10 ms·

Deadlines Are Killing Us, and Almost Everything Else I Know About Leadership

256 points by Elof 8y ago

everdev 8y ago
> Agile contracts, whether negotiated one-off project contracts, or regular-cadence release schedules, extract the value of deadlines but leave behind the toxicity. So, basically arguing for flexible deadlines, which totally makes sense. But if your product or service is tied to an inflexible deadline like an event, you'll probably need to manage with strict deadlines to uphold your end of the contract in time.
- mratzloff 8y ago
  This is true, but those events are few and far between in most cases, and usually publicizing far in advance is a mistake when the work is not at some late stage of development. I think this was probably one of the better articles I've read about leadership; but then, it confirms most of what I believe.
commandlinefan 8y ago
I can't find the exact quote, but I think it was Aristotle who said (something along the lines of) "we haven't mastered the art of teaching, except to those for whom it is superfluous". This is still true today, and, I think, true of each and every single management fad. Things like deadlines, status reports, daily standups, open offices, tickets, and retrospectives are designed around the assumption of a reluctant workforce who have to be clubbed into line. If you assume that's what you're dealing with, you're going to gravitate toward heavy-handed means of control and conversely, if you gravitate toward brutal overseer managerial tactics, you're sending the signal to the workforce that you expect them to push the envelope and accomplish as little as possible within the narrow parameters of your dictatorial cruelty. If you assume that we're all on the same team, you'll get good results as long as we are. If you assume that we're not, there's no level of threatening or punishment you can dish out that will.
- vlehto 8y ago
  I've noticed that thing too. People are incredibly sensitive to assumptions. If you order someone to do X, they might, if you ask, the might. But assume that they will do X and you do it aloud, they more likely to do X than in any other case. I have stolen because it was assumed that I would. And that's totally not my normal style of operation.
- everdev 8y ago
  > the assumption of a reluctant workforce From interviewing hundreds and managing dozens, I'd say that this is unfortunately largely accurate and not through anyone's malicious intent, but just human nature. A good salary helps to mask the reluctance, but deep down most people aren't living their lifelong dream at their day job. There are many other things we'd rather be doing with our time and I think good managers understand and accept that. Some people are just off the charts innately consistently productive, but most aren't and need motivation to stay focused. Deadlines are a tool that works for some people. Others need praise, others need purpose, others need creative freedom. But deep down I think most of us need some external motivation to stay focused for 6-8 hours a day. But when you do find that person that can consistently self-motivate, hire them and keep them. It makes everything so much easier.
  - kodz4 8y ago
    Agree. Also more than human nature, it's a highly competitive world. If a manager in the org, is producing results using a heavy handed approach, you can be sure your boss is going to be knocking on your door to have a little chat about "improving things" in your teams. It's not a bad thing. Pushes good managers to evolve their own systems.
  - bamboozled 8y ago
    I'd agree and also like to add that after seeing many teams without any imposed deadlines or pressure, I can tell you those teams who are "free to roam" also end up even more frustrated and unhappy because they often feel less part of a success story and ultimately that they're wasting their time. Time boxing projects teaches people to innovate and become more resourceful. I've seen endless scope creep since starting at my latest company where people aren't help to any type of deadline. I think the best approach is to have deadlines but allow teams to workout how they manage their time during that window.
WalterBright 8y ago
Some people work effectively only if you micromanage them. Some work effectively only if you're hands off. There is no one technique fits everyone. As for deadlines, you cannot manage a complex project with multiple teams without deadlines. After all, if you're building a car, you can't afford to hold up everything while you wait for the wheel department to get around to delivering wheels. As for me personally, without deadlines I tend to procrastinate.
- umvi 8y ago
  > As for me personally, without deadlines I tend to procrastinate. I agree. Deadlines are highly motivating and help me determine scope of work I need to do. "Make a tool that does X. You have infinite time." Me: "Great! Maybe I'll implement it in Rust, I've always wanted to learn that. Or maybe I just research for a few days what's out there. And I'll need to think about testing infrastructure of course and benchmarking..." vs. "Make a tool that does X. We need it by Friday so we can use it for Y." Me: "Ok! I can probably whip up something quick and dirty in python that gets the job done!"
  - kristianc 8y ago
    > "Make a tool that does X. We need it by Friday so we can use it for Y." > Me: "Ok! I can probably whip up something quick and dirty in python that gets the job done!" And this, when abstracted across an entire team or company, is what gets us unreadable code and hopelessly buggy software. Productive does not always equal effective.
    - cgrealy 8y ago
      This is a problem of incomplete specifications. "Make me a tool that extracts, collates and graphs data from this spreadsheet. We just need it to run once this friday" "Done, super fast, slightly buggy python script it is!" vs "Every month we need a tool to pull data from multiple sources, and push it to a reporting framework. It needs to be scalable and robust... oh and we need it by friday" "Well, you're not getting it by Friday." Deadlines should be a conversation, not a demand.
reneberlin 8y ago
