The 90 Day Treadmill

If you’ve worked in business for almost any time at all, especially in management, you’ve probably heard those fateful words: the end of the quarter. How many of you have been pushed to close a sale, complete a project, or make a far-reaching technology decision by a given date because of ‘the end of quarter’?

The end of the business quarter typically marks a reporting milestone for the accounting and finance folks. For better or worse, it’s become a time when the measuring sticks come out. Businesses have come to measure progress in 90-day sprints. Think about some of these goals we end up saddling ourselves with:

• Close the sale before end of quarter! -why?  Will the money be worth less next week?
• Wrap up the project so we can get the billing in on this quarter  -again, I ask, why?  Does money become worth less next week?  If it shows up this quarter, doesn’t that just take away from next quarter?
• We need to make a buy decision this quarter, because we have budget now  -aha, maybe this is it, if money magically has a shelf life of 90 days…

Some of these decisions do, I realize have real financial implications to the accounting and finance world, so please don’t fill the comments with explanation.  I work for the NASBA- I do know something  about accounting.  My point is this:  too many times in business we make decisions or we hurry work and get sloppy results, not because there’s a business imperative, but because there’s a perceived financial imperative driven by the need to look good on paper.

This happens in projects as well.  Sometimes something comes up in a project that warrants changing the schedule or cost- the company’s future is at stake on the project, and it can’t be done wrong- and yet PMs will escalate and try to force the hand of the people doing the work because they don’t want to look bad by having a note on the PMO’s executive summary for that month saying that they’re off-schedule or over budget.

My point is this:  is it ever a good decision to allow how you look on a report drive cutting corners and hurrying processes?  Of course you can’t just ignore reports.  They’re there for a reason, and it’s a good reason.  Still, you must consider trends over time and how you will be judged long-term.  If a sale or project close out after the quarter mark, yes, it robs this quarter, but didn’t you get a nice bump in the next quarter as a result?  Even if you cross fiscal years, is that really so wrong?

Don’t let pressures to look good drive you to make poor long term decisions- not for your department, your company, or your project.  Keep your eye on the long-term ball and stick to strategy and delivering successfully.  Delivering a shoddy product early has never been a successful strategy with customers- delivering the right solution at the right time does.  They don’t care about your quarterly report; they care about receiving quality.  Companies succeed over years and decades, not 90 day sprints.

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