Apropos of nothing, much earlier in my career someone drew this diagram on the board for me. It stay up there for a long time…

I recently posted this picture inside Dropbox and it resulted in a lot of positive reactions. I think that was for a few reasons.

It let the team know that a senior engineering leader understood this. It didn’t mean that those spikes toward the end of the project are okay. But I understand that they do happen, and in my experience always happen. That creates the right headspace to manage those spike. Of course, the team will have a moment of anxiety when they come, but they at least know that when they come to me, I’m here to fully support them. Oh, and there’s probably a few more before we’re through.

It also builds the needed empathy across teams and organizations. You may not know all the technical ins-and-outs of that big project, but you know it just exploded. What’s your reaction to that? “Welp, that project is a disaster!” or “Ah, they’re at that stage. I wonder if they need help!”

And by the way, this chart goes fractal with projects with multiple work streams, milestones and integration points. Fun!