First: I didn't read the article - but the headline. I'm not sure if i hit the tone, but without deadlines the culture to ship any things on time and to expectation would vanish. Shippable would become inforeign and obsolete, and the least distance to bodily happiness would be commonsense. Ship it, till you break it. Ship bad code wizh vi4cular recursions neverless: cannabis Ship dead code dancing forever neverless: opiates Ship the fuck up coz it is colorful: lsd (Maybe I should not press enter to send, but, i will do now) And then i read the article and try matching it to the headline.
- sebastos 8y ago
  Am I having a stroke
  - rficcaglia 8y ago
    Thanks for a hearty chuckle! Still laughing!
rb808 8y ago
"So the rocket launch is planned for October, will the software be ready?" "Not sure, the software developer team doesn't like deadlines, they'll be finished when they feel like it."
- bostonvaulter2 8y ago
  No, but the bootloader will be! We can just send up the final image once the satellite is in space.
  - prewett 8y ago
    I think that's how NASA develops their longer-range probes, like Cassini and New Horizons. It's something like a six year journey to Saturn, so plenty of development time after the launch. But that bootloader had better be flawless!
- NeoBasilisk 8y ago
  Most of us are not writing space shuttle code (or any other aerospace code, considering all space shuttles have been retired).
  - rb808 8y ago
    Changed to rocket. Most of us aren't writing code that will go to space, but most of us work with other parts of the business, and marketing, management, investors need agreed deadlines to coordinate with.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  What fraction of developers work on rockets versus A/B testing signup button colors?
  - kingnothing 8y ago
    "So the marketing for our new product has to be purchased 3 months in advance to tie in for the TV ads, magazine ads, bus stop ads, and web buys. Not to mention we need to work with legal, and our CEO needs to talk to the board. When the devs be done?"
jandrese 8y ago
Hard deadlines cause buggy and broken releases. No deadlines at all mean there is no goal to strive towards and projects can float around in limbo indefinitely (see: Valve Software). Deadlines are necessary, but if you want a quality product you can't be a slave to them. If they have to move they have to move, but you still have a goal. If you have to move the deadlines too many times that is a sign you need to look at your project leadership. They are a highly valuable tool, just don't become a slave to the tool.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  "Plans are meaningless. Planning is essential" -- Dwight Eisenhower
- rxhernandez 8y ago
  I don't know; I had no deadlines at the pretty successful biomedical device company I was at and was plenty motivated to work a lot of hours. Do y'all not have managers that ask what you've done for the week? I mean, that's what always pushed me to work very hard; I'd feel terrible if I had little to show for 40 hours of work.
reneberlin 8y ago
Ok, so the boundaries and perspectives of the article are a bit unclear because so many intersections are mentioned. I need to step back and resort for a better comment on this. I understand the flow of the article, but any 3 lines i would like to create a comment. I think it's a good article by itsself, but it takes time to reflect on it and give ordered, umderstandable comments on.
hezag 8y ago
The book "It doesn't have to be crazy at work" [1] presents a nice approach to deal with deadlines: > [...] The date won’t move up and the date won’t move back. What’s variable is the scope of the problem—the work itself. But only on the downside. You can’t fix a deadline and then add more work to it. That’s not fair. Our projects can only get smaller over time, not larger. As we progress, we separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves and toss out the nonessentials [...] [1] https://basecamp.com/books/calm https://basecamp.com/books/calm
duncanriach 8y ago
I am the author of the article. To those commenters who write that deadlines are necessary because many, or most, employees are not motivated self-starters, I posit that this is a symptom of poor leadership, originally by their parents. Yes, it's possible to force people who don't want to do things by using fear and control, but it's much more effective to use what we know about human nature to generate a 10x output that is sustainable and actually enjoyable. Ineffective leadership is not an optimal solution for ineffective leadership. It's a downward spiral. This reminds me of the people who spank their kids because they're disrespectful, but, as we know from research, spanking kids makes them disrespectful. Spanking kids just makes them pretend to be respectful while being increasingly disrespectful.
- musicale 8y ago
  I've never seen good results from coercion (such as threats, bribery, or punishment) in a workplace, and I'm suspicious of rewards, which seem like another form of bribery. Deception also seems deadly. As you point out, autonomy, mastery and meaning are motivating, and their absence de-motivating. Coercion undermines autonomy. It also seems that people's work suffers greatly when they are unhappy, stressed, fearful, overloaded, or fatigued.
  - duncanriach 8y ago
    Yeah, I think that there is a deep cultural bias against actually digging in and looking at human problems, like work, from a human-centric perspective. There's a presupposition that most people hold that management is about control. This is why we draw org-charts top-down. In my view, management is about support. I prefer to draw org-charts bottom-up. The CEO is at the bottom. The whole structure is there to support the effort of those at the tips of the branches, the individual contributors.
- rjdagost 8y ago
  There are many scenarios I could posit, but I'll pick one. Let's say your pre-revenue start-up needs a product for sale within 4 months, because that's your company's runway. There's a lot of work to do and limited resources, but if you don't meet that deadline your company has no product to sell and you are out of a job. Are you really arguing that it's poor leadership to say: "we have a hard deadline- the product must be ready in 4 months"? There are many such hard deadlines in life, and failing to recognize them and motivate your team to meet them is poor leadership.
ben509 8y ago
