The Perimeter of Demise
There is a project underway in my basement. It involves plastering, wiring, finish carpentry, and, eventually, painting. The project has been underway for years. However, this weekend somebody needs to actually sleep down there, so the project pace has picked up a bit. It never ceases to amaze me how powerful deadlines can be.
The term deadline has a pretty powerful meaning, when you look at the words within it and the history of the term. Apparently the term comes from the physical or virtual line surrounding a prison along which a prisoner can expect to be shot if crossed. That is a pretty powerful metaphor, even though we don’t think about it consciously when we use the term in our regular dialogue. Metaphors in our regular language have a pretty interesting way of influencing us. Listen to a recording of the late great George Carlin as he describes the metaphor differences between terms from football and baseball. But, I digress.
We set time boundaries for ourselves driving our action to be completed within that dead line, or otherwise we are toast. With the exception of those with pathological procrastination disorder, setting deadlines is a very, very effective tool for managing our time. And, this serves as a particularly effective tool within our business projects, including CRM.
Many of the deadlines we work within make a lot of sense. Projects need to be completed within a budget cycle. They need to be completed in time for supporting an event. They need to be finished quickly to resolve a problem that is causing losses.
There are also deadlines that don’t make sense. They are set for the purpose of completion, but their inappropriate targeting may result in dysfunction for the project. I have seen project teams work 16 hour days, week after week, just because there is a random deadline. This kind of project death march causes burnout and unnecessary turnover of important project resources. Poorly set deadlines can also cause scope-related expenses to soar, driving the overall project budget to be worse than if conducted along a more reasonable timeline.
Deadlines can also be set too far out and serve no value in driving to completion. Within these circumstances, project behaviors form a culture of under-motivated activity. There will always be time tomorrow, so why do it today?
Ultimately, I think we take the deadline thing for granted. They really work, but need to be wielded like a sharp tool, such as the metaphorical double-edged sword. Let’s give the right attention to this one element of the project so we don’t inadvertently cross that perimeter of demise.
And, yes, thank you for asking, the basement looks pretty good. Come on by if you need a place to stay or want to play some ping pong or foosball.