In today’s fast-changing world, one-month projects work best. Learn why short, focused projects deliver results while long ones fail.

Everything is connected, and technology evolves like never before, mainly due to the fast development of AI. What was cutting-edge technology yesterday is now a commodity.

It’s no different in geopolitics: Thanks to Donald Trump, priorities and standpoints shift within days. And this isn’t happening in a calm and stable world, but in a world where Russia, China, and a few others battle for global influence.

And yet, most organizations still do projects the traditional way.

They insist on procurement exercises that last for months in a world where innovation cycles have shortened to months or even weeks. Think of Lovable, the vibe coding platform that went from 0 to 100M in revenue in eight months. It wasn’t even in existence when you launched your procurement exercise at the end of last year.

Often, project requirements go far beyond functional requirements: Compliance rules dictate many non-functional requirements – very often, they don’t create value, but just cover some individuals’ backs.

To finish things off, many projects set up huge project structures with steering committees, sounding boards, project communication, and much more. Ironically, those projects call for a project kickoff meeting long before it is clear what needs to be done.

And everybody wonders why everything takes so long.

Here is a simple rule:

If a project takes longer than a month, it’s too complex.

Full stop.

I’m not talking about projects like building an airport or reforming the social security system. I’m talking about those thousands of projects we run in our organizations, no matter how large or small those organizations might be.

Let’s look into some examples.

1. New Features

At Yonder, the company I co-founded, we’re in the software business.

Building a new feature should start with a proof-of-concept (POC), minimum viable product (MVP), or whatever you want to call it. If properly specified, an MVP can be implemented in a month. If you can’t implement it in a month, most probably your solution is too complicated.

When developing new features, always break them down into sub-features and start with the MVP. You can always add more functionality later in a separate project, provided the additional functionality is needed at all. The market will tell you once you ship the MVP.

2. ISO Certification

A few years ago, we underwent ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certification. Not because we wanted to, but because the market we operate in expects those certifications even from SMEs.

We broke down the process into a series of short projects. We started with the ISO 9001 certification when we were around 10 people in the company. So that was a reasonably short project to complete.

A year later, we added ISO 27001 certification on top of our ISO 9001 certification. Adding an ISMS on top of an existing QMS is significantly easier than doing both together.

Another couple of years later, we merged the two single certifications into a combined certification.

And yet another year later, we upgraded from ISO 27001:2013 to ISO 27001:2022.

Had we tried to tackle all those elements in one step, we would probably still not have received our certification.

3. Marketing Initiatives

The pop-up store is the prototype of the one-month project. You launch quickly, get feedback from the market, and then decide what to do next.

It’s the same with an email campaign in a new geographical market or a new sector. You blast it out, get feedback from the market, and then decide what to do next.

Compare this approach to applying for permanent store concessions or printing brochures for a new market. You would probably not get anywhere.

Conclusion

In our fast-paced world where certainties disappear by the day, technology and geopolitics will outflank you when your projects take too long. You will have wasted lots of time and money on things that are no longer relevant in a changed world.

In contrast, when you stick to the one-month rule for project duration, you can do things quickly and get feedback from the market.

If the feedback is negative or the world has changed so much in that month, dare to abandon a project or product.

But if the feedback is positive, start a follow-up V2 project to improve your project or product. But limit the follow-up V2 project to one month, too.