Coming from the view that I agree with almost all the points he's making, I found it an incredibly bad article. Half of it was a long tangent about NPD after which he flatly admits that his readers shouldn't be trying to diagnose NPD... but he's giving you detailed recommendations about how to recognize all the behaviors associated with it and then act on them! This is coming from a clinical psychologist, so that seems wrong. I agree you want to identify people with that behavioral profile and get them out of your organization (whereupon they'll be Somebody Else's Problem...) but it seems like this psychology could be translated into guidance with less ethical sharp edges than "here's the DSM description of this disorder. But don't actually play psychologist, LOL!" After that he finally gets to deadlines and kinda sorta gets into why they're bad. And I don't disagree, but the article claims that deadlines are used by emotionally immature managers acting out of "fear." Sometimes, but deadlines are way too commonly used in every sector of industry to attribute them to emotionally immature leaders. It's off to a vignette about a manager who couldn't recognize his greatness. So after he's spent pages tell us about how narcissistic people behave, this section felt like he was trolling me to think he's a narcissist. (I don't think he's a narcissist, just full of himself; which may well be an accurate self-assessment.) But the manager's problem wasn't deadlines, it was micro-management which manifests exactly as he describes. In micro-management deadlines are one of a number of symptoms, but the underlying problem is the fear and emotional immaturyity he mentioned earlier. He finally does get to why deadlines are so common: "They are a form of contract that can enable multiple organizations to synchronize their efforts, organizations that might be in the same company or in different companies." The need to synchronize between organizations is plainly why deadlines are extremely common. That's my real criticism of the article: he's a clinical psychologist, a rather irresponsible one, and he's viewing this through that lens. While it's insightful in many ways, deadlines represent a structural problem more than a human problem and the article would be better if it didn't try to solve them. (And, in fairness, most of it doesn't even address them.)
- gerbilly 8y ago
  I liked the article, but about a third of the way in I thought: "This article needs a good editor" Rule number one of writing is to be willing to cut some good material out because it does not fit your current piece.
borvo 8y ago
tldr; a rambling article about narcissism (ironically)
- duncanriach 8y ago
  Narcissistic employees are one of the main causes of loss of employee motivation. Deadlines are a highly ineffective mechanism that attempts, unsuccessfully, to motivate employees (by controlling them with fear).
Vinalin 8y ago
There's an interesting video by Allen Holub that I've seen on the somewhat related topic of ridding software development of estimates (#NoEstimates)[1]. He argues that they're responsible for deadlines that are impossible to meet due to them being based completely on a guess. He then goes on to talk about how we can still get predictive power without giving estimates. I found it extremely interesting and highly recommend it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=QVBlnCTu9Ms https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=QVBlnCTu9Ms
mharroun 8y ago
Deadlines are a must IMHO to scale anything, they should be negotiated and adjustable (either by moving the deadline, taking on debt, or cutting scope), but are necessary. Why? because theres more to a buisness then enginnering (and product). Sales, marketing, investor's, and other entities also deal with complex issues thwt require them to reliably understand the priority and timeline for products. I've seen teams that follow "it's done when its done" and teams who work as a unit to hit on or very near deadlines. The latter is usually 2-4x+ more efficient and the former I have only seen work when the buisness was in a spot that it could go at least 6months without and product/enginnering output. I would flee from any startup that took the former approach.
- aidenn0 8y ago
  Indeed. I think TFA is opposed to non-negotiable externally imposed deadlines, which is not really news.
  - duncanriach 8y ago
    I agree. But sometimes dates for delivery of something do need to be set. That approach should be very selectively used, with an understanding that it's not a demand that X is done by Y, but that something will be shipped on Y. Then, the question is how do we most effectively motivate people to make X as amazing as possible? On one project where I defined what X was (a unit on a chip), I delivered it by Y with all the most important features and zero bugs. Later, my manager (who I almost never interacted with) revealed that my productivity was equivalent to 32 engineers in a competing company.
    - duncanriach 8y ago
      Correction: there was one small bug that was hard to avoid but relatively easy to fix. And in terms of interaction with my manager: I did send him a weekly report on what I had done each week. But he trusted me too much, or was way too busy, to interfere.
    - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
Rexxar 8y ago
As Eisenhower says "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything". Setting deadlines is useful for planning. Respecting them at all costs is dangerous. They need to be updated when we have more information.
tyingq 8y ago
I don't feel like you can always wave deadlines away. There's always events like conferences, big customers on the hook for a sale, end of quarter, etc. I'd settle for reasonable discussions about scope trade-offs, resources, etc.
- brightball 8y ago
  Due Date = Real deadline (like your examples) Target Date = A guess as to when something will be ready that can and will change with new information Sprint = Not even remotely a deadline, just a measure of time that serves no useful purpose at all outside of contract dev shops who sell time by the sprint
  - musicale 8y ago
    Sometimes the purpose of a sprint is to have a synchronization point that allows you to evaluate the state of the system in some way.
  - nradov 8y ago
    A Sprint simply defines a planning cadence. Some teams find it helpful to do planning and retrospectives on a fixed schedule to ensure they actually get done rather than postponed.
tokyodude 8y ago
