The problem is not 787 hours. It is that 168 of them are in week 5.
A team sized for the average is underwater for a fortnight and idle either side of it. Nothing about the total is difficult; the shape is the entire problem, and it is the same shape on every deal.
Mid-market acquisition, 9 weeks
The line is the average. Two weeks sit far above it and the team does not change size.
24 w1
38 w2
96 w3
142 w4
168 w5
121 w6
64 w7
88 w8
46 w9
average 87h
1.9×
the peak week against the average
144h
between the busiest and quietest week
787h
across the whole deal
Weeks three to six are diligence. That is the only part of the curve any of this touches — and it is also, conveniently and genuinely, the part that makes the peak a peak.
Flattening the peak, not the total
The last of these is the one that changes a deal's outcome rather than its cost.
- Diligence starts ranked
- The data room arrives and the first two hundred documents are the ones worth reading. That is the peak week, addressed directly.
- Disclosure against the warranties
- Matching what was disclosed to what was warranted is mechanical, high-volume and exactly the work that lands in week five.
- Findings that carry their document
- A partner reviewing a diligence report at midnight needs the clause behind each line, not a summary of it.
- Knowing on day two what is missing
- The requests nothing answers become a finding immediately rather than in week six, when there is still time to ask.