The 2:00 drill

A work in progress idea…

After watching many NFL games I constantly wonder why the 2:00 drill at the end of the game is so special compared to the other 58:00 minutes of the game. 

In intense do-or-die situations, team members do everything they can, perform at their best, and explore all options for success. Players run out of bounds to stop the clock and save precious seconds. Players dive and reach farther than ever to make incredible plays pan out. And the whole team is united with a singular focus. Win Right Now. 

The other 58:00 fall into infinite possibilities. Why not do the 2:00 drill every time you have the ball?

Perhaps it is not sustainable to run at sprint pace for a full hour. Maybe you have to jog a while before you run.

Marathon runners have a similar problem. Do you maintain the same pace every mile or do you speed up and slow down over time? Either way, do you sprint to the finish line? Or coast in and maybe even slow down as you know you can see the finish line?

Can we find a reliable pace that allows opportunities for success over and over? If so, what speed is that? 

Sprint, Sprint, Sprint??

Sprint, take a break, sprint, take a break??

Jog all day?

Sprint, jog, sprint, jog, sprint?

Walk?

Software development puts a team into a similar situation where the team is asked to complete the impossible (we know software projects are always asking for too much with too little time, there are plenty of published statistics about 50% or more of IT projects going over time and over budget, or just being cancelled).

So how do you keep up the pace?

Agile Scrum says use sprints and plan for a cadence of deliverability. But how much do you take on? Is it never-ending non-stop late nights? Or is it a calmer experience, knowing there will eventually be a deliverable if you let the team make progress?

Agile Kanban says to just put everything into priority order, and work on the next-in-line thing, and also move quick, quick, quick. But at what cadence? Same question as before, is it never-ending non-stop late nights? Or is it a calmer experience, knowing there will eventually be a deliverable if you let the team make progress?

Waterfall says to spend all of your time upfront and define everything perfectly, but you never know everything until you are done, so the development is just delayed, and if you don’t let people change their minds from the original definition, nobody is happy. There are plenty of published articles about this issue as well, and is why most IT projects are shifting from Waterfall to Agile. That being said, the waterfall approach says that the team has everything they need to proceed, and now the development phase has a fixed end date, so pile up the overtime at the end to get it all done on time. But we know it won’t be done on time. So moving on…

I think it is reasonable to expect that a winner will always push to the end, and do whatever it takes to finish strong, so you should always expect a push to the finish. But if you treat the first 2:00, or the middle 2:00, or any other 2:00, the same as you would the final, then you won’t have to push hard at the end, and instead you can comfortably roll to the finish line, as all is well. 

Maybe there is no finish line. In that case, a great cadence is needed that allows breaks, and allows collaboration. Planning PTO and office shut downs factors in, to allow the whole team to sprint together when it is sprint time, and relax when it is break time, but the cyclical year, or the fiscal quarter, needs to be defined in a manageable way. Otherwise the only result is burnout. 

The ultra-marathon runner who runs back to back marathons still sleeps and recovers between marathons. 

Where do we go from here?

Perhaps a research project to define the ideal cadence for software development? Invent a new project management process that spells out considerations for changes of pace?