This topic is a BIG ONE. I wrote the first two essays just so I could establish the necessary background for writing this essay.

I call this idea schedule crunching.

The Conventional Approach

I think it is common to take a more conventional project management approach and concentrate on sticking to the plan, sticking to the schedule, and slipping when something goes awry. The assumption is, typically, that problems are out of the team’s control and, therefore, problems are sufficient reason to slip the schedule. Since there are so many problems that arise on a project, there are typically many slips as well.

Many wise people have said that what you put your attention on is what you will create around you. This is true in project management. If you concentrate on meeting the plan and slipping when big problems arise, you will, at best, ship on time, and more likely, you will ship late.

Schedule Crunching

I want to advocate a different way of thinking about time on a project, the anti-slip, crunching the schedule. This is when you do everything in your power to not only prevent slips but bring the schedule in early as much as possible. You want to ship as early as possible. Envision crunching your schedule like stepping on an aluminum can.

To change your results by changing the way you look at how your team uses time, you must put your attention on how to make tasks take the least time possible. Replace “sticking to the plan” with “looking for ways to decrease the time spent.”

Be Proactive

When I made this shift in my own head about 13 years ago, I noticed that it felt more proactive. Instead of sitting back and waiting for things to happen as I had done in the past, I became an investigator and a leader. I became vigilant about what might take a lot of time on the project and led the effort to tackle it as soon as possible. I was constantly investigating people on the team or people our team was dependent on to look for “gotchas.” It might sound tiring, but it wasn’t. It was a lot more fun. I quickly noticed the power this approach gave to the team. We became creators of our own destiny.

Creating Time

We talk on our team about creating time. It is common to view time as being in short supply. We believe that if you apply human intellect, especially a multi-personal intellect to the problem of how to create time, that there is plenty of time. As you would guess, creating time can be very helpful in shipping products on time and early. Creating time is not magic, although it feels like it. You can create time on your team by adopting a better idea, an idea that takes less time.

Creating Real Buffer

I believe that when teams concentrate on shipping as early as possible, they create real buffers. I don’t think just sticking huge amounts of time into a Microsoft Project schedule is an effective way to buffer a project. True buffer time is created by a team when it is constantly looking for ways to create time, to move features to the next version, to implement big ideas that solve hundreds of problems with one insight. When the team is proactively crunching its schedule, then it is creating buffer for itself.

There are two reasons for this. When the team takes as little time as possible to implement tasks it will have more time to deal with unforeseen problems. The more important reason is that a team that attacks its projects proactively is practiced at dealing with change. That’s the best kind of buffer. A team that can adapt quickly and efficiently to new stimulus is optimally “buffered.”

What You Can Do

The first place to look for opportunities to crunch the schedule is the biggest block. Begin there and ask yourself and your team “How do we do this faster? What help can we ask for to get this done tomorrow?” Then continue down from there. What’s the next biggest block? How can you get that done faster?

When you are receptive, opportunities to crunch will start appearing all around you. Using the Investigate Protocol(see http://www.mccarthy-tech.com/thecore1_5.pdf), you will find many ways that your team can create time. For example, look for things the team is “waiting” for. If someone is waiting, that is always an opportunity to crunch the schedule.

If you think you’ve gone through every aspect of the team’s work and found every possible way to create time, start over. Go through the exercise again and look for new ways.

And again, don’t look just at tasks. Look at everything. Some people, for example, go down to about 5% productivity when they are tired(I am a good example of this). You don’t want those people working when they are tired. They are wasting time. You’d be much better off if they spent that time resting. You’d get a 20X productivity gain if they rested.(See Power Sleep by James Maas) As another example, some people will let themselves be constantly interrupted with phone and email. That’s easy to fix if you have the intention of changing it.

Keep your Core Commitments. If you use CoreCom, you are committed to implement the best idea at all times. The best idea will rarely be the conventional idea. And one of the best ideas I’ve found so far for being on time is to get the work on your project done as fast as possible rather than according to schedule.