The sprint at the end of a project does get you there. It focuses your and your team’s energy, keeps the pressure on, and is an occasion for heroic efforts. It can work.
Except.
Except it only really works when you guess right about where that finish line is. It only really works when you time everything just right, so that you cross the finish line just at the moment when your and your team’s energy is about to run out.
Meaning that, once you hit maximum velocity you’ve closed yourself off to discovery, closed yourself off to noticing, a good ways down the path, that you need to make a turn, you need to double down, you need to shore up for a longer haul.
That tortoise was on to something.
