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You're faced with tight project deadlines. How do you prioritize innovation without compromising delivery?

In engineering management, maintaining innovation while meeting tight project deadlines can be challenging but is achievable with the right strategies. Consider these approaches:

  • Set clear priorities: Identify which innovative features add the most value and focus on those first.

  • Implement agile methodologies: Break the project into smaller, manageable tasks and iterate frequently.

  • Foster a collaborative environment: Encourage team members to share ideas and solutions, leveraging diverse perspectives.

How do you balance innovation with tight deadlines? Share your strategies.

Engineering Management Engineering Management

Engineering Management

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You're faced with tight project deadlines. How do you prioritize innovation without compromising delivery?

In engineering management, maintaining innovation while meeting tight project deadlines can be challenging but is achievable with the right strategies. Consider these approaches:

  • Set clear priorities: Identify which innovative features add the most value and focus on those first.

  • Implement agile methodologies: Break the project into smaller, manageable tasks and iterate frequently.

  • Foster a collaborative environment: Encourage team members to share ideas and solutions, leveraging diverse perspectives.

How do you balance innovation with tight deadlines? Share your strategies.

Add your perspective
Help others by sharing more (125 characters min.)
21 answers
  • Contributor profile photo
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    Ankush Chaudhary

    A railway signalling professional with more than 12 years of experience in design, systems, commissioning and project management.

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    Balancing innovation and delivery under tight deadlines requires a strategic approach. Firstly, set realistic expectations for innovation within the project scope and timeline and avoid overcommitting to ambitious goals that may compromise delivery.Secondly, embrace an iterative approach by starting with small experiments and building upon successful ideas over time.Thirdly, it is extremely critical to evaluate the potential risks and benefits of innovative approaches. Prioritize innovations that have a high likelihood of success and minimal impact on the project timeline.Lastly, encourage collaboration between different teams to spark new ideas and perspectives.

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    Thushera Kawdawatta

    Managing Director - Sysco LABS | Chairman—VeroxLabs | Board Director—Sampath IT | Founding CEO—Axiata Digital Labs | ICT Leader of the Year | GLOMO Award | Forbes Council

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    Several key outcomes: 1. Innovation Drives Productivity: Tight deadlines require innovation to boost productivity, helping simplify complex tasks and improve efficiency. 2. Think Outside the Box: Tight timelines are an opportunity to find unconventional solutions that increase effectiveness. 3. Simplify the Process: Innovation helps eliminate redundancies, focusing on delivering value more efficiently. 4. Innovative Culture: Fostering an innovation mindset keeps the team focused on efficient, high-quality outcomes. 5. Engage and Inspire: Innovation keeps teams motivated, turning challenges into opportunities and delivering faster without sacrificing quality.

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    9
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    Sergio Troisi

    Manager at Alstom

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    Who said that innovation causes delay? Who said that the connection between innovation and schedule is penalizing the delivery time. It could well be the opposite

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    6
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    Bruno Maia Lima

    Gerente de obra/construção

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    I'm a civil engineer and, sometimes, this marketplace doesn't evolve so fast as others. Innovation and technology work together and when it's happens everybody wins. Bring innovation mean find the better solution for the diary problems and when we do that we reach deadlines easier and in shortier times. So innovation and creativit freendom are a bennefect for the crewsworkers

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    4
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    Parsuram Panigrahi

    Fractional CTO | Digital Transformation Leader | AI & Cloud-Native Architect | FinTech & Supply Chain Innovator | Ex-HighRadius, Ace Turtle | Engineering Team Builder & Scaler

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    It is important to manage priorities, streamline processes to ensure timely delivery. Here’s how you can approach it: 1) Define clear goals and boundaries. 2) Look for solutions that provide high impact with minimal effort. 3) Guardrails for scope creep while innovation: I 4)Iterative delivery: Break down the project into smaller, manageable phases and bring innovation in incremental way in phases 5) communicate, communicate and communicate: what level of innovation is possible within the current time frame. Explain trade-offs. 6) Fail fast, iterate fast: If an innovative approach isn’t working as expected, abandon it early and pivot to something that aligns better with the timeline and have the plan B ready

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    3
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    J. Dale Collier

    Retired GE - Part Time Consulting, Small Part Manufacture and, Repair/Modification Machining

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    In my experience innovation can be the path to meeting tight deadlines and providing high quality process execution. Have witnessed and been involved with very successful process innovations that resulted in significantly reduced cycle times and the ability to achieve more controlled quality results. Often times the improvements were driven by customer cycle requirements, and their willingness to be partners in developing the process improvement.

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    3
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    Dr. Hariharasudhan Venugopal PhD

    Embedded & IoT Leader | CII CTO Forum | PhD in V2X Security | Global Platforming Head | Startup & GCC Architect | Digital Transformation Strategist | Brand Ambassador | Professor of Practices @ VIT |Ind-Academia Catalyst

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    When dealing with tight project deadlines, I focus on finding small, manageable ways to innovate that still add real value. I make sure we target the areas where new ideas will make the biggest impact, while keeping an eye on the timeline. By staying aligned on project goals, encouraging team collaboration, and using agile methods, I can bring in creative solutions without sacrificing quality or delivery deadlines.

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    2
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    Peter Nink

    Product Development Specialist | Electronic Design

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    Allowing innovation and meeting tight deadlines are not good bedfellows. To foster innovation you need space to think laterally and explore different options. To give your project the best of both worlds allow time at the inception to explore innovative ideas. When the specification is written up and the project enteres the delivery stage, focus on engineering. Meaning stop inventing and apply existing technology to deliver the desired outcome.

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    1
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    Aaron Etzkorn

    Pioneering the Clean Energy Movement || Leading Willdan's Charge to Sustainable Energy || Learn More About Sustainable Energy Solutions at Willdan.com || President @ Willdan Performance Engineering

    • Report contribution

    Balancing innovation with tight deadlines is about smart focus. First, identify what aspects of the project need creativity and where you can stick to proven methods. Innovation doesn’t mean reinventing everything—prioritize where it adds the most value. For example, streamline routine tasks with existing tools, leaving room for your team to experiment on key challenges. Set clear boundaries: innovation thrives when it has structure, not chaos. Keep delivery goals front and center, but allow small, quick wins in creativity to keep the team energized and solutions sharp.

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    1
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    Jose Ramirez Argandoña

    Ingeniero en Electronica / Master en Logistica

    • Report contribution

    Tight deadlines never limit innovation, they drive it through faster and more effective actions, and process evolution, this is only limited by our own capacity.

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