What is the optimum cycle length? This puzzled me a long time, until I started doing Evolutionary delivery projects myself.

• Before knowing about the Evolutionary delivery principles, I arrived, from an other point of view, at an optimum cycle length of two weeks. See "Other view on cycles".
• When I met Tom Gilb, he was talking about cutting a 50 week project into 50 increments of one week! Based on my earlier view on short cycles, I immediately accepted the Evolutionary way. However, only one week per cycle seemed almost impossible short and too theoretical to me. What can you do in only one week?
• When coaching my first Evolutionary delivery project, I assumed that nobody would believe that one week cycles would be practical or even possible and that it hence would be impossible to let them start using the Evolutionary delivery way. Even 2 weeks seemed unachievable to me, so I suggested a 3 week cycle.
• The 3 weeks turned out, however, to be too long! Human beings need shorter times to systematise their work.
• In another project, we had only 6 weeks to finish a development. Working in only two 3-week cycles or even three 2-week cycles was hardly useful. So I decided to try 1-week cycles, just as Tom Gilb suggested. And guess what? It works!
  The first week, none of the tasks committed were finished. The estimations were way too optimistic. I just showed them a mirror at the end of the first week. They realised that their estimations were impossible: only some 40% was done. I was almost desperate, but kept going because I knew the theory had to work. The second week, none of the tasks were really finished, however, they were almost (80%) done. And from the third week on, all tasks were completely finished at the end of every cycle. People started smiling. They started believing that they could achieve things without stress. Motivation returned. Productivity returned. Typical defects vanished. All in a few weeks! Can you imagine?
• Somebody suggested that if you plan a 3-days task in 5 days (see "Don't they get lazy?"), it will take 5 days. Most management translates this idea into requiring doing a 6-days task in 5 days. Reality shows that this does not work. People are not lazy. Stress demotivates and causes defects that cause even more delays. The satisfaction of getting results motivates and motivation is the motor of productivity. So, don't be afraid to insist on doing a 3 days task in one week. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you can do even a 5 days task within a week, you won't! If the work is done, have small top-priority tasks prepared. Most important is that the planned work is done, really done.

Bottom line is: Cut your development time in 1-week cycles. At first, it seems impossible to cut the work in small, meaningful parts of 1 to maximum 3 days. After some excercise, it turns out to be always possible. If you don't believe it, try once more. Any project manager hearing this story always will tell that it sounds nice, but that it is impossible in this project. It is always possible. Ask a coach. Ask me. Within a few hours, you will know you can start the first 1-week cycle! Thanks Tom, you were right!