The Timeline Scroll: a prop, a stunt, or a good place to start?

A true story, set in the era of cube farms, faxes, interoffice mail, and Ask Jeeves; way before phones became smart. One of my former company’s directives was to integrate the US and European affiliates, at all levels. This meant a lot of conference calls (remember when those Y-shaped speaker phones were cool?) and overseas travel. One project was particularly plagued by corporate politics-- let’s just say that “Who Moved my Cheese” did not play well with this crowd. Anyway, no one dared discuss the real issues out in the open. Instead, the stakeholders’ critiques focused (ostensibly) on the timeline: claiming that there wasn’t a real timeline (there was); the timeline wasn’t shared (it was); if it was shared, the timeline wasn’t right.

Our team seized on this last point because it provided a real thing to talk about. Our manager and a fellow PM flew to Europe, bringing with them a large-format, detailed printout of the timeline. When my colleagues started to unroll the 10-foot scroll, the most senior stakeholder suggested that rather than discuss the details could they outline the milestones?  With that, the meeting turned into a productive and actionable planning session. I am not sure if the timeline scroll was ever fully unrolled by anyone again, but the project was completed successfully.

Two takeaways for me then and now: the mere presence of a timeline can resolve stagnation and without a timeline a team cannot have a real conversation about planning and goals.  

The good news is that you don’t have to create timelines from scratch. Acumen has developed ready-to-use submission timelines in Smartsheet for all modules and eCTD sections. Let us help you start the conversation!  We’ll be happy to onboard and support you along the way.

Fernando Venegas, Head of Operations and Quality