Why One Page / One Hour?

How much time do we spend making fancy decks and documents that deliver no real value to our business or our customers?

What could we accomplish if we spent less time presenting at each other, and more time working with each other?

In this age of ubiquitous high-tech tools and complex organizational frameworks, simple solutions are more valuable than ever. And in this case, the solution couldn’t be simpler: If we want to spend less time working individually on decks and deliverables, we need to spend less time working individually on decks and deliverables.

One Page / One Hour is a small promise that makes a big difference—a promise to spend no more than one page and one hour working on any deliverable before sharing it with your colleagues. In our work, we’ve seen this simple commitment lead to extraordinary outcomes:

Ideas are shared in an early and unfinished state, allowing more people to shape and influence those ideas and ultimately leading to more successful projects and initiatives.
The definition of “done” for a document or deliverable shifts from “is this impressive?” to “is this useful?”
Simpler, smaller documents and deliverables can be read and understood by more people across the organization, increasing cross-functional collaboration and breaking down silos.

We believe that One Page / One Hour represents a much-needed corrective to the complicated and transactional nature of modern business communication, and we hope you’ll join us!

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are you?

My name is Matt LeMay. I’m a partner at a consultancy called Sudden Compass, and I’ve written a couple of books about product management, Agile, etc.

Why do you care about this?

In my research, I’ve found that sharing early and unfinished things generally leads to much better outcomes than sharing finished and polished things. But I’ve struggled to keep myself honest about this in my own work. We are recognition-seeking creatures, and sharing early and unfinished things often runs counter to this impulse. I started asking my colleagues to hold me accountable, and the idea began to pick up some momentum.

Why make a whole website about it?

The goal of this website is to build a broader community of folks who can hold each other accountable and share knowledge, wisdom, and best practices.

I'm a visual person — does one page mean one page of text?

Nope! One page can be a page of visuals, charts, doodles, etc. Whatever works for you!

I like this and want to contribute. What can I do?

That’s a great question! A few things you can do:

Share this website with people in your network who you think would benefit from it.

Print out the pledge and hang it over your desk (you can find a printable version on the templates & resources page!)

Drop us a line and share some examples of how you’ve used One Page / One Hour to achieve better outcomes for your team.

Why not a half-page and a half-hour?

That could work, too! The idea, broadly, is to hold ourselves accountable for sharing things with our colleagues before they are finished and polished. Please make it your own, update it, modify it, etc.

This sounds a lot like [other thing]

Awesome! I think this idea runs through a lot of both formal and informal methodologies and ways of working. If it aligns with work you’re doing or your colleagues are doing and you want to share with folks here, drop me a line!