[shasta]

If you can move it, it isn't a deadline.

[fshaun]

I would add "without consequence" before the comma. Most deadlines aren't an all-or-nothing affair: schedules slip, costs rise, customers scream... but life goes on. Sure, as a buyer I could choose not to accept any work past a deadline -- but then how am I going to solve the problem? Sometimes the best alternative is still worse moving the deadline.

[shasta]

Yes. Good point.

[msbarnett]

If you can't move it, and you can't meet it without running all-nighters, you should never have agreed to it in the first place.

[shasta]

That's a bullshit answer. In the real world there are deadlines that arise for many reasons:

- any external event like getting a product out before Christmas

- change in circumstance like a coworker quitting or getting sick

- the problem is harder than anticipated (I know it always is, but sometimes it's much harder)