Deadlines are effectively reality for many projects because tons of people and scares resources need to planned around them. Rallying against them is unrealistic Let me give some examples: You're making a product for retail. The stores that will carry your product need to plan to have their shelves full of product. That means they need to know when your product will be available. What promotions will appear on posters, flags, etc in the store. They need the plan this 6 months in advance so you have to commit to a deadline well beyond your finish date. You plan to run commercials. The TV companies need to know sell their commercials months in advance. So you commit $$$$$$$ to pay for those commercials 6 months in advance. Miss your deadlines and there will be no product when your commercials run. You're adding features to a mobile OS. Your partners (Samsung, or Sony, or LG or Motorola) are planning all of the stuff above (PR, Commercials, retail placement). They are going to be touting your new feature. Because they have to commit to ads and shelf space months in advance you also had to promise your feature will be ready months in advance. I'm sure there are better examples. Here in Tokyo they getting ready for the Olympics. The venues, transportation changes, etc have a hard deadline. Video games used to (still?) have all the same issues. 6 - 9 months before Christmas you have to promise the stores your game will be ready and on their shelves. That may change in the future but even in 2019 retails sales of bluray PS4/Xbox and Switch SD games are greater than online for the majority of games. If you happen to be on a project that can run without deadlines and things get done and shipped whenever then lucky you.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  If a project must have a deadline then I think there needs to be flexibility on what features are included. For some features you can only know how long they will take once you get started on them. The overall business requirement has a deadline, but individual features may not. The worst kind of deadlines I've experienced are we must have X by Y date, where the Y date is imposed by someone outside of the team without really thinking it through, and the only way to achieve it is via overtime and cutting corners. This can also happen when you the dev says "10 days" then they get haggled down to "2 days" by their boss. Having split the thing up into 100 pieces and have those pieces individually negotiated, you end up with a hack solution. That kind of project, one way or another is going to go to shit. It may be delivered on time but it'll be a turd. Or it will just be late.
readhn 8y ago
The deadlines absolutely have to have some amount of padding in them. Often the problem with missed deadlines is the inexperienced "managers" that set them. They have no idea how long things take and as a result introduce wrong time estimates that lack proper padding. This often jeopardizes the whole project and causes unnecessary amount of stress.
29athrowaway 8y ago
Deadlines = tradeoffs Unnecessary deadlines = unnecessary tradeoffs.
fogetti 8y ago
Well, this was mostly a very long rant. This guy seems to be full of frustration. Also the intercept about narcissists? WTF? That was completely beside the point. I would summarize it like this: this guy have a lot of anecdotes to tell and now he is projecting his prejudice and sour experience to everything and everyone.
- duncanriach 8y ago
  In case you missed it, the number one thing I know about leadership is: root-out and fire narcissists. It's the most effective thing you can do to turbocharge your company. FYI, one of the ways you can spot a narcissist is by how they project their emotions onto others, rather than taking responsibility for them.
  - prewett 8y ago
    The narcissist part was interesting. But it seemed completely unrelated to the topic of the article I clicked on, namely, deadlines. I recommend splitting it into its own blog article.
    - duncanriach 8y ago
      Great idea. I'm also wondering if this was actually an article about narcissism very poorly disguised as an article about deadlines.
  - fogetti 8y ago
    So you agree with me and by your definition you are a narcissist I conclude. Which in general I don't care just wanted to let you know that your emotions controlled you while you were writing this post and it shows. Also this conclusion aligns well with your defensive comments in this thread. You seem extremely judgmental and emotional.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
speedplane 8y ago
The title of the article sounds far more controversial than its content. The article in a nutshell: waterfall is bad, agile is good. Click-bait anyone?
- duncanriach 8y ago
  ... plus nearly everything else I know about leadership.
andyidsinga 8y ago
Two things I've learned about deadlines #1 - never get into a fight with a superior about a deadline - think of the princess bride quote about land wars in asia. Which brings us to #2 : look at them relative to what's important to your business. Much of the time a deadline isn't really a deadline at all - its a point in time to show progress in the right direction. With that in mind, i might say to the team - "what's important to this business is _______ , so lets be sure to highlight our progress on items a/b/c because they're key to ______. ..all this other shit in the backlog is #2 .. n that Alice and Bob want. Alice and Bob will get their shit when we get the important shit done (which might be never) [0] What direction is important to the business? Well, hopefully the direction of solving a problem or delivering a widget to someone who is waiting to actually use it and hand over $ in exchange. If its something else its often your deadline playing chicken with someone else's deadline on the gantt chart and then its the old joke about two guys running away from a bear. [0] Alice and Bob will get their shit when they start contributing items to the backlog that are aligned with what is important with the business. EDIT: deadlines aren't inherently "bad" - especially when one is competing against others for something. The problem is too many points in time are made to look like deadlines and often by the wrong people. Imagine running a marathon, and someone is yelling at you from the sidelines : "run as fast as you can to the 4 mile mark!"

