Build, measure, learn
Build, measure, learn
How to experiment and iterate your way to a successful 4 day week
A 4 day working week is more than just an employee perk or an antidote to the much-discussed phenomenon of “quiet quitting”: it’s an operating model. To make a success of a 4 day week, careful planning and tracking is important, but so is a willingness to experiment and change course if needed.
This is especially relevant for me this month, as I’ve been promoted into a more senior role and have spent some time re-evaluating my week to accommodate a new set of responsibilities and ways of working. Having been immersed in the tech world over the past 18 months, I’ve uncovered several useful lessons in Lean Startup methodology, a well-known innovation framework used by early-stage businesses and established players alike.
Formulated by entrepreneur Eric Ries, Lean Startup revolves around the “build-measure-learn” loop. In simple terms, this is a shortened product development cycle. By putting out a “minimum viable product” or “MVP” (a basic version of your product with just enough features to draw in some initial customers and gather feedback), you can discover more quickly what works and what doesn’t. These findings are channelled back into the next version of the product, and the cycle starts again. Failure is an expected – and welcome – part of the process, as long as useful conclusions are drawn from it.
So how does this framework apply when implementing a 4 day working week, either as an individual arrangement (like mine) or as an organisation-wide operating model?
1. Plan ahead, but never to the point of perfectionism
Eric Ries is very clear that a Lean Startup is trying to achieve something that has never been done before, and therefore operates under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This means it can’t rely on detailed business planning or traditional forecasts, and must instead experiment its way to success.
Those who are interested in a 4 day week often convince themselves that the arrangement would never work for their role/industry/organisation/clients/career progression, without ever considering that it might make sense to just get started and see how it goes. Lawyers in particular can be a risk-averse bunch, with a natural preference for planning ahead and accounting for every possibility.
There’s a strong case for applying Lean Startup thinking to a 4 day week as you would any innovation project: launch your 4 day MVP and then fine-tune. Start by identifying the most obvious challenges and tackling them first, for instance by delegating specific tasks or arranging a stand-in for a non-movable meeting.
You’ll also need to be willing to make very early adjustments, wherever needed. In my case, I initially tried out a Monday-to-Thursday arrangement, with Friday as my non-working day. I quickly found that this put too much pressure on the beginning and end of my week. Mondays became a game of catch-up (assuming I hadn’t already spent some of Sunday filtering through my inbox), while Thursdays ended with a flurry of handovers as my deadlines often fell on Fridays. Within a month, I switched my non-working day to Wednesday and saw an immediate improvement.
I’m sure I could have arrived at this outcome through a detailed initial planning process, but it would have taken me longer to get to the same point – and it’s possible that I might not have even gone ahead if I had spent time dwelling on the challenges. This is Lean Startup methodology in action: seizing the early wins helps to shorten the path to results and avoids the trap of perfectionism.
2. Measure and track progress
Once you have your MVP, the next step is to measure and track progress, with the aim of building on successes and identifying areas for improvement. We’re fortunate to have a high-profile example of a tracked experiment right now, with the UK’s 4 day working week pilot running until December 2022. Although I’m not participating in the pilot (and nor is my employer), I was pleased to see some positive results from the mid-pilot survey:
88% of respondents believe that the 4 day week is working well for their business so far;
46% of respondents say they have maintained the same level of business productivity, while 34% report that productivity has improved slightly and 15% say it has improved significantly; and
86% of respondents stated that they would be extremely likely or likely to consider retaining the 4 day week policy after the trial period.
(Source: 4 Day Week Global)
You might say that the results are unsurprising for a group of participants with plenty of resources at hand, whether that’s staff goodwill, positive PR, the post-pandemic focus on work/life balance, or the intensive guidance and oversight provided by the team running the pilot. It’s also important to note that only 41 of the 72 participating companies responded to the survey (and therefore it’s entirely possible that the other 31 are wholeheartedly regretting the day they signed up). However, as with all good experiments, the results allow us to identify factors for success that could be replicated in a “normal” work setting.
There are different approaches when it comes to tracking and gathering data. For a company-wide 4 day week, it makes sense to assess progress in a structured and quantitative way, similar to the UK pilot. I like the example set by Uncharted, a US-based social impact accelerator. When experimenting with a 4 day working week in 2020, Uncharted hired an external evaluation partner and created a comprehensive report to inform their decision as to whether to make the 4 day week permanent (spoiler alert: they did).
If your 4 day week is an individual arrangement, you could opt for more flexible and personalised data gathering. You might identify specific productivity metrics that align with your role and working practices (whether that’s in relation to outputs, responsiveness, or time taken to resolve issues). This could be particularly helpful if you’re working a 4 day week on a trial basis, in the hope of demonstrating that it works well enough to become a permanent arrangement. Otherwise, you could try a more subjective approach. It’s just as valid to check in with yourself, your manager, your team or your colleagues and ask the simple question: is this working? With a bit of constructive honesty, the answers can be revealing.
3. Iterate (a.k.a. implement your findings)
Iteration is a common term in the tech and innovation world. It’s essentially the “learn” and “loop” elements of the “build-measure-learn” loop I mentioned above: repeating a process and refining it each time, until you get to a better result. Once you have your MVP and you’re tracking progress, you need to continuously implement the lessons you’re learning. Failure is an important part of this.
I was interested to read about Cosmic, a California-based creative agency that has been operating a 4 day week since 2016 and has clearly experienced several failures along the way.
“When Cosmic first moved to the four day work week, we split the team into a Monday - Thursday team and a Tuesday to Friday team all working forty hours. We thought we needed to be available for clients all week. We soon discovered that our team didn’t have enough time together to effectively collaborate. So we started setting expectations with clients that we work a four day week and implemented a sprint cycle with them to have a standing meeting to show progress on Thursdays. Once we learned how to communicate with clients around our work schedule our clients no longer expected our team to respond on Fridays.”
The shift pattern wasn’t working. Collaboration stalled. Expectations weren’t set. Communication needed to happen in a different way so that clients could be served effectively. All of these issues led to a new, bigger and better, iteration of the 4 day week, and the cycle began again.
Some final thoughts on failure
Embracing failure, although difficult, is essential to making a success of a 4 day week. As a lawyer, I work in a sector that is extremely resistant to failure, for very good reason. Mistakes by lawyers can be costly, not just financially but also in their impact on people’s lives, the reputation of the profession and the rule of law. Caution is a good thing in this context.
The stakes are a little lower when it comes to alternative ways of working, so I’d argue that there’s room to test things out in a controlled way. What I like about the Lean Startup framework is that it eliminates fear of failure and creates the right conditions for innovation, but is more structured than those reckless-sounding startup mantras we’ve all heard before (especially the Zuckerberg favourite, “move fast and break things”). If you’re thinking of trying out a 4 day week, experimenting with the build-measure-learn loop just might get you started more quickly and help you fail your way towards an arrangement that works.
The fine print:
All opinions expressed in The 4 Day Lawyer are my own and not those of my current or former employers. My 4 day working week is an individual arrangement and is not associated with the UK’s 4 day working week pilot. This newsletter is an opinion piece and does not constitute legal advice or create any kind of solicitor/client relationship; please consult with a qualified professional if you need advice on a legal issue.