Peak month is a month at the high point of the year, when work or deadlines are more concentrated than in regular months. It is also commonly called the "busy season" (a peak in the seasonal fluctuation of demand, or seasonality). There are two types: those decided from last year's order records, and those fixed in advance by the calendar or by regulations. Pages are not rebuilt in a peak month.
With OKRs, which presuppose the stretch goals introduced at the beginning of this book, it is generally considered enough to reach 60 to 70 percent of an ambitious goal. Yet, judging from the two surveys, the mainstream of goal management in Japan is MBO, with 100 percent achievement as the standard, while OKRs are a small minority. It's like giving an exam where "60 percent is a pass," then grading the report card as "anything short of 100 is a deduction." The higher the goal, the lower the evaluation. That is the kind of contradiction that arises.
In this book, 2x, 3x, and 4x quotas are treated as stretch goals. But as noted at the beginning, simply raising a number does not make it a stretch goal. So the top executive does not use these quotas in performance reviews, and instead sets them as goals for peak-month preparation, using last year's results as the yardstick. As preparation worthy of an ambitious goal, this book asks for no difficult analysis and no new tools—only these three things:
• Use last year's actual number of orders as the baseline.
• Check first whether the Line and the Sheet are in place.
• Spend open time on the Sheet.
If reading this far has eased your shoulders a little, that's enough. What an ambitious goal needs is not a special system, but steadily continuing these three things.
The Multiplier Changes When Preparation Starts
In a 3x or 4x peak month, starting 30 days ahead is not enough time to have the Sheet ready. So the top executive moves the preparation start date earlier according to the multiplier. Whatever the multiplier, the Line, the Closing, and the Entrance are published in the last four weeks (Chapter 3).
2x peak month: Start 30 days ahead. You should be able to manage with your current staff.
3x peak month: Start gathering Sheets 6 weeks ahead. The top executive narrows the Entrance in advance, deciding that during the peak month you will not accept requests that lack specifications or that don't have the necessary documents ready.
4x peak month: Start gathering Sheets 8 weeks ahead. The top executive decides in advance "what we won't do" that month: rebuilding pages, new announcements, quotes unrelated to the peak month, and tools tried out by individual employees.
Figure 5. The multiplier changes when preparation starts
For today, it's enough to read just the one closest to your company.
Here, let's set just one rule to be kept throughout the book. It's the same reason a shop doesn't replace its cash registers at year-end: "don't touch the systems when things are busy." In the world of IT systems, this is called a change freeze.
The only new thing left in a regular month is the Sheet for the next peak month. Pages are not rebuilt during a peak month.
There is only one exception: when a pre-delivery Sheet or specifications have been published in error. Only that one line may be corrected, and only by the one person the top executive designated in advance. Replacing screens, adding pages, and new announcements are not exceptions. Record the corrected line in the Weekly Memo.
In other chapters, this rule is called "the Chapter 2 Rule" and is not restated.
Running Regular Months
A regular month is not just a smaller peak month. It is a month for sowing seeds—a month for quietly leaving the Sheet you will use in the next peak month.
AQ GROW | AI Search Structure