What happens in a week? I have come to the conclusion that it is often less productive and less enjoyable to base any long-term project on a weekly system. There are some notable exceptions to this thought including retail and emergency response, but I digress.
When a long-term set of goals is established (i.e. improving communication for a large organization), you must allow for an initial period of vigilant monitoring and oversight. However, after the critical jumping-off phase, changes must be allowed to happen without the constant oversight that may have been necessary during the first push. Beyond the first drastic changes that must occur, most long-term changes do not materialize in a week’s time, so the oversight of a weekly ‘meeting’ is usually unnecessary. The pressure of providing some tangible results for a long term project on a weekly basis is more likely to detract from any forward motion than it is to propel it.
I say this through my own experience and observations, however I think that this theory would prove true in a number of situations. I think that asking for short term and constant results on a long term project is akin to creating a bunch of busy work that has little relevance to the overall goal of any particular group.
