I was on a short project recently that had to move quickly, so early on, we decided to whiteboard out our activities for the day at 9am, then checkpoint on our progress for ten minutes at noon, then again 5 pm.

Guess what happened? When noon and 5 rolled around each day, one group or another got annoyed at the interruption to checkpoint (“All we ever do is checkpoint and never get anything done!” one person said), and eventually the checkpoints went away entirely.

You can also probably guess what happened after that: The work didn’t get done on time for the client review, and we didn’t know that until 2am the morning of the client review.

I certainly don’t mind cutting checkpoints. What I don’t understand is 1) folks who commit to them in the first place then resist them later, and 2) not coming to a checkpoint and asking for help.

The best thing to do? Tell your PM that you’re going to stay heads down for the noon but will show up with a clear report on progress or a specific request for help at 5.

Seems simple, but it ain’t.