To counter a delay in an early phase of your project, you can take the following actions:
1. **Assess the Cause**: Identify the root cause of the delay.
2. **Reprioritize Tasks**: Focus on critical tasks that impact the project's timeline.
3. **Allocate Resources**: Increase resources or personnel to the delayed tasks.
4. **Adjust the Schedule**: Modify the project schedule to accommodate the delay.
5. **Communicate**: Inform stakeholders about the delay and your plan to address it.
6. **Implement Fast Tracking**: Overlap tasks that can be done simultaneously.
7. **Consider Crashing**: Add extra resources to critical tasks to speed them up.
The actions that will have the most effect are reallocating resources and reprioritizing tasks.