The eclipse test

Wednesday, I stood watching the sun with two pairs of eclipse glasses in my pocket.

Two, yes. That's the kind of person I am. Bought one in March, added a spare in July when the thing crossed my mind again. Total cost: less than five euros.

Next to me stood a man who had paid seven euros for one pair that same morning. Last one at the newsstand around the corner, he added, rather proudly. Seven euros for cardboard and a strip of foil.

And a bit further along: a small group just waiting for someone to pass a pair around.

Three kinds of people. One celestial event. An event announced to the minute, years in advance. Astronomers publish those tables decades ahead. Nobody in that field could claim they were caught off guard.

I had to laugh, because I was looking at my own profession.

Every project deadline is a solar eclipse

I've done this work long enough to recognise the pattern. In almost every project I walk into as a freelance project manager, the deadline was never a surprise. The go-live date was in the contract. The migration had been planned for a year. The legal date was published in an official journal, literally.

And still. Still, things go wrong on precisely the date everyone knew was coming.

That puzzled me for years. Until I understood it was never about the date. It's about what an organisation does with a date, eighteen months before the date arrives.

That's where you see the same three groups as in that field.

The prepared

The first group has the glasses in their pocket. Sometimes two pairs.

In project terms: these are the organisations where scope gets frozen on time. Where someone dares to say that feature fourteen moves to phase two. Where testing starts while building is still going on, not after. Where the steering committee actually steers instead of just listening.

Boring? Completely. Preparation is always boring. Buying a spare pair of glasses in July is nothing to brag about at a party.

But these organisations hit their deadline without a story to tell afterwards. Which is exactly the point: with them, there's nothing to tell.

The panic buyers

The second group calls three weeks before go-live.

I know those phone calls. Everyone who does freelance work like mine knows those phone calls. Suddenly there's budget that didn't exist eight months ago. The day rate that was too high back then is now, somehow, negotiable. Seven euros for the glasses, and quickly please.

I won't be a hypocrite: those assignments pay well. But I'm always honest about what the client is buying. Not a rescue, because rescue isn't possible in three weeks. What they're buying is damage control with an invoice. Cutting priorities, getting a minimal version live, and writing the list of everything that shifts to later.

The same result as the prepared group? No. Part of the result, at three times the price, with everyone stressed. The kiosk wins.

The hopers

And then the third group. They stand there and watch.

The project will probably be fine. The vendor will sort it out, that's what we pay him for. IT will fix it over the weekend. Someone will have a spare pair of glasses.

This is the group that worries me most, because hoping sounds so reasonable. It isn't a decision, so nobody can be held to it. Until the sun darkens and everyone wants to look up at once.

Borrowed glasses have one property people forget: they go back to their owner. At exactly the moment you still need them.

The test

So here's the eclipse test. Feel free to run it on your own organisation.

Take the most important deadline sitting in your planning right now. Everyone knows the date, otherwise it wouldn't be a deadline. The question is not whether you know it. The question is: what actually happened in the past month because that date exists?

If the answer is a list of actions: congratulations, group one.

If the answer is "we should look into that soon": you're in the queue at the kiosk. The price goes up every week.

And if the answer is that someone else is handling it, though you're not sure who: better start finding out who has a spare pair.

The next eclipse is already scheduled. So is your next deadline.

Rob Gielen is a freelance project manager. He prefers to arrive eighteen months before the deadline, but he also picks up the phone when there are only three weeks left. The latter costs more.