The spring bank holidays: the art of planning with half the team away

There’s something special about April and May.

On the calendar, they look like ordinary months… until you start looking at the holidays.

A day off here, a long weekend there, someone taking ‘just two days’ off… which, as it happens, turn the week into something completely different.

And suddenly, that project that was going so well starts to fall apart.

“Marta isn’t here this week.”
“We won’t have the client’s team on Monday.”
“It’s best not to go ahead with that on Thursday because the person who needs to approve it isn’t here.”

And before you know it, your plan starts to look like a slice of Gruyère cheese. Full of holes.

The interesting thing is that, on paper, everything remains the same:

• The deadlines remain unchanged.
• The deliverables are still there.
• Expectations… remain unchanged.

But the team’s actual ability is no longer what it used to be.

And that’s when the little juggling acts begin.

• Reschedule a meeting.
• Reschedule a task.
• Adjust priorities “temporarily”. (That “temporary” arrangement that ends up becoming permanent.)

Because, of course, when people come back, the days don’t come back.

And then comes that all-too-familiar moment: everyone is available again, but the project is no longer where it should be. There are half-hearted decisions, deadlocked issues, things that were “going to be dealt with after the holidays”… and which are now urgent.

And you’d never guess that the problem started with something as innocent as a couple of days off.

The funny thing is that this doesn’t usually take us by surprise. We know it’s coming; we can all see the calendar. However, we are still planning as if those weeks were gonna be ‘normal’

It’s as if the team were complete. As if the dependencies didn’t matter that much. As if everything were going to fall into place just the same.

Until it no longer fits.

And at that point, managing the project is a lot like trying to juggle an impossible schedule, fitting together pieces that no longer fit, making decisions with incomplete information, and accepting that some things simply won’t turn out as planned.

And it’s not about avoiding the holidays, nor about resigning oneself to the fact that “it always happens at this time of year”. Perhaps it’s more about accepting that not every week is the same, and that planning as if they were has fairly predictable consequences. Because, at the end of the day, it’s not that there aren’t enough people; it’s that the way the work flows changes completely.

And if we don’t take that into account, it shows.

Has this ever happened to you? Are you the type who plans ahead… or the type who’s already looking at the calendar with fresh eyes at this time of year?