Advance planning. A milestone sheet for all stakeholders. Enough buffer and recovery time for all teams. Standby teams. Shifts. Prioritizing people over the timeline. Always. Keeping realistic deadlines and not make-believe ones.

"Pre-planning and communication" There are two ways to keep a project on track: 1) Plan ahead. 2) Communicate when the plan goes awry or unforeseen circumstances arise. We used to rely on 1) a lot but we've shifted more to 2) in recent years. I'm old enough to remember back in the day when a job wouldn't get done without massive amounts of pre-planning. Changing our minds at the last minute was costly and logistically took too long to implement. Nowadays, faster and more flexible digital workflow has normalized delaying committed decisions up until delivery for both producer and client, deprioritizing planning ahead and goal visualization. When a muscle isn't exercised regularly, it atrophies from disuse. Use it or lose it.

It means there have been problems. First of all, you should discern them and take actions to solve them. Additionally, to make it up, you should work twofold hard.

When your animation project hits unexpected roadblocks, keeping the timeline on track is all about adaptability. First thing - breathe. Then, figure out exactly what’s causing the delay. Is it a tech issue? A resource problem? A bottleneck in the pipeline? Once you know what’s slowing things down, shift priorities. Maybe certain scenes can move ahead while another gets sorted. Maybe there's a workaround. Maybe you bring in extra hands if needed. And communicate always. Keep your team and clients in the loop. Transparency builds trust, and sometimes, fresh eyes on a problem unlocks a quicker solution.

Assess the setbacks and prioritize tasks. Identify the root cause, evaluate affected tasks, and determine resources needed to resolve the issues. Reallocate resources and adjust the schedule accordingly. Focus on critical tasks, reassign tasks to team members with necessary skills, and adjust deadlines. Communicate changes to the team and stakeholders. Inform them about the revised schedule, expected completion date, and provide regular progress updates. Focus on completing critical tasks first. Identify essential tasks, allocate sufficient resources, and monitor progress. By following these steps, you can effectively manage project setbacks and keep your animation project timeline on track.