A few recent conversations with clients made me suspect that the distinction between Sprintlanes and Swimlanes wasn’t absolutely clear; they sound similar so how can they be different? Well there is the paradox, we use a similar concept for two fundamentally different Strategic Execution models but because the concept is similar the distinction isn’t always clear.

Swimlanes, Sprintlanes, what is this article actually about? It’s about Sprintlanes but I thought it was important to distinguish between the two before we went any further.

So Swimlanes are strategic. Swimlanes map out our Strategic Execution over 12 quarters (3 years, 36 months) and show the key milestones (or outcomes) of how our strategic differentiators will be created, improved, refined and re-inforced. Each Swimlane shows the milestones (or outcomes) for ONE differentiator so you will have as many swimlanes as you have (interdependent) differentiators. I recently wrote an article on how to build your swimlanes so I won’t talk about these any further here.

In contrast, Sprintlanes are not strategic, they are execution focused over your next 90 days (or 13 weeks or 3 months). Whereas you show your key milestones (or outcomes) on Swimlanes you show the key tasks or activities on your Sprintlanes. Swimlanes are organised around differentiators, Sprintlanes are organised around your quarterly priorities. Each quarterly priority has its own Sprintlane and as each priority is owned by a single accountable person, one person is accountable for each Sprintlane.

Another key distinction is that Sprintlanes show the company widgets week by week over the quarter. It gives the team a vivid picture of how the widgets need to move over the 13 weeks of the quarter to achieve the quarterly targets. “Count them each week - Seriously?” I hear the leadership team cry when I first start working with them, “No, count them each day as you need to review them each day in your daily huddle, so counting them each week for your Sprintlanes won’t be a problem.”.

Building the Sprintlanes is one of the last activities in a Quarterly Strategic Execution session. I normally introduce it to my clients at the first or second Quarterly session after our original kick off but some find it too hard to take on that soon. They are still focused on working in the business not on the business and can’t think that far ahead to realistically plan out the quarter. That is OK, I meet the client where they are and come back to it the next quarter or the quarter after; if they are not yet ready, forcing the issue is not going to achieve anything. Some of my clients have tried Swimlanes 2 or 3 times before being ready and only then see the value and adopt them quarter on quarter.

What do Sprintlanes look like? I like to lay them out horizontally, going from left to right (whereas Swimlanes go from RIGHT to LEFT as we “Start with the end in mind”. Along the top I lay out numbers for each week (1 through 13) although one of my clients runs a 5 quarter year but that is a completely different article.

In the section below I have one row for each critical metric for this current quarter, this might be all your company metrics or it might just be a subset. I often see the critical metrics for the quarter change as the company’s focus moves from one objective to the next. This is fine.

In the next section I have one row for each quarterly priority along with who is accountable for that priority.

They will look something like this:

Quarterly Sprint Lanes

Bear in mind that at this point, the team will have just set their Quarterly Targets and their Quarterly Priorities so what they are looking to achieve and what they will focus on will be front of mind for them. The team transfer the quarterly metrics to the Sprintlanes and each person accountable for the metric puts the target for each metric for each week. “Do we really need to put the same number in each week if it doesn’t change often?” - “Yep!”.

We leave space for the actuals for each week so the Sprintlanes become a “timeline scoreboard” for the quarter. Then we work on what needs to happen week on week to make the quarterly priorities happen by the end of the quarter. Each person accountable for a quarterly priority brings together the people they need to execute the priority and plans out the quarter week on week. One key activity each week. “Only one thing each week? We can do far more than one thing each week!” - No, not really, not when you have your day jobs. If you have several things each week you are breaking it down too far, chunk it back up again and look at the critical thing that need to happen week on week. There will be another level of planning and detail beyond this, focus on the big things.

Whether we are in person or remote, I get the teams into groups (around the table or in break-out rooms) so they can work together. Sometimes one person needs to go between groups as they are critical to achieving more than one priority. Over time, this often comes out as a constraint in the business that needs to be addressed by rearranging functional accountabilities but I won’t go into that further here.

Once the team has finished building out the Sprintlanes each row will be populated and there will be targets for each week for each metric and activities for each Company Quarterly Priority for each week.

Are we done? - Not at all!

Two more things:

Firstly, before we bring the Quarterly Strategic Execution session to a close each accountable person presents each Sprintlane back to the leadership team for review, comment and feedback. This is the time for rapid assessments of resource constraints, dependencies, critical milestones, cross-priority dependencies et cetera. You might not be able to resolve all of these in this session so if you hit a blocker, assign an action and person accountable and move on.

Secondly, and this happens after the meeting, each accountable person takes their Sprintlane(s) away, reviews it with their team and any other teams that need to be involved and within no more than 7 days, presents a revised and agreed Sprintlane plan back to the leadership team. This is essentially saying that they have consulted with their team, made adjustments where necessary, engaged with others involved and are now ready to commit to the completion of the quarterly priority by the end of the quarter. This Quarterly Sprintlane review session which happens within a week of the Quarterly Strategic Execution session will, over time, become part of the cadence of the business.

So at this point we know how our key metrics need to move week by week over the quarter and we have a way of tracking them visually week by week. We also know what we need to do to complete our quarterly priorities week by week over the quarter and can track them week by week. Once we have our Sprintlanes we incorporate them into our weekly meetings so we can very easily see how we are going against our quarterly targets and priorities and, if we are not on track, make arrangements to bringing them back on track.

Not every team can work like this, it requires a level of trust and accountability that you don’t see in every business, but when you do, things really start happening. You can feel the beat of the drum accelerating as everyone gets behind the key things that need to happen to get to the end of the quarter confident of achieving their quarterly targets and quarterly priorities.

If you think this approach could work for you and your business and you want me to show you how to achieve these results, give me a call at +61 415 534239 or drop me a mail at [email protected].