Time Core · Project management · Module
Running it
How progress is established, how change is handled, and how a problem becomes visible before the deadline rather than at it.
The idea
How it works
Self-reported progress is optimistic and stays optimistic until it cannot. The pattern is well known: a project is on track until shortly before the deadline, at which point it is not.
Progress established by what is finished rather than by what is underway is harder to report and considerably more honest.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Measure completion, not activity
What is actually finished and verifiable. Percentage complete is an opinion.
- 02
Make it safe to report a problem
Where reporting difficulty is punished, difficulty is reported at the deadline.
- 03
Handle change explicitly
Every change has a cost in time. Absorbing changes without adjusting the date is how projects slip invisibly.
- 04
Watch the dependencies, not the work
The work is visible and the waiting is not, and the waiting is where the delay is.
One level in
The components of running it
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Where reporting difficulty is punished, difficulty gets reported at the deadline.
The other modules in project management
Defining the work
What is being done, what is not, and what would count as finished — the agreement everything downstream depends on.
LearnSequence
What has to happen before what, what the project depends on that it does not control, and which chain determines the date.
LearnClosing
Ending the project deliberately: confirming it is done, releasing the people, and recording what actually happened.
Learn