Hey there, developers!
Raise a hand if you scorn deadlines. 🤚
Many developers cannot get along with deadlines, target dates, time limits, or any other name we have for this dreadful thing.
Or maybe devs have a problem with poorly set deadlines?
Let's dig in!
Why are deadlines important?
Like it or not, it's true that having and meeting deadlines can help with efficiency, planning and organizing. Here are some other reasons why deadlines are not so bad after all:
- Defining goals: Thoroughly analyzed steps will result in a better overview of time and other resources needed to complete tasks. This further helps with prioritizing and delegating tasks.
- Prioritizing: Unfortunately, time at our hands is limited, so prioritizing goals is necessary. It helps with focusing on currently more important tasks, while others, less demanding, can be postponed.
- Motivating: Deadlines should not mean pressure, but having no deadline could mean having no direct incentive to finish the task on time. Tasks finished after target dates intervene with other tasks and the whole project.
Having said this, one question comes to mind.
Why don't developers and deadlines get along?
One of the major problems with the developer-deadline relationship is that in most cases, developers aren't the ones setting the deadlines.
Estimating, planning and tracking tasks and projects is a difficult skill that shouldn't be taken lightly.
Yet in most cases, managers that set deadlines don't have the technical background or experience to estimate properly.
Instead, developers hear something like this: "I promised the client we will do it by then."
And what the non-developing part of the population forgets is that programming is actually a design process. In other words, it's a discovery process, and with discovery comes uncertainty.
Programming does not equal manufacturing.
So maybe developers just don’t like badly set deadlines, or it's just too hard to set one.
What do you think? Hit reply; we would appreciate your opinion!
Reposted to Blog