Building Schedules Using the Practices of Fast Teams

Having worked with and studied fast teams over the past 25+ years, they all share a common set of practices for executing projects. Un summary:

Fast-Time-ToMarket Panning Methodology

• Start with the end in mind

  • First identify the goal and what needs to be accomplished by the end of the project, then plan to achieve the end

• Start without constraints

  • Constraints limit your thinking. Instead, work to the early schedule and resolve obstacles along the way

• Build a realistic plan and understand the gap between reality and needed

  • Know the gap between reality and target from day one

  • If it’s bad, better to know earlier than later when you have lost time to recover

• Use the plan to create a sense of urgency

  • Before-the-fact vs. after-the-fact

• Breakdown the near-term into short interval tasks for better tracking and pull-in

• Use the schedule to engage the team and the customer to accelerate the schedule

• Perform frequent refreshes

  • Update and pull-in frequently - the more often, the better

  • The rhythm produces accountability

• Manage using schedule trends of the gap between target and predicted dates

• Manage the program through the schedule vs. the schedule as a reporter

• Be comfortable with being "roughly right" vs, “exactly wrong”

  • Plan from macro to micro and detail over time