Podcast episode 045: schedule killers – student syndrome

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Today we will be starting a series on Schedule Killers – those tendencies and traits of project teams that cause us to miss our deadlines!  And the first schedule serial killer of project teams that we will be discussing is called… “The Student Syndrome!”

What is Student Syndrome?

Remember back when you were a student and you got to stay out late, sleep in late, you even occasionally showed up for classes…  Ah, those were the good ol’ days….  You had freedom, you were living and enjoying life, and you were always on top of all of your assignments….  Or were you?

You know, if you were like me, you typically worked on your assignments at the very last minute rather than throughout the semester.  But at the beginning of the semester it always seemed like you had sooooo much time to get it done.  There was no sense of urgency when there was fun to be had!  Well, unfortunately, this form of procrastination, often times called “The Student’s Syndrome” is not just a malady of high school or college kids.  Yep, probably most of you have seen it on your project teams as well.  You know…  that team member that comes to you in a panic the day before the deliverable is due although they had nearly 4 weeks to finish it.  Or the supplier that sends you 2 parts short because they had a problem and weren’t able to get all 500 pieces done.  Even us project managers – how many of us have started working on our status report the night before it was due?  Hmmm…  Maybe once…  twice?

What Causes Student Syndrome?

Wikipedia defines “Student Syndrome” as “the phenomenon that many people will start to fully apply themselves to a task just at the last possible moment before a deadline.”  Wikipedia goes on to state that although Student Syndrome is a form of procrastination, there is usually a form of psychological justification behind it.

For example, instead of reviewing material throughout the semester, a student may justify waiting to study for finals until the final week – I mean what would be the point of reviewing the material throughout the semester, before first learning all the material that would be on the exam.  And you would just forget it over the course of the semester anyhow, right?

How to Cure It

So how do we change this behavior where we put off until tomorrow what we could do today…  and how do we overcome this behavior on our own project teams?

Well, one method to combat Student Syndrome is to break long-duration tasks and project timelines into smaller tasks.  The answer to the question, “How do you eat an elephant,” is of course “one small bite at a time.”  I personally am not fond of eating elephants, but coincidentally the same approach holds true for project digestion.  By breaking up your schedule into smaller phases and then into smaller steps, tasks, and milestones you are reducing an overwhelming large-scaled effort into manageable bite-sized pieces.  These pieces can then be more easily monitored and controlled by you and the team and as a result, you can maintain a steady pace throughout the project.  You can also more quickly determine any quality or delay issues prior to taking another small bite.

This is the premise behind agile solutions and they promote the use of “bite sized” review-meetings where they review just the status of the work that has been completed since the previous meeting.  I discussed this approach in detail in Episode 3 Part 2:  On Managing Effective Meetings.

So what exactly is considered a bite-sized task?  Well that really depends on how long your projects are – a 10 year project could probably have less task and activity detail in its schedule than a project that lasts just 2 weeks.  However, a good rule of thumb is the 8/80 Rule.  The 8/80 Rule states that your project work packages should be no shorter than 1 day (or 8 hours) in duration, but no longer than 2 weeks (or 80 hours).

Another way of overcoming Student Syndrome on your project is to encourage with your team members a relay-runner work ethic.  Like a relay runner, a team member focuses all their attention at the task at hand and as soon as they are completed with their task, they hand their task deliverable off to the next person (regardless if it is prior to the date due or not).  The next person then focuses all their attention to complete their portion as fast as possible in order to pass the task deliverable on to the next person and so on.

Summary

So let’s summarize,

1. People tend to wait until they feel it becomes critical to focus all of their attention on a task to complete it in order to hit a deadline – This is called “The Student Syndrome”.
2. You and your project team should be aware of this natural human behavior and try to reduce it from happening on your team.
3. One approach to reduce Student Syndrome on your project is to break your project down into bite-sized tasks that follow the 8/80 Rule.
4. Once your schedule is broken down into small bite-sized tasks, encourage your team members to follow the Relay-Racer Mentality of passing their deliverables to the next team member as quickly as possible…  Even if it means turning in deliverables before the due date.
5. By following these steps you will find that due dates are less important to team members and that completing the work as quickly as possible is a lot more efficient.

Next time we will talk about another Schedule Killer called “Parkinson’s Law” and ways you can prevent its effects from hurting your team.

So how you overcome The Student Syndrome on your project?  Please leave us a comment below and let us know and we may use your comment on a future podcast!

Tags: 8/80, behaviors, schedule killers, student syndrome, Teams