256 points by Elof 8y ago

> Agile contracts, whether negotiated one-off project contracts, or regular-cadence release schedules, extract the value of deadlines but leave behind the toxicity. So, basically arguing for flexible deadlines, which totally makes sense. But if your product or service is tied to an inflexible deadline like an event, you'll probably need to manage with strict deadlines to uphold your end of the contract in time.

mratzloff 8y ago
This is true, but those events are few and far between in most cases, and usually publicizing far in advance is a mistake when the work is not at some late stage of development. I think this was probably one of the better articles I've read about leadership; but then, it confirms most of what I believe.

commandlinefan 8y ago

I can't find the exact quote, but I think it was Aristotle who said (something along the lines of) "we haven't mastered the art of teaching, except to those for whom it is superfluous". This is still true today, and, I think, true of each and every single management fad. Things like deadlines, status reports, daily standups, open offices, tickets, and retrospectives are designed around the assumption of a reluctant workforce who have to be clubbed into line. If you assume that's what you're dealing with, you're going to gravitate toward heavy-handed means of control and conversely, if you gravitate toward brutal overseer managerial tactics, you're sending the signal to the workforce that you expect them to push the envelope and accomplish as little as possible within the narrow parameters of your dictatorial cruelty. If you assume that we're all on the same team, you'll get good results as long as we are. If you assume that we're not, there's no level of threatening or punishment you can dish out that will.

vlehto 8y ago
I've noticed that thing too. People are incredibly sensitive to assumptions. If you order someone to do X, they might, if you ask, the might. But assume that they will do X and you do it aloud, they more likely to do X than in any other case. I have stolen because it was assumed that I would. And that's totally not my normal style of operation.
everdev 8y ago
> the assumption of a reluctant workforce From interviewing hundreds and managing dozens, I'd say that this is unfortunately largely accurate and not through anyone's malicious intent, but just human nature. A good salary helps to mask the reluctance, but deep down most people aren't living their lifelong dream at their day job. There are many other things we'd rather be doing with our time and I think good managers understand and accept that. Some people are just off the charts innately consistently productive, but most aren't and need motivation to stay focused. Deadlines are a tool that works for some people. Others need praise, others need purpose, others need creative freedom. But deep down I think most of us need some external motivation to stay focused for 6-8 hours a day. But when you do find that person that can consistently self-motivate, hire them and keep them. It makes everything so much easier.
- kodz4 8y ago
  Agree. Also more than human nature, it's a highly competitive world. If a manager in the org, is producing results using a heavy handed approach, you can be sure your boss is going to be knocking on your door to have a little chat about "improving things" in your teams. It's not a bad thing. Pushes good managers to evolve their own systems.
- bamboozled 8y ago
  I'd agree and also like to add that after seeing many teams without any imposed deadlines or pressure, I can tell you those teams who are "free to roam" also end up even more frustrated and unhappy because they often feel less part of a success story and ultimately that they're wasting their time. Time boxing projects teaches people to innovate and become more resourceful. I've seen endless scope creep since starting at my latest company where people aren't help to any type of deadline. I think the best approach is to have deadlines but allow teams to workout how they manage their time during that window.

WalterBright 8y ago

Some people work effectively only if you micromanage them. Some work effectively only if you're hands off. There is no one technique fits everyone. As for deadlines, you cannot manage a complex project with multiple teams without deadlines. After all, if you're building a car, you can't afford to hold up everything while you wait for the wheel department to get around to delivering wheels. As for me personally, without deadlines I tend to procrastinate.

umvi 8y ago
> As for me personally, without deadlines I tend to procrastinate. I agree. Deadlines are highly motivating and help me determine scope of work I need to do. "Make a tool that does X. You have infinite time." Me: "Great! Maybe I'll implement it in Rust, I've always wanted to learn that. Or maybe I just research for a few days what's out there. And I'll need to think about testing infrastructure of course and benchmarking..." vs. "Make a tool that does X. We need it by Friday so we can use it for Y." Me: "Ok! I can probably whip up something quick and dirty in python that gets the job done!"
- kristianc 8y ago
  > "Make a tool that does X. We need it by Friday so we can use it for Y." > Me: "Ok! I can probably whip up something quick and dirty in python that gets the job done!" And this, when abstracted across an entire team or company, is what gets us unreadable code and hopelessly buggy software. Productive does not always equal effective.
  - cgrealy 8y ago
    This is a problem of incomplete specifications. "Make me a tool that extracts, collates and graphs data from this spreadsheet. We just need it to run once this friday" "Done, super fast, slightly buggy python script it is!" vs "Every month we need a tool to pull data from multiple sources, and push it to a reporting framework. It needs to be scalable and robust... oh and we need it by friday" "Well, you're not getting it by Friday." Deadlines should be a conversation, not a demand.

