Schedules Suck: Win with the Rolling Five Day Approach Instead »

After a decade of working on projects with highly motivated founders and product teams that want to get stuff done, we’ve come to a simple conclusion: schedules can be death to team morale and great product unless you balance them by staying nimble and opportunistic. Great things only happen when a highly motivated team gets to play a little to discover new ways to do things better.

We’ve all experienced those crushing little blows of scheduling that bring exciting sparks to their knees. “That’s a good idea, let’s bring that up again at the next meeting,” or, “That’s sounds great, but that’s a P2” are signs of schedule-driven thinking. Momentum halts. The excitement that aids creative thinking passes. You have to have some of that thinking to timebox your efforts—design can’t go on forever or it won’t matter. Too much, though, and you will squash innovation on your team.