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.

Comments

Not enough time to make an insightful first post

[Aero77]

Curse these deadlines!

Rumination

[omnichad]

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.

Re:Rumination

[ranton]

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.

Like most things, you aren't going to get good results if you don't have implementation teams you can trust to give realistic estimates. And management teams who listen to these estimates, while probably making slight adjustments based on past results (almost always adding time to the estimates).

I'm in a project right now where we were introduced to the project early October, sat down for a full day requirements gathering session mid-October, and gave estimates by the end of October. We estimated code completion in mid-January. They gave us a mid-December deadline. The product will now be complete at the end of January, after spending weeks in constant status meetings trying to hit that ridiculous deadline.

In the end the only thing that changed from the results we promised in our first estimates is now the team's two architect-level resources are prepping our resumes just in case this type of shit doesn't happen again and/or this year's bonus isn't a high five figure amount (aka starting with a 3+).

Re:Rumination

[jellomizer]

There is a difference between an Arbitrary deadlines vs no deadlines.

Often we will get a deadline, based on the Boss trying to impress a partner, or a customer, or just beat competition to the market. These deadlines are not based on what it would take to do the job right and best. However if someone went to me and say we need to solve this problem, I can usually give a fair ballpark figure on when it can be done by, and add some buffer for unforeseen problems, Then you can have a good deadline, where the project keeps moving and gets done, without stressing and taking shortcuts to meet it.

Re:Rumination

[thomst]

omnichad observed:

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.

Yep. Making the perfect the enemy of the good is never a useful strategy. It's a prescription for inaction.

Having said that, your first point:

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.

is absolutely the case, IMnsHO.

I'm a writer. A key part of my process is thinking about what I'm going to write. In particular, whether it's a chapter in my novel, an opinion piece, or a feature story, the most important product of my rumination is the opening and closing lines. Assuming I've done the necessary research, and I know the points I want to cover, once I have those taped down, the bit in between them almost writes itself.

If you work in journalism, you write to deadlines all the time. Under that kind of pressure, stuff tends to falls on the floor - and sometimes that stuff is important. For the most part, that's where corrections and retractions originate: the need to get the piece submitted by an arbitrary deadline (trying to "scoop" the competition, as a big, fat for-instance) incentivizes sloppiness. That's why there used to be people called "fact checkers" in the industry - and, believe it or not, they had the power to spike a story, if it contained factual errors (or simply assertions for which there was insufficient evidence).

Now? Not so much. The really big guys - NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc. - can still afford to pay those people, but they inevitably are a dying breed, like circus elephant trainers. That's driven by economics, of course. As circulation numbers for print media have plummeted like an Acapulco cliff diver, so have ad revenues - and ad revenues, not subscription fees, are where print media makes its principal income. (That's also true of digital publication, where ad revenues are tiny compared to print, so fact checking in the online world is mostly post hoc, and conducted for "Gotcha!" purposes, rather than to ensure the journalistic ducks are properly aligned before you click "Publish!")

The thing is, though, that, for businesses in general, deadlines are a necessary and unavoidable evil. Creative teams rarely work in a vacuum - Google's Project X skunkworks notwithstanding - and it's just impractical to budget and responsibly allocate resources for "When you get around to it ... "

Two obvious examples

[Hognoxious]

Systemd and Gnome 3. These would have been much better if the deadline was around 2075.

You needed a scientist to figure that out?

[computational super]

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?

But often things don't get done...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:creativity is overrated in STEM

[TheFakeTimCook]

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.

Re:Often deadlines are external

[HornWumpus]

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.

I Disagree

[the_skywise]

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.

Different priorities in different scenarios...

[Junta]

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.

They're a necessary evil

[jandrese]

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.

Best Busines Reason Ever!

[avandesande]

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.