reneberlin 8y ago

First: I didn't read the article - but the headline. I'm not sure if i hit the tone, but without deadlines the culture to ship any things on time and to expectation would vanish. Shippable would become inforeign and obsolete, and the least distance to bodily happiness would be commonsense. Ship it, till you break it. Ship bad code wizh vi4cular recursions neverless: cannabis Ship dead code dancing forever neverless: opiates Ship the fuck up coz it is colorful: lsd (Maybe I should not press enter to send, but, i will do now) And then i read the article and try matching it to the headline.

sebastos 8y ago
Am I having a stroke
- rficcaglia 8y ago
  Thanks for a hearty chuckle! Still laughing!

rb808 8y ago

"So the rocket launch is planned for October, will the software be ready?" "Not sure, the software developer team doesn't like deadlines, they'll be finished when they feel like it."

bostonvaulter2 8y ago
No, but the bootloader will be! We can just send up the final image once the satellite is in space.
- prewett 8y ago
  I think that's how NASA develops their longer-range probes, like Cassini and New Horizons. It's something like a six year journey to Saturn, so plenty of development time after the launch. But that bootloader had better be flawless!
NeoBasilisk 8y ago
Most of us are not writing space shuttle code (or any other aerospace code, considering all space shuttles have been retired).
- rb808 8y ago
  Changed to rocket. Most of us aren't writing code that will go to space, but most of us work with other parts of the business, and marketing, management, investors need agreed deadlines to coordinate with.
whatshisface 8y ago
What fraction of developers work on rockets versus A/B testing signup button colors?
- kingnothing 8y ago
  "So the marketing for our new product has to be purchased 3 months in advance to tie in for the TV ads, magazine ads, bus stop ads, and web buys. Not to mention we need to work with legal, and our CEO needs to talk to the board. When the devs be done?"

jandrese 8y ago

Hard deadlines cause buggy and broken releases. No deadlines at all mean there is no goal to strive towards and projects can float around in limbo indefinitely (see: Valve Software). Deadlines are necessary, but if you want a quality product you can't be a slave to them. If they have to move they have to move, but you still have a goal. If you have to move the deadlines too many times that is a sign you need to look at your project leadership. They are a highly valuable tool, just don't become a slave to the tool.

commandlinefan 8y ago
"Plans are meaningless. Planning is essential" -- Dwight Eisenhower
rxhernandez 8y ago
I don't know; I had no deadlines at the pretty successful biomedical device company I was at and was plenty motivated to work a lot of hours. Do y'all not have managers that ask what you've done for the week? I mean, that's what always pushed me to work very hard; I'd feel terrible if I had little to show for 40 hours of work.

reneberlin 8y ago

Ok, so the boundaries and perspectives of the article are a bit unclear because so many intersections are mentioned. I need to step back and resort for a better comment on this. I understand the flow of the article, but any 3 lines i would like to create a comment. I think it's a good article by itsself, but it takes time to reflect on it and give ordered, umderstandable comments on.

hezag 8y ago

The book "It doesn't have to be crazy at work" [1] presents a nice approach to deal with deadlines: > [...] The date won’t move up and the date won’t move back. What’s variable is the scope of the problem—the work itself. But only on the downside. You can’t fix a deadline and then add more work to it. That’s not fair. Our projects can only get smaller over time, not larger. As we progress, we separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves and toss out the nonessentials [...] [1] https://basecamp.com/books/calm https://basecamp.com/books/calm

duncanriach 8y ago

I am the author of the article. To those commenters who write that deadlines are necessary because many, or most, employees are not motivated self-starters, I posit that this is a symptom of poor leadership, originally by their parents. Yes, it's possible to force people who don't want to do things by using fear and control, but it's much more effective to use what we know about human nature to generate a 10x output that is sustainable and actually enjoyable. Ineffective leadership is not an optimal solution for ineffective leadership. It's a downward spiral. This reminds me of the people who spank their kids because they're disrespectful, but, as we know from research, spanking kids makes them disrespectful. Spanking kids just makes them pretend to be respectful while being increasingly disrespectful.

musicale 8y ago
I've never seen good results from coercion (such as threats, bribery, or punishment) in a workplace, and I'm suspicious of rewards, which seem like another form of bribery. Deception also seems deadly. As you point out, autonomy, mastery and meaning are motivating, and their absence de-motivating. Coercion undermines autonomy. It also seems that people's work suffers greatly when they are unhappy, stressed, fearful, overloaded, or fatigued.
- duncanriach 8y ago
  Yeah, I think that there is a deep cultural bias against actually digging in and looking at human problems, like work, from a human-centric perspective. There's a presupposition that most people hold that management is about control. This is why we draw org-charts top-down. In my view, management is about support. I prefer to draw org-charts bottom-up. The CEO is at the bottom. The whole structure is there to support the effort of those at the tips of the branches, the individual contributors.
rjdagost 8y ago
There are many scenarios I could posit, but I'll pick one. Let's say your pre-revenue start-up needs a product for sale within 4 months, because that's your company's runway. There's a lot of work to do and limited resources, but if you don't meet that deadline your company has no product to sell and you are out of a job. Are you really arguing that it's poor leadership to say: "we have a hard deadline- the product must be ready in 4 months"? There are many such hard deadlines in life, and failing to recognize them and motivate your team to meet them is poor leadership.

