Tis Seasonal to be Jolly ... Unproductive

As I stated in an earlier post, my original intention was to document the tasks of a hypothetical software project against a 12-month timeline Jan through to Dec. If I were to do this of course then before getting into the day-by-day basics, immediately there would a lesson to learn. And that is, never ever plan to complete a programme at Christmas. Planning for the most critical stage of your project to coincide with your resource pool being decimated by festive absenteeism is planning to fail from day one. At least, this is the case for UK and many other countries. Elsewhere, it may be summer that will result in your most emaciated team. It may be both that are troublesome. The message here is beware seasonal variations and resource profiles lumpier than the turkey gravy.  If there are external reasons that a deadline is on say December 24^th then you have two options.  Preferably convince your programme management and stakeholders to shift it out by a month or two.  But, if the date is truly an immoveable object, then plan to finish a month sooner and resource accordingly, and aggressively try to stick to it. This last part is important. Don’t let anyone in your team, especially yourself, develop the mindset that this extra month is ‘slack’.  There is no slack.  Try to cast the December date from your mind, because your team will be fogged with festival glee, largely absent in mind, if not entirely in body.