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Arbitrary Deadlines Are the Enemy of Creativity, According to Harvard Research (qz.com)
Time can feel like the enemy to an employee in any role, and in any industry, but it's most acutely threatening to creative types. From a report: We may tease them for their diva-like behaviors when they feel persecuted by a deadline, but we have to admit that "develop an amazing new idea" is not something that slides into your schedule, like pick up lunch or respond to new clients. Nor can systems be tweaked and extra hands hired to help hit a goal that requires innovation, the way they can when mundane busy work is piling up. And yet deadlines are a fact of life for any company that wants to stay competitive. In a recent Harvard Business School podcast, professor Teresa Amabile, whose academic career has focused on individuals, teams, and creativity, offers some guidance for managers who struggle to support or coax their creative talent. She explains that although the creative process itself can't be controlled, certain structures can set up the conditions to move it along. When possible, managers should avoid tight deadlines for creative projects. In her work, Amabile found that creative teams can produce ideas on a deadline, and creative people may feel productive on high-pressured days, but their ideas won't be inspired.
Curse these deadlines!
Rumination is free labor. If I'm thinking about a project for several weeks when I'm in the shower, trying to sleep, driving - that's extra overtime for free.
Doing all of my thinking on a tight deadline while also doing the actual design or coding involves a lot of bad guessing. But there comes a point where I could just think about all the possibilities forever and never start or get anything done.
Systemd and Gnome 3. These would have been much better if the deadline was around 2075.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What's next? We'll discover that noisy open office bullpens aren't conducive to any sort of work that requires concentration? Or will we discover that most managers don't much care about productivity as long as they maintain the illusion of control?
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
It doesn't matter if the ideas are inspired - it doesn't even matter if they work! As long as they're on time.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
The second biggest enemy of creativity is probably the lack of any deadlines. With no urgency, the creative project is put aside for more immediately pressing tasks (or distractions).
if you don't have a deadline. What's the compromise?
Seriously, I've noticed that after working just over twenty years managing programmers and a few product people that things get done when you schedule a spec review or a demo.
We never achieve them anyway. It normally starts out as, "We need to deliver a high quality product with A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H by the deadline."
Then it goes:
But we can't do D due to a defect in the vendors/open source project's libraries.
The deadline is slipping so we talked the customer into deferring the release of E until the next release.
Oops C relies on D so we can't ship that.
Chris and Bob quit so we are even more short handed than before.
G is experiencing massive scope creep, let's cut capabilities so we can ship it.
We're more short handed than ever so we can't fix more than critical bugs.
The QA automation is falling behind due to all the changes so we'll have to test manually.
So what get's shipped often looks nothing like what was promised. All that happens is the goal post is moved and victory is declared.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
It's good only for brain storming part, which is the very beginning After that you just apply due process.
Sounds like someone who has never actually done anything that requires actual creativity.
Keep in mind that, each time a Developer, or Development Team runs into an unforseen challenge, that essentially RESETS the "Brain Storming Part" timer. So, in REALITY, "Brain Storming" actually occurs MANY TIMES during EVERY Development Project more complicated than "10 GOTO 10".
If you believe anything else; you're delusional, clueless, or both.
Until a client has informed you that the marketer asked them to ask for a 'very short timeframe' in order to 'motivate the team' you haven't lived.
We found that out...it was the half the team (the competent half) or him. He is still working there. Never so glad to leave a place as that one.
Sometimes it becomes crystal clear what the bastards think. Vote with your feet.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How many bosses do you see calculating the time vs reward calculation? Not many. They will normally just use a gut feeling if it is worth it or not.
At one job I had, the Boss gave us 2 weeks to have a demo proof of concepts in front of the customers. No matter how complex it was we had 2 weeks.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A looming hard deadline can do quite a bit for creativity - ask any writer. Given enough time, GENERALLY, you can create a better solution or work but this can also be a hindrance.
For proof I submit - Star Citizen.
When you are dealing with a situation with other folks depending on you, then the timetable may matter moreso than how creative it can be.
However novel new capabilities are not generally well served by making up a deadline if one does not naturally exist.
However that later situation drives managers/project managers insane. Why even bother trying if you don't know when you would finish, how can you 'grade' yourself if you don't know when you would deliver, so make up something.
Having a backlog of ideas without a milestone to make them due is a fine thing, but project management *must* have it on a roadmap or else get pissed.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Even God has deadlines. If He let his deliverables slip on days 1-5, you wouldn't be here.
The problem with having no deadlines is that too often nothing gets done. Look at Valve for an example of what happens when management is too hands off. Half Life 2 Episode 3 is a full decade behind schedule now. I get that you can't rush greatness, but you gotta keep it motivated.
I read the internet for the articles.
Problem A: think of a cool name.
Problem B: think of a cool name for a starship.
Which of the above two problems is easier and which is harder? If you solved both problems, which name was cooler?
My guess is that problem B was the easier one and it's also the one where you came up with the cooler name. Why? Because it had a constraint, and perversely, constraints cause creativity. Or so I've thought.
Problem C: think of a cool name for a starship, within 30 seconds.
I added another constraint, so you got even more creative, right? No. Something about time as a constraint is .. odd.
But wait a minute. Let's say I show you a mid-game chessboard, and it's white's turn. In one scenario, I give you lots of time to try to come up with the best move. In another, I give you only 10 seconds, and then you must make a move.
Which chess move to do expect to be the most interesting? Note, I didn't say the best, just the most interesting. I think maybe the time-constrained solution might come out on top.
Is this all bullshit, or is there something interesting about time?
Once I asked an application owner what was driving the absurdly short timeline and he replied with a straight face that it was when his yearly review was to occur.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The problem I have with arbitrary deadlines isn't really the date, although those can be unrealistic. It's the never-ending nagging of project managers. Anything that prevents them from checking the box they need to check or moving the date out on their Gantt chart is an immediate emergency that must be addressed by endless status meetings. The endless status meetings make the project later by tying people up discussing strategies to reduce the time something will take.
I think part of it is that PMs have been taught that, just like MBAs, they can project-manage anything. And I can see their methods when they make $100K+ and their sole job is to check those boxes, or nag nag nag until they are. But creative work on any complex project isn't like drywalling a commercial building. There are some things you can't rigidly schedule, but software development is treated exactly like a construction project.
I have noticed that the best project managers don't nag -- they're often the ones who've actually done the work before and aren't looking to throw you under the bus. The worst are the PMP clones. I seriously have had a couple PMs who are following the PMBOK line by line, using the PMI-approved terminology, and PMI-approved nagging/threatening techniques. That's the kind of PM you don't want.
My understanding is that creativity is like tree sap. You can tap into it periodically, draining it, but you can't do anything to speed up its production.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Q) Why hasn't this project been completed to deadline?
A) Because you pulled the deadline out of your ass, without considering the amount or complexity of work required to deliver, ignored feedback that the deadline was unreasonable and inserted more tasks after the project started.
Requiem for the American Dream