ben509 8y ago

Coming from the view that I agree with almost all the points he's making, I found it an incredibly bad article. Half of it was a long tangent about NPD after which he flatly admits that his readers shouldn't be trying to diagnose NPD... but he's giving you detailed recommendations about how to recognize all the behaviors associated with it and then act on them! This is coming from a clinical psychologist, so that seems wrong. I agree you want to identify people with that behavioral profile and get them out of your organization (whereupon they'll be Somebody Else's Problem...) but it seems like this psychology could be translated into guidance with less ethical sharp edges than "here's the DSM description of this disorder. But don't actually play psychologist, LOL!" After that he finally gets to deadlines and kinda sorta gets into why they're bad. And I don't disagree, but the article claims that deadlines are used by emotionally immature managers acting out of "fear." Sometimes, but deadlines are way too commonly used in every sector of industry to attribute them to emotionally immature leaders. It's off to a vignette about a manager who couldn't recognize his greatness. So after he's spent pages tell us about how narcissistic people behave, this section felt like he was trolling me to think he's a narcissist. (I don't think he's a narcissist, just full of himself; which may well be an accurate self-assessment.) But the manager's problem wasn't deadlines, it was micro-management which manifests exactly as he describes. In micro-management deadlines are one of a number of symptoms, but the underlying problem is the fear and emotional immaturyity he mentioned earlier. He finally does get to why deadlines are so common: "They are a form of contract that can enable multiple organizations to synchronize their efforts, organizations that might be in the same company or in different companies." The need to synchronize between organizations is plainly why deadlines are extremely common. That's my real criticism of the article: he's a clinical psychologist, a rather irresponsible one, and he's viewing this through that lens. While it's insightful in many ways, deadlines represent a structural problem more than a human problem and the article would be better if it didn't try to solve them. (And, in fairness, most of it doesn't even address them.)

gerbilly 8y ago
I liked the article, but about a third of the way in I thought: "This article needs a good editor" Rule number one of writing is to be willing to cut some good material out because it does not fit your current piece.

borvo 8y ago

tldr; a rambling article about narcissism (ironically)

duncanriach 8y ago
Narcissistic employees are one of the main causes of loss of employee motivation. Deadlines are a highly ineffective mechanism that attempts, unsuccessfully, to motivate employees (by controlling them with fear).

Vinalin 8y ago

There's an interesting video by Allen Holub that I've seen on the somewhat related topic of ridding software development of estimates (#NoEstimates)[1]. He argues that they're responsible for deadlines that are impossible to meet due to them being based completely on a guess. He then goes on to talk about how we can still get predictive power without giving estimates. I found it extremely interesting and highly recommend it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=QVBlnCTu9Ms https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=QVBlnCTu9Ms

mharroun 8y ago

Deadlines are a must IMHO to scale anything, they should be negotiated and adjustable (either by moving the deadline, taking on debt, or cutting scope), but are necessary. Why? because theres more to a buisness then enginnering (and product). Sales, marketing, investor's, and other entities also deal with complex issues thwt require them to reliably understand the priority and timeline for products. I've seen teams that follow "it's done when its done" and teams who work as a unit to hit on or very near deadlines. The latter is usually 2-4x+ more efficient and the former I have only seen work when the buisness was in a spot that it could go at least 6months without and product/enginnering output. I would flee from any startup that took the former approach.

aidenn0 8y ago
Indeed. I think TFA is opposed to non-negotiable externally imposed deadlines, which is not really news.
- duncanriach 8y ago
  I agree. But sometimes dates for delivery of something do need to be set. That approach should be very selectively used, with an understanding that it's not a demand that X is done by Y, but that something will be shipped on Y. Then, the question is how do we most effectively motivate people to make X as amazing as possible? On one project where I defined what X was (a unit on a chip), I delivered it by Y with all the most important features and zero bugs. Later, my manager (who I almost never interacted with) revealed that my productivity was equivalent to 32 engineers in a competing company.
  - duncanriach 8y ago
    Correction: there was one small bug that was hard to avoid but relatively easy to fix. And in terms of interaction with my manager: I did send him a weekly report on what I had done each week. But he trusted me too much, or was way too busy, to interfere.
  - lawnchair_larry 8y ago

Rexxar 8y ago

As Eisenhower says "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything". Setting deadlines is useful for planning. Respecting them at all costs is dangerous. They need to be updated when we have more information.

tyingq 8y ago

I don't feel like you can always wave deadlines away. There's always events like conferences, big customers on the hook for a sale, end of quarter, etc. I'd settle for reasonable discussions about scope trade-offs, resources, etc.

brightball 8y ago
Due Date = Real deadline (like your examples) Target Date = A guess as to when something will be ready that can and will change with new information Sprint = Not even remotely a deadline, just a measure of time that serves no useful purpose at all outside of contract dev shops who sell time by the sprint
- musicale 8y ago
  Sometimes the purpose of a sprint is to have a synchronization point that allows you to evaluate the state of the system in some way.
- nradov 8y ago
  A Sprint simply defines a planning cadence. Some teams find it helpful to do planning and retrospectives on a fixed schedule to ensure they actually get done rather than postponed.

