The best project lessons sometimes arrive in plastic bins labeled "Fall / Halloween / Thanksgiving." According to Business Insider, a writer visited her nearest Michaels and Hobby Lobby, discovered the two stores shared a single building, and ran a tight side-by-side review of their seasonal collections.
For our readers, that retail experiment illustrates two choices project managers make constantly: what belongs in scope, and who counts as the user. One chain went all in on Halloween. The other, whose CEO David Green has publicly tied the brand to his Christian faith, leaned into general autumn and Thanksgiving instead.
At a glance:
- Business Insider compared fall decor at Michaels and Hobby Lobby, which happened to be neighbors.
- Michaels front-loaded Halloween with skull wreaths, eerie garlands, and life-size figures.
- Hobby Lobby stocked harvest accents and Thanksgiving tableware, skipping Halloween.
- The writer found Hobby Lobby's tailgate section and candle jars especially strong.
- A Shakespeare-themed aisle at Hobby Lobby was called out as a personal favorite.
Scope as a strategic choice
Michaels committed hard to Halloween. The front of the store read like a haunted house, with cobwebbed wreaths, life-size dolls, and miniature haunted buildings the writer likened to Christmas villages redone in spooky colors. Hobby Lobby, by contrast, stocked harvest figurines, "thankful" signs, and Thanksgiving tabletop pieces, with no Halloween items on display.
In scrum terms, one store picked a single sprint goal and executed it. The other broadened the sprint to cover the whole season. Both moves are defensible. The real failure mode is doing a half-commitment to each, which is the trap most cross-functional roadmaps slide into.
The candle section
Both stores sold scented candles. According to the comparison, Michaels led with gourmand-style aromas and ran a much wider seasonal collection further in, including woodsy and bakery-style options. Hobby Lobby carried its own lineup, and the writer preferred the look of its jars and a couple of specific warm, creamy notes that read as sweater-weather.
The candle display functions like a quick-win demo at the end of a sprint. It is small, sensory, and memorable. Whichever store you run, that section has to deliver, because it is what shoppers remember long after they pass the registers.
What it means for you
Say you are running a seasonal product launch with two distinct audiences: power users who want depth, and casual buyers who want warmth. The Michaels move is to split your roadmap into two clearly labeled tracks and protect each from scope creep. The Hobby Lobby move is to keep one consistent brand voice across both audiences and let customers self-select. The anti-pattern is to blend them into a vague "seasonal initiative" and hope the messaging sorts itself out at launch.
Hobby Lobby's tailgate display is worth a closer look. It went well beyond bowls and platters into pajamas, doormats, and blankets, a clear decision to expand the buyer persona. In agile language, that is the equivalent of running a short discovery sprint on adjacent users before committing the roadmap.
Our analysis
The comparison reads like a case study in stakeholder empathy. Hobby Lobby's choice to leave Halloween on the shelf is not a product gap; it is a values statement aligned with its founder's stated beliefs. Michaels' choice to go all-in on Halloween is a values statement too, just a different one. For leaders, the lesson is that "fit" is not the same as "neutral." Every scope decision encodes a worldview.
The trade-off is straightforward. Narrowing your focus shrinks the addressable market but deepens loyalty. Broadening grows the market but can dilute the signal. In our experience, projects that pick a lane early and defend it tend to outperform projects that try to please every stakeholder they meet.
What to watch next: whether either chain starts to bleed into the other lane as the holiday calendar compresses. Keep an eye on whether Hobby Lobby leans further into astrology-adjacent themes and whether Michaels extends more depth into Thanksgiving, and whether those new sections feel native or grafted on.
Bottom line
A fall decor run is, almost by accident, a tidy planning exercise in disguise. Pick a lane, defend it, and design one memorable sensory moment your audience takes home. Everything else is just stocking the shelves.
Key takeaways
- Pick a single sprint goal and protect it, or commit to a broader goal and stay consistent across it.
- Small sensory moments like candle displays act as memorable end-of-sprint demos.
- Expanding a buyer persona is a deliberate discovery move, not an accident.
- Values alignment is a scope decision, not a neutral default.
- Watch for scope bleed between adjacent seasons; native expansion beats grafted-on ideas.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Hobby Lobby skip Halloween decor?
According to Business Insider, Hobby Lobby's collection focuses on general fall and Thanksgiving. The piece notes that founder and CEO David Green has publicly committed the company to his Christian faith, and that some Christians choose not to celebrate Halloween.
What was most distinctive about Michaels in the comparison?
Business Insider described a heavily Halloween-themed front half of the store, with cobweb-style wreaths, eerie garlands, life-size dolls, and miniature haunted buildings the writer compared to Christmas villages.
How did the candle sections compare?
Per the article, both stores offered fall candles. The writer found Hobby Lobby's jars more attractive and liked two of its warm, creamy scents, while Michaels led with gourmand-style aromas and a wider bakery-and-woods lineup deeper in the store.
What is the project management lesson from the comparison?
Pick a clear scope lane and defend it, rather than half-committing to multiple audiences in the same sprint. Pair that with one memorable sensory moment, like a candle display, to anchor the experience.
What was the standout unexpected section at Hobby Lobby?
Business Insider highlighted a literary-themed aisle with Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth merchandise as the writer's personal favorite stop of the trip.
Source: businessinsider.com