

Pace, not Deadlines - gtzi
http://blogs.balsamiq.com/team/2011/09/07/pace/

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balsamiq
Thanks for submitting this gtzi. Any questions, I'm here (or if you're old-
skool, add a comment to the blog). :)

I really _am_ curious about why people have deadlines...isn't it ready when
it's ready? :)

Peldi

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senko
Having no deadlines means you need good prioritization ("what's important
next?") and motivation (to do that instead of procrastrinating working on a
cool but not very important feature instead). It can be too much freedom (see
Duke Nukem Forever).

Sure, ideally it'd be better to fix the causes, but that's hard to do, and
deadlines are easy to set (although not as easy to match :).

And, there are situations why you want something to be ready by some external
event (eg. to show on a conference, or for contractors, the client actualy
expects it to be done, etc).

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balsamiq
Thanks Senko, I agree that good prioritization and frequent small releases do
help a lot.

As for procrastination, I think that's fixed by recruiting people who are the
right fit and would do the job even if they weren't paid to do it. :) Hard to
do, and some procrastination happens to everyone, it's natural. :)

Re: external events, that's a good point. And if you're working for clients,
that's a whole different game. :)

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vidar
The key thing is that you are (very) profitable with infinite runway, which is
of course a great situation. When money is running low, the pressure builds.

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mattmanser
Disagree.

Duke Nukem Forever.

Nuff said.

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balsamiq
Well, times have changed a bit. We release one micro-release at the time,
almost weekly. I guess I should include this strategy in the post...

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mattmanser
They haven't changed, it's that you sell a small code-base product.

What happens in a couple of years when, for example, you want to redo the
whole UI in one go? Because you can't release that piecemeal.

You're actually describing a classic anti-procrastination technique, small
bite sized chunks that are so easy you can't fail.

In programming that's not always possible. An AAA game being a perfect
example.

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balsamiq
Excellent points, upvoted! :)

