Do you use six week cycles where you work? Today we're gonna talk about this way of breaking up work throughout the year which we recently discovered we both use in our companies.
It can take some time to figure out how best to roll out a new way of working, like a six week cycle.
At Convertkit the six week cycles are technically 8 weeks long. They comprise of 6 weeks of work and two weeks of cool down or planning, while at Wealthsimple the six week cycles also include design sprints and reflections every two weeks.
The benefit of a six week cycle is that it confines a project within a predefined time frame. Work expands to fill the amount of time you have for it. While using a six week cycle, there are still deadlines within that time period.
Aligning teams to optimise productivity during a cycle might look different depending on which teams are involved. Design might need to be one full cycle ahead of engineering so that they can proceed without delay.
For some companies, six week cycles would be too short for the scale of the projects the company works on. Quarterly cycles might work better.
01.15 – Catch up
04.03 – Six week cycles
08.54 – The difference between six week cycles and quarterly planning
11.52 – Tools we use during six week cycles
16.55 – Cycle rituals
24.45 – What we would change about six week cycles
