A Project's Last Wishes

The best time to think of new ideas is not near the end of a project, but at the beginning. I hold that truth to be self-evident. I'm pretty sure most business people would.

But HB (the Humming Bird), works with a different kind of logic. In her view, in the last days (even hours) before a project's deadline, that's when you want to try and cram as many ideas into the plan as possible. Once something is complete, that's it; you can't change it. It's dead, to her at least. (Most sane people look at the end of a project as a birth. To her, its almost a time of mourning.)

Because of her unique view of project management, she tries to show a project a good time before it dies the death of completion. The same way a man notified he has a day to live will spend his last hours sky diving, trying to sleep with a super model, and writing a novel, the HB will try to give a 95-percent-complete project three new features, a new marketing plan and perhaps a complete floor-to-ground re-design.

This drives me bat shit. I try to breath deeply and enter the Zen zone. I try to let her madness wash through me. I even try to get some of what she wants done, with mixed success at best. Sometimes, I actually can squeeze a little more into a product, though never everything. And sometimes I just plan can't do anything.

And that's the bit that makes me go insane, I hate saying I can't do something. I hate that months of good work, work that I want my goddamn pat on the back for, becomes tarnished because the litany of ideas she has at the end aren't somehow miraculously materialized.

Do yourself and your employees a big favor. Cram all the ideas into a project at the start. Be aggressive. Ask for too much. Go crazy. It's amazing how much you can accomplish if you push yourself 6 to 12 months before a deadline.

But at the end of a project, when most of it is at the printer and clients are waiting for it and advertising is hitting, just finish it. Finish it well. But finish it.