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The first is that a professional should do nothing that compromises quality. For what it is worth, I have given up significant bonuses that were tied to a project end date because I could have called something finished, but refused.
The second is that regardless of how unreasonable a dead line happens to be, if you commit to a project then you commit to everything, including the deadline. That means that overtime should not start towards the end of the project but instead should start once it is apparent the date can't be met with a typical approach.
Mike - typical white guy.
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There's one problem I have with deadlines and that are fantasy deadlines. Managers starting yelling estimations and deadlines before I even had the chance to come up with something simple like an expert estimation or even had the chance to look at it.
It serves nothing to start naming estimations and deadlines if you don't know if it is even remotely possible to meet them.
WM.
What about weapons of mass-construction?
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Sometimes they are systematic. While I have never been one to say no to rolling up my sleeves and watching others works often some companies think this should be the SOP and not an exceptional procedure.
If you are working more than 40 hours a week exempt you are killing yourself for nothing. I say maybe once a quarter a 90 hour week may be acceptable but any more than that and no thanks.
Of course, I am hourly, so I really don't care one way or another.
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Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway
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Well, I will do overtimes to get it done faster. As the result after I finish will always be good to me, as being the most satisfied person for successfully doing the work done.
But obviously it will hurt me if this is too often. I prefer if this situation comes at more than 6 month interval.
if I dont find enough time after working hard... I would rather curtail some of documentation about the coding... and clear out them later.
Abhishek Sur
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Ignorance is bliss, the work is no wolf, it's not like it's gonna run into the woods. Just ignore the deadline.
Otherwise, first, you work up your deadline, then you work up your mental health, then your heart, and then ops, that last one got you, leaving you a statement for your headstone: "Man hit the deadline", a-man.
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What is even more appalling is management will push the team to get it done on time. Then after long evening and some weekend, it gets done, management is proud to showcase it to upper management how they squeeze the time and got it done, then it is shelved for few weeks before it gets shipped. 
<joke> Once I was part of large engineering group. By sheer considence 3 engineers bought the same shoe around the same time. We were trying to complete the project. The joke went around, when we ship the product, every one will get the same type of shoes instead of T-shirts  </joke>
Yusuf
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I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.
Douglas Adams
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Is that Douglas Adams or Scott Adams? They both seem to be attributed at some point or another.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway
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We have to maintain our customer,Thts importent and also we have to keep our own employees happy to keep our environment cool and supportive.So its the best option to hire sum talented peoples to over come the dead line..... 
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Noooooooooo.
Adding new people in the final stages of a project only ever slows the project down. No matter how smart they are.
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If we only have at most 8 man hours to work but we need at most 10 man hours to overcome the dead line, then what will be the option? .Definitely hire sum ones from outside (choosing the right candidate is important).But on some cases like this "it is the first effort in the universe nobody can accompany easily" then I can consider your option. Too much of pressure will definitely decrease the efficiency.
And also even one Ferrari has to start from 0 km per hour, I am agree with that ,but we could overcome goals with it easily better than any other option.
modified on Thursday, August 14, 2008 8:26 AM
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Any way ... one flexible and skilled manager will never have troubles with deadlines.So we should have the flexibility to change according to the situation instead of hanging on any options.
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SumanBalakrishnan wrote: And also even one Ferrari has to start from 0 km per hour, I am agree with that ,but we could overcome goals with it easily better than any other option.
People and projects aren't cars and roads. Not only does the new guy have to upskill he has to be upskilled by one of the existing team members, so for a time you reduce your resources and there is no guarantee the new guy will be able to upskill in time.
It also introduces more moving parts, more management overhead and more communication points.
And I'm not talking out of my arse. This has been well documented; adding resources late in a project to meet a deadline does not work.
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I agree with you Paul.
However, it is always difficult to know when to add extra resources to a project. You have to be sure that the short term net loss of resources is more than made up for by the long term gain. If you add resources too late to the project you never get the payback of the long term gain.
Having said all that, I have worked on projects that have been turned from potential failure to success at a late stage. This has been achieved by adding more project management resources. A good PM can look at a project more objectively than a developer who is exhausted and stressed and deeply involved in the project - that's my experience anyway
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The answers listed are options for a manager, not a worker. A worker cannot hire or fire developers, outsource tasks etc. etc. codeproject.com is mostly a forum for code workers.
But since the question is what it is here is a warning to the managers of the world: Changing the team in the last minute of a crisis situation will do nothing but damage: New hires and outside consultants will need to be brought up to speed before getting productive, slowing down the current team members in the process. Firing team members, replacing them with an outsourced team etc. removes people who had the knowledge to complete some tasks and also instills fear and resentment amongst the survivors. Either option is so obviously bad management, that intelligent workers (this includes most qualified developers) will realize it immediately and write you off as a cousin of the infamous captain Bligh of the Bounty.
Of course hiring in people for specific difficult or manpower needing tasks might sometimes help, if the task is specific enough and no one is working on it. But blindly hiring in for whatever task seems overloaded in your Excel spreadsheet is unlikely to do any good for thought-based jobs such as development, it only works for simple manual labor such as digging holes or laying bricks.
This message is hasty and is not to be taken as serious, professional or legally binding.
I work with low level C/C++ in user and kernel mode, but also dabble in other areas.
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Jakob Bohm wrote: The answers listed are options for a manager, not a worker. A worker cannot hire or fire developers, outsource tasks etc. etc. codeproject.com is mostly a forum for code workers.
Some developers (like me) are also managers / team leaders and have some power in this respect.
John
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Jakob Bohm wrote: Changing the team in the last minute of a crisis situation will do nothing but damage:
I've seen this happen many times! Looks like you have too. I agree that this is a disastrous move if technical folk are moved off a project and ones with no knowledge are added. I'm a developer and have been on a project which took on a new project manager (with a big voice) late in the day and it worked quite well. The first day he scared us by saying he was going to kick a$$ but then supported us to the hilt as he proceeded to kick the a$$es of other departments that he considered were mainly responsible for delays. Sometimes it helps to have someone kicked up the butt to get some action. But it wasn't enjoyable at the time.
I get more done on a Saturday morning in the office than in a normal day or two. No meetings or interruptions, just clear focussed energy. After that I often feel like on cloud nine!
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At our company, a lot of deadlines are arbitrary. We (the Engineers) bid we can do a project in a certain amount of time ata certain cost, the customer they need it in a shorter length of time at a lower cost, and management says "OK".
I will work my rear off to meet a deadline I say I can meet. I will not kill myself for an arbitrary managment deadline.
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Delay some features and/or "polish" until the next release.
Grim
MCDBA, MCSD, MCP+SB
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Definitely there is a missing option and it is "Pray"
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absolutely correct! 
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Yeah, tomorrow my buddy will be "Pray" our boss, that we polish few features in project in next release
----------------------------------------------
When the sorrow takes me
I'm embracing the darkness alone
Please - take me home
[Embraced By Darkness - Saturnus]
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the missing option is to write a shell script, overnight, that does everything the 'new' application does using standard utilities and filters.
need a gui? use a web browser...
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Have been tempted to do something similar... Use a product you know rather than the one you were told to use and hope nobody notices 
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