Overview of 100-Day Challenges
Overview of 100-Day Challenges
What is a 100-Day Challenge?
On the surface: it is very simple. It is a project. Like most projects, it has a team, a goal, and a work plan. And it is time-bound. Typically the time frame is 100 days – from the time the team first meets until it accomplishes its mission.
So what is the big deal? Why go through this Programme to learn how to guide people through it?
To answer this question, please watch this video featuring a story you may have heard about. The rescue of 33 miners trapped 700 metres below the surface in Chile in 2010.
Assignment
Describe a situation you experienced or observed where a crisis elicited unusually high levels of performance: Intense Collaboration, Frequent Innovation, and Rapid Implementation. Be as specific as possible.
So 100-Day Challenges borrow some of the features of crises to inspire higher team performance and new behaviours. Watch the video below to learn about these features.
Videos summary
Here’s a table that summarises the features and builds on what we saw in the two videos.
Crisis
100-Day Challenge
Sense of Urgency
Fast: 100 days from start to completion of the project
Success, or even survival, is far from guaranteed
100-Day Goal feels almost impossible to achieve
“All hands on deck” – all focused on the crisis
Right team is assembled, all committed to the goal
People ignore red tape, hierarchy, and approvals
Evolving work plan, with lots of experimentation built into it – not business as usual
There are attributes of 100-Day Challenges we will discuss later in the Programme. For now, we’d like you to keep in mind that at each stage of the 100-day Challenge journey, we will be focusing on three things and treating these in unique ways that make 100-Day Challenges different from everyday projects. The three are:
100-Day Challenge team
100-Day goal
100-Day work plan
