24/7 Project Lifecycle Rule

“Life is real­ly very sim­ple but we insist on mak­ing it com­pli­cat­ed.” — Confucius

All too often when we work on project, we assume a one-week com­ple­tion cycle — that things will get done in a week, and then we’ll talk about the next step.

As a result a lot of things don’t hap­pen quickly.

I have a project life­cy­cle guide­line I use with peo­ple I work with that makes life very sim­ple – and helps to move things for­ward quickly.

It’s called 24 x 7, and it works like this: If we have a con­ver­sa­tion today about a task, my default expec­ta­tion is that it is done in 24 hours.

If it’s a more involved project that requires mul­ti­ple steps, or work­ing with oth­er peo­ple, my default expec­ta­tion is that it is done in 7 days — or by this time next week.

Most peo­ple don’t have a 24 x 7 project life­cy­cle rule. They have a 7 x 31 rule: get it done with­in a week – or a month.

Too often when I’m in meet­ings with lead­er­ship teams, their action items list gets big­ger and big­ger and big­ger — because they think 7 x 31. As a result, it just takes longer and becomes big­ger than it needs to be.

When you think 24 x 7 you only do what’s required to get it done, rather than mak­ing a task into a big com­pli­cat­ed project. This is for reg­u­lar ongo­ing, day-to-day busi­ness — obvi­ous­ly strate­gic ini­tia­tives don’t apply.