Live by the deadline, die by the deadline
As I write this, I am reminded of a web developer who was hired in a hurry by a company that fell way behind on a project and hired him with 6 days remaining to an important deadline.
That began a 6 day ordeal where the developer worked almost without rest to become familiar with a new code-base, deal with technical issues, who fell further and further behind. In the end, not only missing a deadline, but missing it by a mile, and due to exhaustion and the rush, making mistakes that in normal circumstances would be forgivable. In the end, he was summarily dumped, his reputation shattered with the company, exhausted and dispirited.
The company also did not deliver to its client, who was unhappy about the cost overrun as well as time overrun. Its staff worked all hours through the weekend trying to catch up. And the company that would normally have given a new staff 2 weeks to get up to speed, threw the developer away, violating its own normal standard of decency and caring for all those who work for it.
The end result? Fiasco for the developer who was given an unwinnable task. Project not delivered. Everybody overworked. Nobody happy. Budget blown, the project becomes a living, walking nightmare for everybody involved and no end in sight.
PMP-certified Project Mangers will tell you, throwing manpower on a prject behind schedule never works. You triage features to deliver on time.
This is the normal, standard, MBA-approved American corporate thinking, and it works. But it misses the point when it comes to Sustainability in the workplace, and for that matter, any project and movement.
The problem is deadline dogma.
Do you know how in one simple act, this whole nightmare scenario could’ve been averted and a more humane solution would’ve ended up with everybody a winner?
It’s easy, really. The company just had to call up the client, and telling the truth, say it cannot meet the deadline, and could it have another month to complete the project in exchange for a 10% discount as stated in the contract? Time enough to do the job right, and make sure programmers work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and go home and have lives of their own on the weekends. The website would’ve been delivered, working properly, the programmers, managers and clients having enjoyed the process. And in the end, everybody gets a celebration.
Why does this not happen? Deadline dogma.
Deadlines have an important place in society. Trains need to run on time. People gather from across the country to meet. Action A needs to be done by so-and-so date so action B can begin. Tinkers-Evers-and-Chance. The Apollo Program.
But people pick dates for a project to go live without knowing what a project entails. Sometimes by whimsy, a present on the Queen’s birthday. Or because they want to be rich in two years and want a website in 1. Sometimes, you can’t get around a do-or-die deadline, like an asteroid heading to the Earth or a hostage crisis. But 99% of the time, a date is just an arbitrary point in time you pick as the live date.
So far, it’s harmless enough. A good tool. When you put it into a contract, it starts to become serious. When you tie a date to the date to execute a contract with a merchandiser, or option on a warehouse, or to start paying staff, or with some other party that absolutely, positively happen on so-and-so date, then it becomes a tyrant that will rule you all. Tragic, capricious, arbitrary, inhmane, and definitely NOT sustainable.
And we’re trained to not scrutinize deadlines. It becomes something untouchable, a wall we approach at great speed. Every person who will lecture you that nobody can predict the future will happily do so by putting a date down in a legal document. The same people who tell you that mermaids don’t exist who go to church to worship a man with a grey beard who live in the sky.
No deadline is worth dying for. No deadline is worth killing for, unless you’re in the movie ‘Saw’. There is no reason a deadline has to be do-or-die, economic or otherwise. And there is no reason for you to treat others inhumanely because that arbitrary date commands you to.
So the next time you begin a project, or bid on a project, add a section to the contract stating that the deadline is a soft deliverable time, and if you are unable to make that deadline, you can buy another month for 10% of the project’s amount. And you, the owner, work out the logistics separately, to happen only when you are satisified with the product. Then you can work out the warehouses, the merchandise, the licenses, the advertising, the promotion on your own time. Without overtime or doubletime. And live humanely, and treat those who work for you humanely. Now that’s Sustainable business.
As I write this, I am reminded of a web developer who was hired in a hurry by a company that fell way behind on a project and hired him with 6 days remaining to an important deadline.
That began a 6 day ordeal where the developer worked almost without rest to become familiar with a new code-base, deal with technical issues, who fell further and further behind. In the end, not only missing a deadline, but missing it by a mile, and due to exhaustion and the rush, making mistakes that in normal circumstances would be forgivable. In the end, he was summarily dumped, his reputation shattered with the company, exhausted and dispirited.
The company also did not deliver to its client, who was unhappy about the cost overrun as well as time overrun. Its staff worked all hours through the weekend trying to catch up. And the company that would normally have given a new staff 2 weeks to get up to speed, threw the developer away, violating its own normal standard of decency and caring for all those who work for it.
The end result? Fiasco for the developer who was given an unwinnable task. Project not delivered. Everybody overworked. Nobody happy. Budget blown, the project becomes a living, walking nightmare for everybody involved and no end in sight. And it could’ve all been averted with one simple phone call.
PMP-certified Project Mangers will tell you, throwing manpower on a prject behind schedule never works. You triage features to deliver on time.
This is the normal, standard, MBA-approved American corporate thinking, and it works. But it misses the point when it comes to Sustainability in the workplace, and for that matter, any project and movement.
The problem is deadline dogma.
Do you know how in one simple act, this whole nightmare scenario could’ve been averted and a more humane solution would’ve ended up with everybody a winner?
It’s easy, really. The company could’ve called up the client, saying it could not meet the deadline, could we have another month in exchange for a 10% discount?
Time enough to do the job right, and make sure programmers work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and go home and have lives of their own on the weekends. The website would’ve been delivered, working properly, the programmers, managers and clients having enjoyed the process. And in the end, everybody gets a celebration.
Why does this not happen? Deadline dogma.
Deadlines have an important place in society. Trains need to run on time. People gather from across the country to meet. Action A needs to be done by so-and-so date so action B can begin. Tinkers-Evers-and-Chance. The Apollo Program.
But people pick dates for a project to go live without knowing what a project entails. Sometimes by whimsy, a present on the Queen’s birthday. Or because they want to be rich in two years and want a website in 1. Sometimes, you can’t get around a do-or-die deadline, like an asteroid heading to the Earth or a hostage crisis. But 99% of the time, a date is just an arbitrary point in time you pick as the live date.
So far, it’s harmless enough. A good tool. When you put it into a contract, it starts to become serious. When you tie a date to the date to execute a contract with a merchandiser, or option on a warehouse, or to start paying staff, or with some other party that absolutely, positively happen on so-and-so date, then it becomes a tyrant that will rule you all. Tragic, capricious, arbitrary, inhmane, and definitely NOT sustainable.
And we’re trained to not scrutinize deadlines. It becomes something untouchable, a wall we approach at great speed. Every person who will lecture you that nobody can predict the future will happily do so by putting a date down in a legal document. The same people who tell you that mermaids don’t exist who go to church to worship a man with a grey beard who live in the sky.
No deadline is worth dying for. No deadline is worth killing for, unless you’re in the movie ‘Saw’. There is no reason a deadline has to be do-or-die, economic or otherwise. And there is no reason for you to treat others inhumanely because that arbitrary date commands you to.
So the next time you begin a project, or bid on a project, add a section to the contract stating that the deadline is a soft deliverable time, and if you are unable to make that deadline, you can buy another month for 10% of the project’s amount. And you, the owner, work out the logistics separately, to happen only when you are satisified with the product. Then you can work out the warehouses, the merchandise, the licenses, the advertising, the promotion on your own time. Without overtime or doubletime. And live humanely, and treat those who work for you humanely. Now that’s Sustainable business.
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Tags: balance, deadline, decency, humane, project management, time, workplace
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Web developer based in Santa Clara, CA