underestimated the initial project effort?

No, I do not believe that Jim is correct in accepting the extra work at the same deadline. Jim must ensure that the customer's expectations are realistic, and in order to do so, he must be honest. He absolutely should not have committed to doing the work before securing his resources. His resources in this case are the extra hours required of his staff. Since the initial project has a fixed deadline mandated by law, and since Jim has found that he underestimated the effort required to implement it by a month, his first priority should be to do everything possible to meet the deadline for the project at its original scope.

2. Can you ignore the wishes of a very important customer and say "No" to them? Especially if your business has a "customer first" philosophy? What if you lose their business next time around?

You cannot ignore the wishes of a very important customer, but in order to keep their trust, you must communicate with them what a realistic deadline is for the additional work that they have requested. Whenever you as a project manager are certain that you will not meet the original deadline for the original work that you have agreed to, you must let your customer know it, as soon as possible. A "customer first" philosophy includes constant and truthful communication with your customer. They may be able to plan effectively, given correct and timely information from you, and you and your customer may be able to mitigate the impact of a missed deadline, with advanced notice of the problem. Instead of saying no to them, you should be clear with them about how changes to project scope will affect their deadline, and negotiate a realistic project scope and timeline. It may be that the four reports that they have asked for are more important to them than a larger portion of the already agreed upon project scope. You may find that only part of the project must be completed by the original deadline, and be able to negotiate a second deadline for version two of the software, for example.

You will most definitely lose their business next time around if you continue to tell them that you can do the work for them when they expect it, if indeed you cannot. If you manage their expectations now, you have a much greater chance of keeping a good relationship with them, and getting repeat business from them. They may much prefer to deal with you, if you honestly tell them no when the answer is no, rather than risk dealing with another contractor who might tell them yes when they mean no.

3. How will you solve the problem if you were the project manager? What are your recommendations?

I would speak with the customer, as soon as