There was no method before Anthony.It was built on a wall, for him.
Four companies, a calendar with nothing left in it, and a technology implementation that had stopped moving for reasons nobody could fix with technology.
- 01The first client through it
- 4Companies he was carrying at once
- 4Steps, drawn on his wall
- 1Stalled project, moving again
The delay was nevera technical one.
Every other page on this site is a result of the method. This one is the reason there is a method to get a result from.
There was no Business Momentum Sprint when Anthony arrived. There was a technology implementation, and he was the main client on it, and it had stopped moving.
The reason it had stopped was not technical. He was carrying four companies, a calendar with nothing left in it, and a transition in his personal life that was bleeding into the business and making it very hard to get anything done at all.
So the method was built on the spot, to move him through it: four sheets of paper taped to a wall, a pad of sticky notes, and one question per sheet. He went first because he was the reason it existed.
The implementation went ahead. Every board on this site since, from Nirav's two hundred and twenty-seven to Jen's twenty-four, is running the four headings that went up on that wall.
Problem. Protest.Proposal. Proclamation.
One sheet per step, and a card beside each one carrying the sentence you had to finish. These four headings have been on every board since, which is why his wall is worth a page of its own.
- 01
Your Problem
“…” · “My reasons”
Everything in the way, in the plainest words available. Named, not solved, and not yet argued with.
- 02
Your Protest
“It ought not be…” · “I ought not be…” · “I ought not have to…”
The objection underneath each problem: the part that is not a fact but a grievance. This is also where the feelings get named and counted rather than described: worry, frustration, guilt, resentment, inadequacy, confinement, dread.
- 03
Your Proposal
“I ought to be…” · “It (he or she) ought to be…”
The same sentence turned around to face the other way. Still hypothetical, and deliberately so. It is the last step before anything is claimed.
- 04
Your Proclamation
“I have…” · “I am…” · “My __ is…”
The present tense, on a sheet of open sky. Nothing conditional survives this step, which is why it is the one that is still on the wall.
Read any row fromleft to right.
Three of his own concerns, each followed across all four sheets in the words he used on each one. The first column and the last are the same subject. Everything that happened is in the two in between.
- TimeProblemI don't have enough time.ProtestIt ought not be right there's not enough time.ProposalI ought to be free of time.ProclamationI have freedom of time.
- CostProblemI have a large monthly burn rate.ProtestI ought not have to have a large monthly burn rate.ProposalI ought to better budget.ProclamationI am in control of costs.
- LoadProblemI have so much to do. Only one of me.ProtestThere ought not to be only one of me.ProposalI ought to take on less work. I ought to have a team.ProclamationI am in control of workload. I have external partners.
Present tense only.Nothing conditional.
The last sheet was a photograph of open sky, and nothing hedged was allowed on it. Six of his lines are here, in the tense he wrote them. The rest stay on the wall.
- I have enough time.
- I am in control of workload.
- I am in control of costs.
- I have a budget.
- I am focused.
- I have external partners.
What he did oncehe had said them.
Writing a sentence in the present tense does not make it true. He went and made them true himself, and the hardest of them are his own business rather than this page’s.
- 01
He put a number on the month.
Monthly costs and burn rate down, against a budget he keeps. In control of costs was a sentence he wrote on a wall before it was true.
- 02
He stopped carrying every project himself.
Fewer projects running at once, work off his own desk, and external partners on the parts that were never his to do.
- 03
He was more present, and happier.
The one he names as the biggest of them and the hardest to put a figure on. Four companies got a different man in the room.
And the project started moving again.
Which is the whole reason the two of them were in a room. The delay had never been technical, so nothing technical was ever going to clear it. And once he was through the four sheets, the implementation went ahead.
I run 4 companies and arrived overwhelmed. I found the experience intense and immediately helpful. Very positive and enlightening.
Four companies at once, a calendar with nothing left in it, and a transition in his personal life that was bleeding into the business. The technology implementation he was the main client on had stopped moving, and none of the reasons were technical.
In command of his workload and his costs, carrying fewer projects and none of the ones that were never his. More time, more freedom, and by his own account more present and happier. The implementation went ahead, and the method he was the first through is now the practice.
He got the first one. It has had a lot of practice since.
Three Sprints most months, and every one starts with a call so I can tell you straight whether three days would move what you are carrying, including when the answer is no.