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| <mainDescription><p> <i>Sustainable pace </i>is the rate of work that a team can consistently maintain 
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| without burning out team members. This concept was popularized by the Extreme 
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| Programming (XP) methodology with its 40-hour work week practice, which later 
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| evolved into the more generic "sustainable pace."&nbsp;The basic idea is that, 
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| although a team can have brief spurts of overtime (perhaps for a week or two&nbsp;at 
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| a time during critical periods during a project lifecycle), it cannot maintain 
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| that pace indefinitely.&nbsp;This is analogous to the concept that you cannot 
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| sprint throughout a marathon. </p>
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| <p>
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| Strategies to help maintain a sustainable pace:
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| </p>
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| <ul>
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| <li><strong>Build activities into everyday work</strong>.&nbsp;This avoids the 
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| problem that the activity is scheduled into a specific period and, therefore, 
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| must&nbsp;be accomplished regardless of how much effort it requires. For example, 
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| instead of leaving testing to the end of a project, test all the way through 
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| the project.&nbsp;Instead of modeling only at the beginning of a project, 
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| model all the way through only when you need the relevant information and 
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| only to the extent that you currently need.&nbsp;&nbsp; </li>
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| <li><strong>Organize the project into short iterations</strong>.&nbsp;Short 
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| iterations provide the opportunity for small "pebbles" (which show progress) 
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| rather than huge "milestones."&nbsp;Continuous feedback reduces the&nbsp;need&nbsp;to 
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| work long hours. Also,&nbsp;it helps focus on finding ways to consistently 
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| achieve the regular deliveries. </li>
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| <li><strong>Adopt a continuous integration strategy</strong>.&nbsp;By frequently 
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| merging code, compiling it, testing it, and running appropriate code analysis 
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| against it, you increase the quality of your work through finding and then 
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| fixing defects quickly and easily.&nbsp;This reduces the chance of major problems 
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| in your work, thereby reducing a primary motivator of unexpected overtime.&nbsp; 
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| </li>
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| <li><strong>Question long hours</strong>.&nbsp;Productivity does not increase 
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| with hours worked.&nbsp;Tired people are far&nbsp;less productive than well-rested 
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| ones. </li>
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| <li><strong>Recognize sustained overtime as a failure</strong>.&nbsp;If a team 
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| needs to work overtime for more than&nbsp;two weeks in a row, that is a reflection 
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| of poor planning or&nbsp;inadequate resources allocation.&nbsp; </li>
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| <li><strong>Recognize that you're still working hard at a sustainable pace</strong>.&nbsp;Just 
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| because you are working at a sustainable pace, it&nbsp;doesn't mean that the 
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| team is not working hard enough. Rather, it is&nbsp;typically an indication 
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| that&nbsp;the team is&nbsp;a "well-oiled machine.&quot;</li>
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| </ul></mainDescription> |
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