I love the Back to the Future trilogy. It’s hard to admit this, but growing up, this trilogy was probably even more influential than Star Wars. Marty McFly was the guy that everyone wanted to be. He skateboarded, played in a rock band that I’m afraid was just too darn loud, and had time travel at his disposal. He basically had it all.

Marty McFly was late for everything. As you think back through the series, just about every scene in every movie was filled with this tension. Even with the time machine, Marty couldn’t escape this pressure. This is where I will draw a parallel to the world of enterprise technology. When it comes to project delivery, we can’t help ourselves. We make our estimates. We set the schedule. We get busy. Then we have insane crunch-time at the end.

Like Marty and Doc’s DeLorean, we have the technology. Just think about how difficult it used to be to get projects done. Now, we have continuous delivery, server automation, automated testing, and other cool technologies. While that certainly makes us more efficient, we seem to shoot ourselves in the foot by continuing to agree to overly aggressive timelines. We tend to eat-up our contingency early in the process and snowplow the hard stuff toward the end. To make matters worse, we struggle with changing priorities and scope-creep.

Your team is working like crazy going 88 mph. As a leader, you’re trying to keep it all together like Doc stringing transmission lines across the clock tower. At any time, you are worried that the Libyans might come out of nowhere with a VW van and an RPG. Oh, and the project sponsor somewhat resembles Biff and you are secretly hoping he encounters some horse manure.

What’s a technology leader supposed to do? You really just want to sit down with your life preserver and have a Pepsi Free, but you need to take action. Solutions to this challenge are hard to come by, just like plutonium in 1955. Here are a few ideas:

1. Re-snap the line. Sometimes you start your project with a set of assumptions that change dramatically once you get into it a bit. You realize early on that your original timeline isn’t going to happen. Work with the sponsor to revise the estimate and set a new expectation. This is best done as early as possible. No sponsor wants a surprise conversation like this toward the end.
2. Set priorities. Most organizations are guilty of making almost everything a #1 priority. This is nuts. When push comes to shove, you need to know what you absolutely need to deliver, and what can slide without causing the company to go under. The role of the team is to surface the conflict: “I can’t do all of these. Which ones do you want me to do in which order?” The role of a technology leader is to set those priorities for the team.
3. Remove obstacles. Sometimes there’s just one small thing that is causing an entire effort to stall out. Apply your efforts to the point of constraint, and you’ll be zooming back to the future, like you just threw a few banana peels into Mr. Fusion.
4. Focus. Get everyone in a room, block calendars, and turn on your Out of Office auto-responder. It’s really amazing how efficient your team can work when you remove all distractions, queue time, and context-switching. This isn’t always possible or practical. But when you do this, can you can race down the track like a train on which you don’t need a credit card to ride.

I don’t have all of the answers. Great Scott! This is heavy! I hope these ideas make you feel a little better equipped so you aren’t facing these challenges in your Calvin Klein’s. Like my blog? Be my density and share it with your colleagues. Don’t like it? Make like a tree and get out of here.