The end date

The COVID-19 epidemic sometimes worries us but often confuses us because we don't know when it will all end. Implicitly, we thought that coming out of lockdown would mean the end of the epidemic. And it is not! But when will it all end? In the same way, the wait for the vaccine has given rise to debate: can a vaccine be made in less than a year? Some said there would not be one until the end of 2021. But no one was saying "we don't know". It was necessary to set a date at all costs!

This experience teaches us the importance we place on the "end date". And I think it would be nice to see this "end date" more integrated into the professional world. Consider the case of personal tax audits. The officials ask you questions but never say when they have stopped the audit. No end date for citizen: you don't when the file is completed. In the life of our projects, with Akeance clients, answers without an "end date" are so numerous: I'll look into it, I'll give you the answer by e-mail, we'll meet to discuss it, etc. are answers without an "end date". However, it is the "end date" that sets the pace for projects. It is the "end date" that allows us to move forward, to take the next step, to ask further questions, etc.

Even more trivially, how many meetings have no "end time"? Condominium meetings are caricatures. We often criticize the so-called interminable meetings, but they are mostly pathetic because they don't have an end time. The meeting is the only way to approach a project / a direction in a collegial way. It must be efficient. Its effectiveness depends on a good agenda, a good round of discussions, but above all it must respect its start and end times.

There is perhaps one case where the end date would be a mistake. It is the date of our death. It is likely that we would experience a great upheaval if each of us knew his or her day of departure from this world.... In the meantime, we would all like to have an end date for the reconstruction of Notre Dame de Paris...