Ever miss a project deadline because you had too much to do and not enough time or resources? There is a simple framework that virtually guarantees you will never miss a deadline again.
Missing deadlines causes stress. Stress causes health problems. Health problems lead to more stress. It becomes a never-ending cycle from which you can’t get out.
Most people can’t get out of this cycle because the pressure from unfinished work and new deadlines doesn’t go away. It grows. You end up working evenings trying to catch up, then weekends, and then you break.
Let’s change this.
Deadlines are great.
I bet you weren’t expecting to read this. Deadlines are great? How? Why?
A deadline is the only known known in any project. It is the boundary for you to work within.
Since the deadlines are great, how do you ensure you don’t miss one?
To never miss a deadline, you must:
- Set the deadline.
- Set the appetite.
- Plan the work.
- Start the work and narrow it down.
- Deliver.
Follow these five steps, and you will never miss a deadline.
Let’s break down each of these steps.
Set the deadline
The first step is to pick a date or have someone pick it for you (i.e. a client). As I mentioned above, deadlines are great because they are the only known known.
Let’s say you need to create a sales deck for a client presentation. You may know roughly what you want to include, but you don’t know for sure how much work you will have to put into it.
If you set the deadline first, you will have one piece of information that is certain and known.
Additionally, setting a deadline helps you make decisions about what to work on and how much to do.
Set the appetite
The appetite, a term popularized by the book Shape Up, is the opposite of an estimate. To create an estimate, you look at what you have to do and decide how long it will take. It is almost always wrong.
To create an appetite, you start with a deadline and decide what you can accomplish before the deadline. It is a much more effective way of planning and delivering value.
The appetite answers two questions:
- What can you deliver by your deadline?
- How much value can you deliver by your deadline?
After you answer these questions, you will have a good idea of what value you can deliver by the set deadline. Value is the keyword here.
Plan the work.
Your initial appetite will be too optimistic. It is a guarantee.
To help you define a better appetite, you will have to create a work plan to deliver what you set out in your appetite.
Start with the outcome: “By June 24, 2024, I will publish 10 newsletters.” Then make a plan on how to do that. “I will write one newsletter every day for 10 days.”
As you make the plan, you should be able to establish that your initial appetite was too optimistic. This should be good enough to help you revise it. For example, writing a newsletter every day for 10 days is likely an optimistic plan. This should be an indication that the appetite was too ambitious.
Plan. Review. Revise the appetite.
Start the work and narrow it down.
As you begin your work, you will notice that your appetite is still too ambitious. Other things will come up that will derail your progress.
It is important to be aware of this and narrow down your appetite. Having the deadline will help you decide what is important and valuable to deliver.
The question you should be asking when you are narrowing down the scope of your work is, “Is what I am doing creating value for [client/boss/yourself/stakeholder/etc]?
Deliver.
As you finally uncover all of the unknown unknowns, you will be able to estimate what you can deliver before the deadline. This is where estimation will be most accurate because you will have figured out all of the unknown unknowns and are working with only known information.
Because you will have started with an appetite, you will deliver a much smaller but much more valuable result on time and likely on budget.
Today’s Action Steps
Here’s how you can act on this advice today:
- On your next project, set the deadline.
- Set the appetite by focusing on the value you can produce.
- Plan out how you are going to create and deliver this value.
- Start working on this and narrow down the scope as you go.
- Deliver the value on time and on budget.
Outro
Deadlines are the most important piece of the puzzle when it comes to project management. They are the only known knowns. They help you make decisions about what to work on and how much to do.
The key is to set the appetite, after you’ve set a deadline and revise it as you go. If you do, you will never miss a deadline.
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And that’s all for this week.
See you next Monday.
P.S. I’d love to hear what challenges you are facing in your business. What can I write about to help you personally?
Reply back to this email to let me know.