The flip side of lie-based estimation is arbitrary deadlines.
I'm not the first to notice that work expands to fill the time allotted. There can be real value in setting a hard deadline with almost no regard for difficulty. This eliminates the 'process' overhead and often produces amazing amounts of work in a shorter period of time than anyone would have estimated. I really like working to deadlines because my motivation is inversely correlated to the time till deadline.
It might work for you but it's a horrible way to manage people in general.
Motivation by arbitrary imposed deadline is a standard dev nightmare isn't it? I've watched two companies destroy themselves with this tactic.
Personal motivation and goal setting and even team based motivation and goal setting is important, sure, but you better have other motivation techniques ready when your "hard deadline with almost no regard for difficulty" gets completely missed and the team is depressed and bitter about missing it even after all the effort that was put in.
Also, your team isn't stupid (hopefully). So when they bust their asses to hit that deadline and the next day nothing happens, because it was arbitrary, they learn not to listen to your deadlines.
Good point, I was assuming this was done transparently. In the same way that contests are run, a date is chosen, announced and then met with the full knowledge that pride and perhaps a reward are on the line.
Also this can't be the only way you set deadlines as any team would rapidly burn out.
Ah, gotcha. That type of push or stretch goal is something different. I've never tried it though, anyone have any experience with this type of motivation?
In one of DeMarco's other books -- I can't now recall if it was PeopleWare or The Deadline -- he explains how arbitrary deadlines come unstuck.
Because people learn that they are arbitrary. When the Super Serious Urgent Red Alert All Hands Man Battle Stations deadline whistles by without much more than a frown from management, the team quickly realises that it was total horseshit to begin with.
Software engineers are, it has been observed, a smart bunch. If deadlines are being used a "motivational" technique, they are quickly degraded into meaninglessness.
Which will hurt the company when an actual hard deadline pops up.
The cost of those hard deadlines is often extra bugs that delay the actual launch date. But they make everybody feel like they're doing some serious management. ;)
I'm not the first to notice that work expands to fill the time allotted. There can be real value in setting a hard deadline with almost no regard for difficulty. This eliminates the 'process' overhead and often produces amazing amounts of work in a shorter period of time than anyone would have estimated. I really like working to deadlines because my motivation is inversely correlated to the time till deadline.