tokyodude 8y ago

Deadlines are effectively reality for many projects because tons of people and scares resources need to planned around them. Rallying against them is unrealistic Let me give some examples: You're making a product for retail. The stores that will carry your product need to plan to have their shelves full of product. That means they need to know when your product will be available. What promotions will appear on posters, flags, etc in the store. They need the plan this 6 months in advance so you have to commit to a deadline well beyond your finish date. You plan to run commercials. The TV companies need to know sell their commercials months in advance. So you commit $$$$$$$ to pay for those commercials 6 months in advance. Miss your deadlines and there will be no product when your commercials run. You're adding features to a mobile OS. Your partners (Samsung, or Sony, or LG or Motorola) are planning all of the stuff above (PR, Commercials, retail placement). They are going to be touting your new feature. Because they have to commit to ads and shelf space months in advance you also had to promise your feature will be ready months in advance. I'm sure there are better examples. Here in Tokyo they getting ready for the Olympics. The venues, transportation changes, etc have a hard deadline. Video games used to (still?) have all the same issues. 6 - 9 months before Christmas you have to promise the stores your game will be ready and on their shelves. That may change in the future but even in 2019 retails sales of bluray PS4/Xbox and Switch SD games are greater than online for the majority of games. If you happen to be on a project that can run without deadlines and things get done and shipped whenever then lucky you.

quickthrower2 8y ago
If a project must have a deadline then I think there needs to be flexibility on what features are included. For some features you can only know how long they will take once you get started on them. The overall business requirement has a deadline, but individual features may not. The worst kind of deadlines I've experienced are we must have X by Y date, where the Y date is imposed by someone outside of the team without really thinking it through, and the only way to achieve it is via overtime and cutting corners. This can also happen when you the dev says "10 days" then they get haggled down to "2 days" by their boss. Having split the thing up into 100 pieces and have those pieces individually negotiated, you end up with a hack solution. That kind of project, one way or another is going to go to shit. It may be delivered on time but it'll be a turd. Or it will just be late.

readhn 8y ago

The deadlines absolutely have to have some amount of padding in them. Often the problem with missed deadlines is the inexperienced "managers" that set them. They have no idea how long things take and as a result introduce wrong time estimates that lack proper padding. This often jeopardizes the whole project and causes unnecessary amount of stress.

29athrowaway 8y ago

Deadlines = tradeoffs Unnecessary deadlines = unnecessary tradeoffs.

fogetti 8y ago

Well, this was mostly a very long rant. This guy seems to be full of frustration. Also the intercept about narcissists? WTF? That was completely beside the point. I would summarize it like this: this guy have a lot of anecdotes to tell and now he is projecting his prejudice and sour experience to everything and everyone.

duncanriach 8y ago
In case you missed it, the number one thing I know about leadership is: root-out and fire narcissists. It's the most effective thing you can do to turbocharge your company. FYI, one of the ways you can spot a narcissist is by how they project their emotions onto others, rather than taking responsibility for them.
- prewett 8y ago
  The narcissist part was interesting. But it seemed completely unrelated to the topic of the article I clicked on, namely, deadlines. I recommend splitting it into its own blog article.
  - duncanriach 8y ago
    Great idea. I'm also wondering if this was actually an article about narcissism very poorly disguised as an article about deadlines.
- fogetti 8y ago
  So you agree with me and by your definition you are a narcissist I conclude. Which in general I don't care just wanted to let you know that your emotions controlled you while you were writing this post and it shows. Also this conclusion aligns well with your defensive comments in this thread. You seem extremely judgmental and emotional.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

speedplane 8y ago

The title of the article sounds far more controversial than its content. The article in a nutshell: waterfall is bad, agile is good. Click-bait anyone?

duncanriach 8y ago
... plus nearly everything else I know about leadership.

andyidsinga 8y ago

Two things I've learned about deadlines #1 - never get into a fight with a superior about a deadline - think of the princess bride quote about land wars in asia. Which brings us to #2 : look at them relative to what's important to your business. Much of the time a deadline isn't really a deadline at all - its a point in time to show progress in the right direction. With that in mind, i might say to the team - "what's important to this business is _______ , so lets be sure to highlight our progress on items a/b/c because they're key to ______. ..all this other shit in the backlog is #2 .. n that Alice and Bob want. Alice and Bob will get their shit when we get the important shit done (which might be never) [0] What direction is important to the business? Well, hopefully the direction of solving a problem or delivering a widget to someone who is waiting to actually use it and hand over $ in exchange. If its something else its often your deadline playing chicken with someone else's deadline on the gantt chart and then its the old joke about two guys running away from a bear. [0] Alice and Bob will get their shit when they start contributing items to the backlog that are aligned with what is important with the business. EDIT: deadlines aren't inherently "bad" - especially when one is competing against others for something. The problem is too many points in time are made to look like deadlines and often by the wrong people. Imagine running a marathon, and someone is yelling at you from the sidelines : "run as fast as you can to the 4 mile mark!"