The New 12 Week Year
I was never good at book reviews. I think it’s because I had a tendency always to go into details about the book instead of giving the reader an overview of what to expect from the book. So with that disclaimer, I will do my best in this review to achieve your goals.
I recently read a book titled – The 12-Week Year, get more done in 12 weeks than others do in 12 months by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington. Needless to say, the title caught my attention and interest.
The idea behind the book is that the one factor that is holding people back from achieving their potential is not a lack of knowledge, intellect, or information. But rather the ability to execute, the capacity to close the execution gap.
Achieve your goals one week at a time
Essentially, you are redefining your year as 12 weeks, followed by another 12 weeks, etc. Each 12 weeks stands on its own. Recall that end of year push, well, that is now happening every 12 weeks. Thinking in terms of 12-week periods helps refocus your thoughts and makes each week count.
Start with a vision of what you want to accomplish, then break down your 12-week plan into a weekly plan that will drive your daily actions and outcomes.
You can complement this program by also using a Kanban board to help visualize the work in progress. I will explore a few other techniques in future blogs on driving outcomes, one model, in particular, I’ve been using is Objectives and Key Results (OKR). That’s for another day.
Measurement drives the execution process
I like the weekly scorecard, and measuring your result. Measuring captures both leading and lagging indicators. To help provide you with feedback for decision-making on what’s working, what is not working.
The book does talk about setting a vision, which, I think, is important when developing your short term 12-week plans. It’s essential to know what you are working toward.
The book walks you through developing your 12-week plan and even provides some templates for you to use. I’ve tried not to go into too much detail here, as I mentioned at the start of this post. I can get deep in the details at times, so I am just trying to give you a 30,000 feet overview.
The 12-Week Year is a Buy
I would recommend this book and would also be interested to hear from you if you have read the book. What are your thoughts, or if there is a productivity book that you read that you think the community could benefit from. Please let me know on Twitterand as always, thanks for reading!