Quality vs Deadline

It's not the first time you are facing this problem. Even in our day-to-day life, which is beyond and away from our professional software environment, we have faced this question.

Think where you are about to start cooking. Your kids are hungry. You started off to make a four-course meal and now due to the uncontrollable hunger you end up serving half cooked food. Would you do that? What would be the best thing you would do at that time? 

Similarly, in our professional environment too, we are faced with this problem on a daily basis. There's always a clock ticking constantly, sometimes even faster than it ideally should. And, we as usual, serve half cooked food! It's surely is a perfect recipe to invite illness. 

Meeting deadline is an important element of quality. Deadline is a not a different element. It should not be considered as a milestone. Rather, quality should be one of the milestones, and the deadline shall be a part of it. 

However, sometimes there comes a time when the object is immovable. In such cases, you have to let go some pieces to make room for the immovable object. When your deadline becomes such an immovable object, let go few items from your final list. Negotiate with the stakeholders. Explain the consequences of delivering a mediocre quality product. Sometimes, fixing a problem consumes way more time and effort than buying a little extra time.

Think different. Act different. Meeting a deadline is also a quality, and estimate your tasks accordingly.

Hence, change the tagline to Meeting Qualities from Meeting Deadlines!